Wizards At War

Dairine opened her mouth. But the Yaldiv beat her to it, raising her foreclaws in the deferential gesture they’d seen used out on the path the afternoon before. Then the Yaldiv let them fall, as if she couldn’t use the normal ceremonial response, and thus the gesture was invalid as well.

“This one saw these,” the Yaldiv said. Those weird pronouns again, Dairine thought. “When they walked in the tunnel, near Grubbery Fourteen. Though they were not Yaldiv, they had a Yaldiv seeming. They wore it strangely, like a shell during molt, but not-like, as if the shell could be seen through. Their shapes were strange. Their shapes were these shapes—” She pointed one claw at each of them in turn.

Then she glanced up again and met Dairine’s eyes, and once again Dairine felt the shock of looking out, looking in, mirrors reflecting in mirrors. “But this one saw that one before,” she said to Dairine. “And not within the Commorancy.”

Dairine became aware that the “older-and-wiser types” were watching her and expecting her to produce some useful result. She took a breath. “Yes,” Dairine said. “And this one, also, has seen that one before.”

“When?”

“Not long ago,” Dairine said. “And not from within the Commorancy, either. From within that one.”

The Yaldiv stood there shifting uncertainly from leg to leg, a rocking motion. “Yes,” she said. “There was a glimpse of strangeness. Other eyes, a world in strange shapes, strange colors. Why are these here?”

Dairine glanced at the others. Anyone have any suggestions?

You’re the only one of us she knows firsthand, Kit said. You’d better run with it.

She turned back to the Yaldiv. “To see this one,” Dairine said.

“Why?”

I really need a few moments to think about this! “To tell the story may take a while,” Dairine said, “as the story told before the King does.”

Dairine saw the shiver that went through the Yaldiv—a shudder that literally shook her on her legs. It was strange, considering the fervent way all the Yaldiv in the hive had seemed to willingly worship that bloated shape on the dais. Maybe—

No, don’t get ahead of yourself. “That one should be at ease,” Dairine said, “and this one will be, too, while the story is told.” She sat down cross-legged on the cavern floor.

Spot came spidering over to Dairine and crouched down beside her. Look, Dairine said silently, keep an eye on her bodily functions while I’m talking. If I get near some dangerous topic, I want some warning.

All right, Spot said.

Very slowly the Yaldiv lowered herself to the floor, folding her legs underneath her and resting the huge claws on the floor at what passed for their elbow joints. As she did this, the others slowly sat down, too—those who could. Filif stayed as he was, and while the Yaldiv was watching them do that, each after his fashion, Dairine saw Spot put up a transparent display above his closed lid. It can’t be seen from the other side, he said. Here are indicators for brain activity, general neural firing, and the rates for all three hearts. But as for what the readings will mean …

She was going to have to take her chances with that. “Tell these of this one’s life,” Dairine said, hoping she was getting the pronouns in the right order.

“This one is a Yaldah,” the Yaldiv said. It was apparently the female form of the species noun. “The Yaldat are the mothers of our people. We are the engenderers of our City’s defense. To be a Yaldah is our destiny, and our glory.”

This sounds too familiar, Dairine thought. The language was much like some of the stuff she’d read in the mid-twentieth-century unit of last year’s history class. “Destiny.” Half the time the word’s just code for “what someone else wants you to do without asking any inconvenient questions.” “What does this one do in the City?” Dairine said.

“What most Yaldat do,” said their guest, and then she did the first casual thing Dairine had seen any Yaldiv do: she lifted one claw to comb back the scent palps on one side, like someone absently brushing the hair out of her eyes. “Feeding meat to the newly hatched grubs who are past their first food. Cleaning away their leavings and molted-off skins until their shells grow. Yaldat tend the hatchlings until they are large and strong enough to be taken away and trained in their work, or the way of warriors… or vessels.”