“Well, since we’re on the subject,” I said, after a moment’s pause, “we’d like to come to a more peaceable arrangement. Maybe a trade, something you’d like for stuff we’d like. Maybe we can bring you stones like aren’t around here?”
Rokhaset nodded thoughtfully. “Yes, there are ossibilities—many crystals and minerals that we know of, yet cannot find here. But we would have to give you some way of making sure you brought us live stones, not ones whose essence had been damaged or destroyed. However, there are more pressing matters. You returned these few stones as a gesture of your goodwill, and so I have accepted it. But it is essential that you return the ones you took recently.”
I shifted in my living chair. “Well, sir, we can’t exactly do that. For two reasons.”
“That would be extremely unfortunate. What reasons are these?”
“Well, firstly, your people kinda wrecked our road. Really bad, this time. It’ll take a week, at least, before we have a chance of getting out of here and making it to the bank where we keep the stones.”
Rokhaset’s eyes flickered—literally—but the tone of his voice was warm and perhaps slightly amused, so I guessed that the flicker might be something like a smile. “What the Nowëthada can destroy, the Nowëthada can rebuild, and just as swiftly, Clinton Slade. If that is all that stands between us and the H’adamant, lay your fears to rest.”
I sighed. “Sorry, sir, but that’s the smaller problem. Y’see, most of them are already sold. We’ve got some left, but not even a tenth of what was took.”
The whole room seemed to go silent. Rokhaset sat utterly immobile, as did the other Nomes, and for a few minutes it looked like we were stuck in some lunatic sculptor’s workshop, surrounded by macabre statues.
When the silence broke, it was by a hurricane of sound, gabbling Nomish voices all talking at once, with one alien word repeated so often as to be recognizable even in the Babel of noise: lurizata. The Nomes had risen from their seats and were now shouting back and forth at each other, sometimes gesturing unsettlingly in our direction.
Just as it reached a new crescendo, Rokhaset’s voice boomed out: “RATCHOTAI!”
Dead silence fell again. It only lasted a split second, however, because the quiet was instantly broken by the High Spirit talking to his people. Well, I say “talking,” but it sounded more like a lecture—or a tongue-lashing. He laid into them but good. We couldn’t understand it, of course, but we could pick out “lurizata,” “H’adamant,” and some of the other words we’d heard before. His people shrank back, just like humans getting bawled out by the boss, as he continued his tirade. It must’ve lasted a full five minutes before he stopped, seemed to take a breath, and turned back to us.
“My apologies, Clinton Slade, Jodi Goldman. Your news is very disheartening, and it seems some of my people were unready for such bad news. We had always believed you kept the H’adamant on your property. With all the H’kuraden that underlies it, we could not of course sense the crystals at any distance to see if they were in fact there. I should have realized the truth once I understood the diamonds of your transmissions were what became of our H’adamant. Unlike some of my less courageous subjects, however, I refuse to view the situation as hopelessly lost.”
“I think,” Jodi said, “it’s about time you told us just what the real problem is, neh? What’s so vital about this particular batch of diamonds that you’ve just got to have them?”
The High Spirit looked over at her, then gave one of his deliberate nods. “Yes, you are correct. But let us finish our meal first. A few more minutes should make little difference, and the story is long and not entirely pleasant.”
I was never so anxious for a meal to be over.
8. Assault of the Earth
“Ours,” began Rokhaset, “is not the only city of the Nowëthada in the Earth.”
We were seated in another set of chairs, which were slowly adjusting to become more comfortable in their creepy way, in a smaller and obviously more private room, a circular cave about thirty feet across and twenty high, hung with hundreds of delicate straw stalactites dripping water on most of the area; we’d pointedly stood near the two dry spots in the room and waited for the Nomes to move the chairs for us. While we were getting seated, I’d finally asked Rokhaset why he was excluding the other Nomes, which seemed to amuse him.