The vessel that would take them out on the whale hunt would not be here until next-light, Aille had already been told by a member of Oppuk’s service. With experienced eyes, he examined the horizon now, seeing dark-blue clouds lying low and faraway, then gauging the height of the waves assaulting the jagged black rocks below. His nose wrinkled, sampling the wind. “Storm,” he said to Yaut. “We may not be going out tomorrow, even if the vessel does arrive.”
“Indeed,” Yaut said, raising his own nose into the wind-borne spray. “It would be wise, however, to allow some other voice to convey that probability. ‘Killing the messenger’ is an unsanity which seeps down from above.”
It certainly didn’t take the wiliness of an old fraghta to see that, Aille told himself. Everything about him irritated Oppuk. “Pluthrak and Narvo have no history of association,” he said. “I begin to understand why.”
“Remove yourself from his notice at the first opportunity,” Yaut said. “I do not think he will summon you again. You can use that time in the darkness, to shape the battle.”
“Why does Narvo oppose Pluthrak so vehemently?” Aille turned to meet Yaut’s eyes, which were pulsing bright green in an unreadable mood. “I have never heard an explanation.”
“Some of it, of course, is the clash of kochan style. But much of it is ancient, going back to the Before Time. A disagreement about which genetic line was first to fight free of Ekhat control. We believe it was Pluthrak, which most Jao believe also, but Narvo has always insisted they were first. They could be right. It is not an issue that means as much to Pluthrak as it does to Narvo. There is even a possibility it was neither kochan, but some other; one which did not survive and so has no voice left to speak their name. There is no way to prove either the positive or negative, and neither kochan will relinquish its claim.”
“How can it matter?” Aille asked. His ears flicked restlessly and his body suddenly ached for the freedom of the foaming waves below. “It was all long ago and the struggle against the Ekhat grows always more savage. We have more important concerns that should bind us together, not drive us apart.”
“True,” Yaut said, “but Oppuk no longer sees beyond this world. He has lost all sense of flow.”
Aille stiffened. “Are you sure?”
“Look at that dreadful habitation he built, half-Jao without, half-human within, and, even worse, where he built it,” Yaut said. “Consider the quality of his personal service, his manners, even the way he moves. Everything is stilted and hybrid, not wholly one thing or the other. He cultivates useless ornamental vegetation and opens the interior of his dwelling to this star’s overblown radiation. He is lost, infected by this world’s culture because he refused to acknowledge it, unable to find his way. Such is always the price the victor pays, if he does not restrain fury and hatred when the flow of time requires it. Conquest is not battle.”
To lose flow was to never know where you were in time, or when approaching events would take place. Everything one did would be out of step. Aille considered as the wind strengthened, carrying the scent of rain.
That would make it easier to defeat Oppuk, of course. But Aille allowed himself a moment to grieve for the once-great scion. No Jao, not the lowest, should suffer that fate.
* * *
“I am going down to swim,” he said. “Will you come?”
Yaut turned toward the cliff, considered, then stepped back, his body taut with resignation. “I left Tully, along with Aguilera and Tamt, back at the hant to help Oppuk’s people pour the last few forms. I am confident in Aguilera, but there is still no telling what Tully will do, if not supervised properly. As we have brought him along, we are responsible.”
Yaut lowered his head and turned his back to the wind, heading toward the gleaming black hant. Then in the distance, Aille saw a ramshackle group of vehicles pull up and humans pile out. They seemed to be waving their arms and shouting, though the wind swept their voices inland.