anyway.”
“Dar’sayn,” Clarissa murmured.
The old woman cackled—an uncanny dry rustling that sent prickles up my spine. “Heh! Heh! And you know what it does, yes?”
“It alters the mind.”
“That’s right! Heh! Heh! We slept, and when I awoke I could feel that, far away, there were people. Yaku was frightened to look for them, but I told him I would go. He could come with me, or stay alone. He came!”
She laughed again but it developed into a fit of coughing. We waited patiently while she recovered, then Clarissa asked, “They were the Yatsill?”
“Yes! Yes! Not people at all! We walked and walked until we found them—and when we did, Yaku tried to run away, but I knew they wouldn’t harm us, so I made him stay, and we travelled with the Yatsill on a Ptall’kor to a valley, where we ate the meat of Yarkeen. I had a vision. I saw people of Koluwai being consumed by demons. Yaku also dreamed things, but he would not tell me what, and afterwards he became quiet and different.”
I felt anchored to reality only by the touch of Clarissa’s hand where it rested on my arm, and suddenly realised that I was succumbing to a mesmeric power that radiated from the old woman. I spoke, hoping that by engaging with the conversation I’d overcome the effect. “In what way different, Pretty Wahine?”
“He was keeping secrets, my boy.”
Again she paused and struggled for breath. As Theaston Vale’s vicar, I’d sat at the bedsides of the elderly on many occasions. I recognised the sound of impending death when I heard it, and—Pretty Wahine’s psychic power notwithstanding—I was hearing it now.
Perhaps two minutes passed before her voice pierced the darkness again.
“At the end of the valley, we entered a cavern where I fell into a pool, and it gave me these bumps over my eyes. After that, all the Yatsill could speak my language. The same happened to you, yes? Heh!”
Clarissa made a sound of acknowledgment.
“Funny creatures!” the old woman exclaimed. “Like children! Copy, copy, copy! They brought us to this bay, drove the animals from the trees, and built villages in the branches, just like the ones I’d grown up in. Home! Home! Heh! Heh!”
“Animals?” my companion asked. “Do you mean Quee’tan?”
“Quee’tan, yes. Shoo! Shoo! Shoo! Away with them all!”
“How long ago was this, Pretty Wahine?”
“Oh, very much time has passed, my child. Very much time! Dar’sayn makes me live forever! Heh! Heh!” She stopped, wheezed, and went on, “Things then were not as they are now. All the Yatsill were Wise Ones. There were no Shunned.”
“Now they call themselves Aristocrats and Working Class,” I interjected.
“Heh! They pluck the words from Clarissa Stark. Right out of her head! Copy, copy, copy!”
“And they call the Koluwaians and their descendants Servants.”
“Pah! There were none before. None of my people. Just me. Just Yaku. We lived with the Yatsill until—Oh!—the red sun rose and the demons came. Blood Gods! They entered the Yatsill and killed them all. Yaku and I hid in this cave while the horrible things tried to escape into the sea. Heh! Before they reached the water, they died. No more Blood Gods. No more Yatsill.”
A rumble penetrated the darkness—a building collapsing somewhere close to the mouth of the tunnel—reminding me that outside, under the onslaught of the fiery red orb, New Yatsillat was rapidly disintegrating.
Clarissa’s fingers, still wrapped around my forearm, tightened slightly.
“The big sun set,” Pretty Wahine said, “and the little suns rose. No night on Ptallaya! And the Yatsill children came out of the nurseries and went away. We lived by ourselves, and—Oh!—I was scared. Yaku was not Yaku. I feared him. He knew things but would not tell me. Heh! Heh! I knew things, too! Yes I did! Yes! Yes! The Dar’sayn had changed me. I felt the children returning! I knew they weren’t the same! They went away with no more brains than Quee’tan—driven to the Pools of Immersion by instinct, just like animals—but came back Wise Ones! Heh! Heh! And the tree houses were filled, and life was as it was before.”
“Until the Heart of Blood rose again,” Clarissa murmured.
Another cackle. Another coughing fit. Painful gasping. Then: “My child! My child! You know what Dar’sayn can do! You know! You know! Before the yellow suns set, I sent a Yatsill to the forest to fetch more of the juice! Yes! More! More! It made me strong! With it, I could use my mind to stop the demons.”
Pretty Wahine suddenly lowered