efenabbu kakhalabbu hanefensat sathanapté.

THIS UGUNENAPSA SAID.

Life is the balance of death, just as sea is the balance of sky. If one kills life—then one kills oneself.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Enge had woven a shelter for herself from the broad leaves of the palms, then had secured it between the tree trunks to protect her from the nightly storms. The rainy season had begun here on the coast of Entoban* and the ground under the trees never dried out. To keep off the damp she had also made a platform of branches and was sitting on this now, facing out into the sun-filled clearing. Large and colorful dragonflies, each as long as her arm drifted through the air before her—yet she did not see them. She was looking instead inside herself, at her memories of Ugunenapsa’s words, at the multilayered truths behind their apparent simplicities. She had water in a gourd from the nearby stream, as well as food that her followers had brought from the city. She needed nothing else—not when she had the words to examine. She was grateful for this opportunity for uninterrupted meditation, day after warm day, and could have asked for nothing else.

So great was her attention to this inner voice that she was not aware when Efen and Satsat came from the forest and crossed the clearing before her. Only when they stood close and their bodies came between Enge and the bright sky did awareness penetrate.

“You are here,” she said, signing welcome with her thumbs.

“We bring you fresh meat, Enge,” Satsat said. “That beside you has gone rotten from the heat.”

Enge moved one eye downward. “So it has. I did not notice.”

“You did not notice, nor did you eat any part of it. Your flesh is going—and from your arms down to your legs I can see each bone of your ribcage clearly. To eat is to live.”

“I have been eating the words of Ugunenapsa so living a life of endless splendor. But you are right, the flesh needs life as well. Tell me of the city.” She listened attentively as she ate the cool, limp flesh.

“As you have told us we mingled with the fargi and have gone through the city and have seen the life of Yebèisk. There is a stream that flows through the ambesed, crossed by many golden bridges, and fargi crowd into the ambesed in large numbers. The fields are rich, the animals are beyond counting, the harbor busy with uruketo, the sun warm, a city of delights.”

“What of the Daughters of Life? Are there any in the city?”