Return to Eden

say and now I will go."
    She turned and left the ambesed. Setessei hurried away as well for many preparations must be made for the voyage. Ambalasei followed at a more leisurely pace, turning before she left since she always had the last word.
    "You hold your future between your thumbs, Daughters of Despair. I think you will all die because you are too stupid to live. So—prove me wrong. If you can."
    Lanefenuu, Eistaa of Ikhalmenets, sat in her place of honor in the ambesed, the great carving of uruketo and waves rising up behind her, and was not happy. Not at all. This was her ambesed, her city, her island.
    Everything that stretched before her or around her was hers. Cause for pleasure once, cause for blackness of humor now. She looked past the walls of the ambesed to the trees beyond, where they climbed up the slopes of the long-dead volcano. Up to the snowcapped summit, hideously white all of the way through the heat of summer. Her body arched and writhed with movements of hatred, so much so that Elilep who was painting her arms had to move aside quickly or be struck. The other male, who had carried the tray of pigments, shivered delicately at Lanefenuu's strong emotions.
    She saw the movement, looked at him with one eye, then back to the mountain peak. An attractive male, delicate. Perhaps she should take him now? No, not this day, not the day when it all ended.
    Elilep was trembling now as well, so much so that the brush in his hands was unsteady and he could not control it.
    "Finish the painting," Lanefenuu ordered. "I wish the mountain and the ocean there on my chest, in the greatest of detail."
    "Great Eistaa, it was said that we leave this island today."
    "We do. Most are gone. When we board the uruketo we will be the last."
    "I have never been in a uruketo. I am afraid."
    Lanefenuu fingered his crest and signed abandonment of fear/reasonless. "That is only because you are a simple male, plucked from the sea, raised in the hanalè, which is the right and proper thing. You have never left this island—but you shall now. All of us. We will cross the ocean and I command you to abandon fear. We go to the city of Alpèasak which is larger than Ikhalmenets, is rich in new/ delicious animals, has a hanalè of pleasurable size."
    Elilep, who was sensitive to others' feelings, as were most males, was still not calmed. "If this distant city is so fine why does the Eistaa show anger and grief?"
    "Anger at the whiteness of winter that drives me from my city. Grief that I must leave. But enough. What is done is done. Our new city awaits us on the shores of distant Gendasi*, a city of golden beaches. Far superior to this rock in the ocean. Come."
    She stood and stamped across the ambesed with the males scurrying after her. Head lifted, filled with pride and strength. Perhaps it was best to leave this ambesed forever, leave this place where the ustuzou had humiliated her, ordered her obedience. She snapped her thumbs at the memory, but remembered as well that there had been no choice. Two of her uruketo dead. She had had no choice. Better the conflict to end. Enough had died. If she had not listened to Vaintè's counsel none of this would have happened. Her body writhed as strong emotions seized her. It was part of the past and could be forgotten along with this city and this island.
    Her uruketo waited, the others had already left as she had commanded. She ordered the males aboard, started to follow them, turned back to look despite herself. The green below, the white above.
    Her jaw gaped with powerful emotions—until she snapped it shut. Enough. It was over. Her city was now warm Alpèasak. Winter could come to Ikhalmenets. It was no longer her concern.
    Yet she stayed on top of the fin, alone, until Ikhalmenets finally sank into the sea and was gone.
    CHAPTER SIX
    Es alithan hella, man fauka naudinzan. Tigil hammar ensi tharp i theisi darrami thurla.
    Tanu proverb
    If the deer go, the hunters follow. An arrow cannot kill a beast in the next valley.
    Sanone did not approve of this kind of meeting. Among the Sasku they ordered things differently. It was the manduktos who labored with their minds and not their hands, who studied Kadair and his effect on this world, as well as other important things, it was they who met and considered and decided. When consideration and decision were needed. Not in this disorganized manner where anyone at all could give an opinion. Even women!
    None of these thoughts showed on