I could feel the map in my hands, soft from handling. I could visualize it, much fingerprinted, bearing many notations in a microscopic hand.
Lutha saw what I had seen.
“Somebody’s used this,” she said. “Bernesohn. He’s annotated it.”
“Used it a lot,” said Trompe.
“If Bernesohn Famber went somewhere on foot,” Lutha persisted, “how did anyone find out he was gone?”
Leelson replied. “They told me the housekeeper came in here to clean or bring new supplies. She found the last supplies hadn’t been used, so the hive was told to keep watch. When no one saw him for a year, they named him an outlander ghost and said he was wandering among the canyons. They invited him to join the people of Cochim-Mahn.”
“What does that mean?” asked Lutha.
“I asked the same question. They told me they invite all the ghosts to join them, and furthermore, that most of them do so. They wouldn’t clarify the matter, so don’t ask. I don’t know and I can’t pick up anything clear from their emotions.”
He could have picked up a good deal from mine. I got up from the place I was hiding and went to the door. I wanted to hear what they were saying about the omphalos.
They stood around the table, looking down at the map. Lutha’s fingers traced wandering lines of canyons and the tips of mesas, all ramified like the branches and twigs of trees, pointing off in all directions. Canyons run down all the sides of the mesas; mesas limit all the edges of the canyons. Except at the sea. And at the omphalos.
“Look at this,” said Leelson softly as he pointed to the southward leading canyon. “What does that mean? ‘Simi’dhm’a.’ “
She raised her head. Later I was to learn what that posture meant, that alertness. Her mind was searching, searching.
“Separated,” she said. “Separated something. What would the root word be? Dhuma?”
“Could be.”
“The word for songfathers is hahm-dhuma. So this would be what? Separated father?”
He thought about it. “Ghost?” he suggested. “A parent who’s died?”
She shook her head. “That doesn’t have the right feel to it. I need a lexicon. Either that or I need a lot longer with the old chips. Tomorrow we’ll ask Chahdzi. Maybe he’ll tell us.”
“I will tell you,” I said from behind them.
They turned as one, surprised, perhaps a little hostile.
“There is a dark canyon, where the sun scarcely touches. It is Simi’dhm’a, which now means lost and lonely, though once it meant abandoned ones. Importances left behind.”
“Left behind where?” whispered Lutha. “Where, Saluez?”
“On the other world. Before we came here. On the world of Breadh. It was there we left Mother Darkness and Father Endless.”
They looked at me. I could feel the two men probing at me, trying to feel as I felt, feeling as I felt but not knowing why. Lost, they were. Not understanding.
“Why?” Lutha breathed. “Why did you leave them behind, Saluez?”
“Because of them,” I whispered, gesturing at the shuttered windows.
Leelson moved to the window. I hurried to turn off the lamp, an outlander lamp, one that runs on stored sunlight.
They watched as Leelson shifted the lever that controlled the shutters, opening them only a crack.
“Careful,” I whispered. “Oh, be careful.”
Fragile fingers slid between the slats. Luminous eyes peered in at us. Teeth as delicate and sharp as needles bit at the edges of the slats. My flesh knew those teeth. I cried out.
Lutha turned to me, reached for me, catching my veil with the bracelet she wore. My veil dropped. They saw my face. Lutha hesitated for only a moment, then drew me close to her and held me.
Leelson closed the lever.
From the darkness outside came the cries of petulant children, denied a treat. It was the sound I had heard after Masanees had sounded the gong. I had not heard the sound of wings, one or two approaching quietly, as was customary, but these same cries, the noisy approach of many, talking among themselves. And when they came in, they had not gorged themselves on the banquet prepared for them before settling on my back to do what they had come for. No. Instead they had grabbed my hair, pulled at me, raised my head, insisted upon getting at my face.