“You have a cure for cresh?” Knowelkin whispered, voicing what all present wanted to hear.
“Not we, but allies that we’ve made in the far south. They’ve offered us as much as we need—they have plenty!—in return for letting some of their wise’uns travel on our briqs to spread their knowledge. And don’t think creshban is the only trick they have under their mantles! Oh no! We’ve brought back marvels which … But move over, you! Senior chaplain or not, you’re a dreamsick fool and it’s your own fault and Wellearn is worth a score like you! Move, before I rip your mantle into tatters!”
For an instant it seemed that Knowelkin would defy the captain out of pride; then he humbly crumpled to half normal height and padded aside. Wellearn found himself at a loss. Was he really meant to take over and preside at a bragmeet, youth that he was?
“Well, go on!” Skilluck rasped. “Or I’ll start thinking you’re as silly as Knowelkin! Speak out!”
“What shall I tell them?”
“Everything! Everything! I never imagined things would come to so grievous a pass this year. Next year maybe, or the year after … but it’s upon us, and the land is in the claw of ice, and if another summer comes it could be our last chance to move to friendly country. The briqs which survive may already not be enough to shift us all! Hadn’t you thought of that?”
Wellearn hadn’t, but he pretended, and gave a grave nod of acquiescence as he took over the spot vacated by Knowelkin. After so long among the Hearthomers he felt like a giant compared to his own people … as tall as Jing!
And that gave him his opening. Maintaining his maximum height, trying to imitate in Wegan the style and manner of Burney and others who addressed council meetings at Hearthome, he began.
“Teachers like Knowelkin—and even my late mentor Blestar who has gone, let’s hope, to make a star shine brighter!—told us to believe there never was a real person called Jing! They’ve encouraged us to be obedient and small-minded by saying there never was a man who understood the stars and made their nature manifest by transforming dull rock into marvelous new substances! With the evidence of spyglasses and metal blades to contradict it, we chose to accept this nonsense!
“But we have met followers of Jing who actually possess his scriptures, and I’ve read them and copied extracts for our use! Thanks to what Jing taught, the city of Hearthome is the richest on its continent! By studying Jing’s principles the folk there have arrived at creshban and other medicines—they’ve bred mounts that go on land as our briqs swim the sea” (thank you, Embery! he added silently) “—they live in houses which make ours look like hovels—they have such wealth that a bunch of sick seafarers stranded there by accident might each repose in his own bower, recovering with the aid of a cure their own folk might not need in fivescore years of which they yet keep stock for chance-come travelers…”
Gradually, as he talked, Wellearn let himself be taken over by imagination, such that in his present state of vitality it would not shade into mere dreamness. He painted a picture of a glorious future to grow from the joint seed of the Hearthomers and the Wego. Some of his audience, he noted with dismay, had ceased to listen the moment he spoke of Jing as a real person; others, however, less parched by cold and shrunken by privation, were clinging with their remaining strength to wisps of hope.
Concentrating on the latter, he concluded with a splendid peroration that sent echoes ringing among the rigid branches and ice-stiffened foliage.
Yet only a few of his hearers clacked their claws, and after a pause Toughide said, “So you’re asking us to pile aboard our remaining briqs and set forth now?”
“Of course not!” Skilluck roared. “But next year could see our last and only chance to move to a warm and welcoming land! If you won’t hark to the boy—excuse me, Wellearn!—if you won’t hark to the young man, then trust in me who came home after Knowelkin told you I was dead!”