I came out of the wagon, bringing the now clothed Leely to stand beside his mother as the king went on: “I see no connection. These Kachis may be nasty, but the Ularians are … quite inexpressibly vile!”
I looked at him across my veil, asking, “Have you seen the Ularians?
“I’ve seen them. And tasted them. I’ve heard the sound of the waves on the world where they are now, heard the scream of seabirds and the weeping of the girl who’s there watching them.” He shook his head, making a face. “They’re … horrible beyond belief.”
“What do they look like?” I asked.
The ex-king gestured. “Big. Big as one of your hives. Shaped, oh, like any old thing at all. A massive middle, rather shapeless, with a lot of appendages or tentacles hanging beneath like a fringe. They float. Or they sit like mountains. Or they build themselves into rancid walls of flesh that can surround an encampment! On one side, their skin is bare, and they are able to show pictures on their skins.”
I felt my eyes widen. It was an unbelievable description. Leely slipped loose and started purposefully toward the fence surrounding us. Lutha caught him just as he was climbing through.
“Dananana,” he cried, struggling to get away from her. “Dananana.”
She pulled him into her arms and asked me to get his harness from the wagon. He hated it, but sometimes it was the only solution. I fetched it and we buckled it behind him, fastening the tether tightly to Lutha’s belt.
He looked at the harness, decided he couldn’t get out at the moment, then opened his pants, peed onto the dirt, and sat down to make a mud picture on the bottom board of the fence. I saw Lutha flinch, but Poracious Luv watched him with lively interest and no discernible disapprobation.
About this time the three Fastigats concluded their conference. Both Leelson and Trompe spat over the fence and then wiped their mouths. The Procurator said something to them, then calmly let himself out the gate and went off down the hill. The spirit people and songfathers had left an aisle open all the way from the pen to the temple at the bottom. He was confronted almost at once by one of those who had accompanied him up the hill in the first place.
“Hah-Rianahm,” Poracious whispered. “Lord high-muck-a-muck among this rabble.”
The Dinadhi’s voice was strident. I could hear him clearly, though he spoke from some distance.
“ … must return to the pen!” he howled.
“ … must take time to experience this record,” shouted the Procurator in stentorian tones, overriding the other, no small achievement considering how the skinny old man was screaming.
“No time! Tahs-uppi!”
“Until Tahs-uppi!”
Gabble and shout, pushing and shoving, the Procurator was thrust back up the hill and through the gate that Leelson opened for him. The three Fastigats exchanged wry looks that said the result of the foray had not been unexpected. Then all three of them began dragging items from the baggage pile, opening sacks and cases, sorting out items of equipment. “When they had unpacked and assembled the first half-dozen elements, Lutha said:
“Isn’t that a wide-range retriever? The kind entertainers use?”
Lutha was looking questioningly at Poracious, but the large woman was preoccupied with what was going on at the temple. There the circles of kneeling men were completely filled in and various ritual personages with towering headdresses had taken up positions atop the raised semicircular section of floor. As we watched, songfathers manned the entire length of the pull rope, and half a dozen black-clad spirit men were pouring the contents of large jars upon the northeast quadrant of the temple floor—oil, I presumed, to make easier the moving of the great stone lid across this lower stone. When their jars were empty, they departed. One of the hierarchy shouted a command. Though we could not see musicians from where we stood, the sounds of their instruments came to us clearly: drums, gongs, trumpets, panpipes, and several sonorous stringed instruments.
First a blaring fanfare, then a whomp, whomp, whomp of drums and deep-toned plucked strings, then a shouted command, and those along the rope took up the slack. They began to tug, grunting with each pull. The arrangement of the rope allowed a one-quarter turn of the semicircular stone, and I held my breath, awaiting what this displacement would reveal.