“Speak, for these my closest are all of my efenburu and will know what I know. The water behind you is not there by chance. All are free to cross, none are free to stay unless I will it. Speak freely, though I bend like a tree before a storm at the sense of despair your thoughts tell us.”

“All will be told. How Inegban* came to Alpèasak, how Yilanè came to battle with ustuzou—and how that great city was destroyed.”

Though Enge could not lie she could tell the record of events in any manner she cared to. Therefore she waited until the very end to reveal the part that she had taken.

“Thus the city died. The fire consumed it and all there died within the burning city.”

“Yet you are here, Enge, are you not? And there was no indication of ending to your last words which signifies that there is more to come. But before you speak let me drink from a water-fruit for I feel that fire in my throat. Once when I was very young I saw fire and touched it. See.”

Saagakel held up her right hand, and there was a murmur from the watchers when they saw the white scars that replaced one of her thumbs. Then, while she drank, those about her spoke pained questions.

“All dead?”

“The city gone?”

“Ustuzou that use fire and talk and kill?”

Instant silence fell when Saagakel willed it. She put the fruit aside and signed Enge to continue. They all watched in horrified silence as she spoke.

“I have told you that Vaintè was my efenselè and I know of these events because I was the one who taught the ustuzou to speak. I did not teach it to hate, yet it hates Vaintè just as she hates it. The ustuzou lives, Vaintè lives, one of the very few who came away on the uruketo. For when the city died all who had not been eaten by the flames died as well—for how can a Yilanè live without her city?” There was a murmur of horrified agreement from the advisers but not from Saagakel who sat unmoving and still. “The commander lived, for the uruketo is her city. Vaintè lived, perhaps because she had been eistaa and the eistaa is the city. I lived as well.”

Saagakel understood, even if her advisers did not. “Tell me why you lived, Enge—or should I tell you.”

“Whichever pleases you, Eistaa. You are the city.”

“I am indeed. You did not die because you are a Daughter of Death.”

“Daughter of Life, Eistaa, for I am alive.”

Both spoke with the minimum of revealing motion. The advisers looked on in shocked silence.

“Have you heard of our fruit groves?” Enge signed response in the positive. “Good. Is there any reason why I should not send you there at once?”