Thrasne came up behind her, one arm around Babji’s shoulders, the baby in the other. From behind them, far down the beach, came a hail, and they turned to see another ship against the darkening sky, and beyond that one still another.
“The Noor are gathering. On Southshore,” said the Queen. “We have made landfall. All my hopes, Doorie. All my hopes. I feel—oh, I feel I might die now, knowing the best thing I could have done is done.”
“Do not talk of dying,” said Thrasne, shaking her by one shoulder, much to her astonishment, for the Noor did not presume to touch their Queen. “There is much planting to do if all this mob is to be fed, and who will see to that if not you?” He sounded, she thought, really angry at her. “And this one is a month old today and still has no name. Who will name him if you go dying?”
“Ah, babe, babe.” She laughed, half crying as she turned to take the child. “Your father speaks the truth. You have no name.” She held the baby high so he might peer away, as she did, toward the wide plains before her and the nearest line of hills. She wondered what mysteries would lie behind them, for it was sure that something wonderful awaited, just beyond the horizon. Then she turned to look into Medoor Babji’s eyes, full of trust and pain, wonder and joy intermixed, then to Thrasne’s craggy face, which held the same mixture of feelings. So they stood for some time, regarding each other without speaking.
“I name this child Temin M’noor,” she said at last, passing him into Thrasne’s keeping as she moved away from them down the hill. “Temin M’noor,” she called again, her voice like that of a shore bird, hunting.
“What does it mean?” Thrasne asked, thinking he had heard the words somewhere before.
Medoor Babji was smiling at him, holding out her arms for the child, her eyes swimming with tears.
“Temin, which is to say a key, and M’noor, that which is spoken. . . .”
He did not understand, and she explained it to him. “We have given him to one another between our worlds, Thrasne.
“His name is Password.”
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