“Her greatness. Her vulnerability.” Thu-Kimnibol frowned. “Of Her greatness I’ve already heard far too much. But Her vulnerability? What are you talking about?”

“Come with me, if you want to know.”

Hresh’s serenity was an unassailable armor. Thu-Kimnibol shot a glance at Nialli Apuilana as though begging for help.

Hresh saw now the healing wounds here and there beneath his brother’s thick brick-hued fur, at least half a dozen of them. He wondered what prodigies of heroism Thu-Kimnibol had managed in battle, how many scores of hjjks he had already sent to their deaths.

Nialli Apuilana said, “What risk is there in this, father?”

“Only the risk that we’ll fall under Her spell, which as you know is potent. But I think we can defeat it. I know we can. I’ve been able to escape from Her grasp once already.”

“Are you saying that you’ve already made the voyage to the Nest yourself?” Thu-Kimnibol asked.

“To a minor Nest, yes. I was there for weeks. And went from there to the great one with the help of the Barak Dayir. The Queen of Queens has a Wonderstone also, one that once belonged to the Bengs. It’s inside Her body. I spoke with Her, Wonderstone to Wonderstone. After which, the hjjks of the Nest where I was living sent me on my way. And guided my xlendi, I think, until I could be found by one of your men.”

“Then all this is a trap,” said Thu-Kimnibol.

“All of it is part of Dawinno’s plan,” Hresh replied.

Thu-Kimnibol fell silent. Hresh watched him patiently. He felt that he had infinite patience, now. He had never known such tranquility of spirit before. Nothing could shift him from his path.

He had noticed immediately the signs all over the tent that his brother and Nialli Apuilana were living together in intimacy. That had jolted him, but only for a fraction of an instant. Thu-Kimnibol and Nialli Apuilana each had greatness in them. That they should finally have come together in this troubled time seemed appropriate. Yes, even inevitable. Let them be.

Learning of Vengiboneeza’s destruction had been a shock too, of a different sort. Vengiboneeza had been a place of wonder and majesty since time’s early days. For it to be gone, that treasury of ancient miracles where he had spent his youth, ruined more completely now by this war than it had ever been by the Long Winter, was painful news.

But then he had put his regret aside. Nothing was eternal except Eternity itself. To mourn the loss of Vengiboneeza was to deny Dawinno. The gods provide, the gods take away. The flux of change is the only constant. The Transformer sweeps everything away in its time, and replaces it with something else. There had been cities greater than Vengiboneeza upon this Earth, Hresh knew, of which not a scrap remained, not even their names.

Thu-Kimnibol was staring at him. After a long while he said, “I think you need to rest, brother.”

Hresh laughed. “Are you telling me that I’m senile, or simply out of my mind?”

“That you’re exhausted from Yissou knows what kind of an ordeal. And that the last thing either of us needs to do right now is fly off into the clutches of the Queen.”

“I’ve been in Her clutches already, and here I am to tell the tale. I can get free of Her again. Before this war goes any further, brother, there are things you need to know.”

“Tell me about them, then.”

“You have to see them for yourself.”

Thu-Kimnibol stared. Another silence. An impasse.

Hresh said, “Do you trust me, brother?”

“You know I do.”

“Do you think I’d lead you into harm?”

“You might. Without meaning to. Hresh-full-of-questions, you are. You poke your nose everywhere. You’ve always been fearless, brother. Too fearless, maybe.”

“And you? Thu-Kimnibol the coward, is that who you are?”

Thu-Kimnibol grinned. “You think you can goad me into this lunacy by playing on my pride, do you, Hresh? Give me credit for a little intelligence, brother.”

“I do. More than a little. I ask you again: come with me to the Queen. If you hope to rule the world, Thu-Kimnibol, and I know that you do, you need to understand the nature of the one being who stands in your way. Come with me, brother.”

Hresh held out his hand. His voice was steady. His gaze was unwavering.

Thu-Kimnibol shifted his weight uneasily. He stood deep in thought, scowling, plucking at the ruff of fur along his cheeks. His face was dark with doubt. But then his expression changed. He seemed to be weakening — Thu-Kimnibol, weakening! — under Hresh’s unremitting pressure. Tightly he said to Nialli Apuilana, “What do you think? Should I do this thing?”

“I think you should.” Unhesitatingly.

Thu-Kimnibol nodded. A cloud seemed to have lifted from him. To Hresh he said, “How is it done?”

“We’ll twine; and then the Barak Dayir will carry us to the Nest of Nests.”

“Twine? You and I? Hresh, we’ve never done a thing like that!”

“No, brother. Not ever.”

Thu-Kimnibol smiled. “How strange that seems, twining with my own brother. But if that’s what we have to do, that’s what we’ll do. Eh, Hresh? So be it.” To Nialli Apuilana he said, “If for some reason I don’t come back—”

“Don’t even say that, Thu-Kimnibol!”

“Hresh offers me no guarantees. These possibilities have to be considered. If I don’t come back, love — if my soul doesn’t return to my body after a certain while, two full days, let’s say — take yourself to Salaman and tell him what has happened. Is that clear? Give our army over into his sole command. Let him have the four Great World weapons.”

“Salaman? But he’s a madman!”

“A great warrior, all the same. The only one, after myself, who can lead us in this campaign. Will you do that?”

“If I must,” said Nialli Apuilana in a low voice.

“Good.” Thu-Kimnibol drew in a deep breath and extended his sensing-organ to Hresh. “Well, brother, I’m ready if you are. Let’s go to visit the Queen.”

There is darkness everywhere, a great sea of dense blackness so complete that it excludes even the possibility of light. And then, suddenly, a fierce glow like that of an exploding sun blossoms on the horizon. The blackness shatters into an infinity of fiery points of piercing brightness and Thu-Kimnibol feels those myriad blazing fragments rushing past him on hot streams of wind.

Within the fiery mystery that lies ahead, he is able now to make out texture and form. He sees something that seems to him to be an immense shining machine, a thing of whirling rods and ceaseless churning pistons, moving flawlessly with never a moment’s slackening of energy or failure of pattern. From it comes a pure beam of dazzling light that rises with scimitar force to cut across the sky.

The Nest, Thu-Kimnibol thinks. The Nest of Nests.

And a voice like the sound of worlds colliding says, speaking out of the core of that unthinkable tireless mechanism, “Why do you return to Me so soon?”

The Queen, that must be.

The Queen of Queens.

He feels no fear, only awe and something that he thinks might be humility. The presence of Hresh beside him gives him whatever degree of assurance he’s unable to find within himself. He has never been this close to his brother in all his life: it’s difficult now for him to determine where his own soul leaves off and that of Hresh begins.

They are descending, or falling, or plummeting. Whether it is by command of that great creature in the brightness before them, or Hresh is still in control of their journey, Thu-Kimnibol has no way of telling. But as they come nearer the Nest he sees it more clearly, and understands that it is no machine at all, but rather a thing of chewed pulp and soil, and what he has taken for a shining machine, rods flailing and pistons pumping in perfect coordination, is simply his perception of the stupendous oneness of the hjjk empire itself, in which not even the smallest of the newly hatched has free volition, but where everything is tightly woven in a predestined pattern with no room for imperfection.