“Deifoben, the golden beaches. It is well named. Although it is sometimes difficult, even for myself who has been trained in mysteries and in the unraveling of mysteries, to understand that murgu can speak—and that those sounds you make are in reality a language.”

“It was not easy to learn.”

Kerrick, his thoughts filled with the Yilanè, could not keep all of the pain from his mouth. Sanone nodded with understanding. “That was also a footprint on Kadair’s path—and not the easiest part. Now speak to me of the captive murgu. Why do we not kill them?”

“Because we do not war on them—nor do they wish us any harm. They are males, and have rarely left that building, are in reality prisoners of the females. I can talk with them and they give me a . . . companionship that is different from the ways of the hunters. But that is how I feel inside myself. What is more important is that they can aid us in knowing this city for they are more a part of it than I am.”

“Kadair’s path; all creatures are upon it, even murgu. I will speak to the Sasku. No harm will come to your murgu.”

“Sanone is the wisest of the wise and he has the thanks of Kerrick.”

Sanone nodded and accepted the praise as was his due. “I will now speak so that the murgu will be safe. Then you will show me more of Deifoben.”

They walked until it was too dark to see the path ahead, then returned to the welcoming fire by the hanalè. That day the Sasku who had accompanied them had marveled at the fields of animals—were pleased to discover that only a small portion of them had been destroyed. They ate the fruit until they were sticky with juice, gazed in awe at the nenitesk and the armor-plated onetsensast, swam in the warm waters off the golden sands. While they admired the living model of the city—unharmed, although some of the protecting, transparent ceiling had been burned—Kerrick looked in wonder at how it had grown in the few years that he had been away. His head so filled with memories and visions that, for the first time since they had left the sammads, he did not think once about Armun and the encampment in the snow, so far away in the distant north.

* * *