The vehicle that had transported the delegation was a completely closed ovoid, its top shimmering with a deceptive transparency, as if it were semi-reflective, arranged to allow the occupants to see the light while remaining shielded from view. Beneath the pot-bellied form of the transport, numerous appendages moved like knuckleless legs, versatile tentacles, adept at clinging to the gommite and juggling around obstacles.

  Attan Ze Kosh could not shake the sickening impression that this was a living being, but an unknown and incomprehensible kind of life. The people crowded on the bridges and looking out of the mullioned windows and from balconies wore the same expression of polite disgust that he felt had formed on his face.

  The mayor waited in the Square of a Thousand Drops, paved with turquoise tiles alternating with mirrored silver rhombs, with the round stage at its center, decorated with flags and waving insignia. The plaza could comfortably hold more than six thousand people standing, of all races and physiques. It was the largest horizontal space in Nelatte, a hexagon with sides of ninety-six yards. An airy expanse whose size Attan Ze could feel even on his skin with his eyes closed.

  In the southernmost part, leaning against the curved structure of the Palvi Monastery, four tiers of bleachers rose, providing a comfortable and undisturbed view for another hundred and eighty spectators, notables and prominent figures he had personally invited. Seluma would have been among them, had the Lumacid been more inclined to mingle with the citizenry outside the chitinous walls of her shell.

  Attan Ze could have sworn that when the milky-white vehicle entered the space cleared for its passage, the square was far less crowded than he would have expected, given the historical significance of the event: only the bleachers were packed, and even those people sat stiffly, lacking the enthusiasm such an event should have generated.

  The festival did not begin until the next day, and many could not leave work, but could it be that the man in the street was so uninterested?

  He soon had to reconsider. Lo-and-behold, a large crowd had followed the bizarre wagon, and the spectators already there, who had spent hours picking out the best seats, had to reluctantly squeeze in to make room for the newcomers. Smiling to himself, he rose to his full height, clasped his hands on his chest and walked down the three steps of the stage to meet the emissaries on the square.

  He walked slowly so as not to slip on the treacherous rhombuses. His feet could not grip a smooth surface, and the stiff ceremonial robe he wore —black strips of silk alternated with amber metal plates set with rough stones in various shades of green— hampered his movements. Even the high tiara, which curved backwards in a hooked shape and stretched until it almost touched his back between his shoulder blades, kept his head off balance.

  The ovoid stopped and crouched on its rubbery legs, just as a docile and obedient animal would have done. As the front part began to open with some hesitation —slowly, from a small, almost invisible circular hole at the sharpest end of the object— the crowd did not hold back a groan of dismay, and even from the stands came exclamations of disappointment, for indeed they seemed to be facing a sentient monstrosity whose gaping, moist mouth would reveal hideous horrors before it tore and devoured all present.

  Attan Ze Kosh was unperturbed. As long as he could see the sky above him, guess the distant free forms of Swallows and Pipers, and imagine the immensity of space in which he, at least with his mind, could soar, nothing could truly touch and frighten him.

  Everything, every annoyance and danger, life itself, were just setbacks, the unpretentious jokes of the clowns who entertained the audience waiting for the real show to begin.

  The opening vibrated, the two fleshy flaps like pale lips. Bodies appeared and slid out. Large, whitish, and shapeless, like monstrous pot-bellied larvae. The silence in the square was oppressive, so unnatural that Attan Ze felt as if he had been kidnapped from his reality to find himself in a nightmare populated by motionless dummies in unusual positions.

  Where was the fanfare that was supposed to greet the meeting? The mayor turned from side to side with a nervous twitch, hoping that the tightening of his lips and squinting of his eyes would sufficiently convey his displeasure to those in charge. One of the secretaries sprinted off, ready.

  The ovoid had thrown up two more vermiform creatures as the first had risen, finding an unstable balance on short, too-thin appendages. None of the emissaries uttered a peep as a sudden, discordant music caused the humans to jolt in surprise.

  Attan Ze cursed under his breath. He had never thought much of the city band, but he might as well have recruited a group of children and given them paper trumpets. He inhaled sharply, straightened up, even if it meant towering over the honored guests by almost half a yard, and took a few more steps toward the Zerafians.

  A translucent and elastic umbilical cord emerged from each creature; it did not originate in the same place on each one's body: Some had it attached just below the small spherical head, some had it attached to their abdomen, and some were connected to their backs. The strings had become so twisted together and around the Zerafians' bodies that it would take a lot of dancing and patience to untangle them.

  The crowd's long-awaited applause had already begun, which Attan Ze encouraged by clapping his hands and smiling brightly, when the fifth member of the ambassadorship finally emerged from the ovoid's mouth. He carried their inseparable treasure on a sturdy handcart that glided obediently over the regular floor tiles. A cylinder of glass or some other transparent material, containing a large lump of yellowish pulsating substance, with sparse purple spores growing on its upper surface, which looked as if it had been cleanly cut.

  A fragment of Zerafia, the organic city that grew like a fungus on the north wall of Faspath, nearly a mile deep.

  Every Zerafian was intimately bound to it, drawing sustenance from it, but not only. It was said, Attan Ze remembered with a shudder, that to cut that cord was to nullify that particular Zerafian's existence in an instant. The larvae did not die of starvation or suffocation. They collapsed instantly, like a limb torn from the body.

  The physical form of the emissaries was all too unpleasant, even he had to admit, as he encouraged the audience to applaud even louder at the appearance of the cylinder and its contents.

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  The monsters swarmed —that was the right word— as if they were constantly writhing with small, repulsive movements of flesh just under the skin, unable to stand still. Where one would have expected a face, there was a solid surface like wax nearing the melting point; the only recognizable feature were the eyes, like dark brown flat buttons, shining brightly between the folds of skin that was constantly oozing a greasy liquid.

  Fortunately, they gave off no particular odor, or at least he could not smell it.

  When he had all five more or less lined up and waiting, the fifty-eighth Mayor of Nelatte bowed gracefully and chirped a sincere welcome.

  “May your stay be pleasant and fruitful!”

  The crowd, emboldened and recovered from the trauma, finally waved their little flags and handkerchiefs that had hitherto dangled limply from chilled fingers; even the band's music had improved to the point of almost making sense.

  The emissaries rocked the pulpy bodies back and forth, as if to a secret rhythm, like sausages in a ridiculous dance. One of them spoke, modulating a vibration through two slits on the sides of his head that widened as if they were temporary mouths.

  “Mayyy the Cas...ket live fo...rever!” he said with difficulty in the Nelattese language.

  It was a strange greeting, Attan Ze thought, but at least it seemed to have no sinister meaning.

  °°°

  Finally, the performances in the pavilion began. How much she had missed them!

  From her pedestal, she has a full, perfect view of the gardens and walkways, now teeming with murmuring courtiers. Her subjects are crowding into the avenues, finding no room on the benches or the wicker seats brought in on time by the ants.

  The sky is overcast, but there is no threat of rain. Beneath the clouds, there is that dazzling glow that also leaves a darkness on the ground. Small ball lamps made of colored paper are lit under the pavilion.

  They have all gathered in excitement and joy at the spectacle they are about to see.

  It had seemed a bit vulgar and inappropriate the last time. She understood how much her people needed to laugh and forget the hard times ahead, but... there, too bad it was all happening in a crude atmosphere. The First Counselor had deliberately tried to produce something completely uncommitted, to end the musical evening on a buffoonish note, as ridiculous as possible, that would lift the spirits without frightening anyone.

  He had taken care of her subjects for her in the most serious situations and had done a great job.

  Now the tragedy has passed. Now her subjects are not about to leave. On the contrary, they have returned to stay, and she is happy. The silly pantomime of the three lumbering figures trudging through the small temple makes her laugh secretly.

  Three cleverly disguised servants stage as many shabby, clumsy, and awkward dancers whose bodies literally disintegrate in their pathetic attempts to follow a frenzied, fashionable rhythm.

  One loses a leg and an arm trying to pirouette, another coughs until his head comes off, a third sees nothing and jumps into the columns, landing in pieces on the orchestra.

  Now she sees them picking up their lost parts and reassembling themselves, gradually regaining their dignity, slowing down their mad movements until they decide to stop and go, to go back and find a corner of existence where their weakness is not an obstacle.

  She knows that they are only actors, but she wishes them every joy and good luck.

  And then comes what she has been waiting for, what she has been anticipating in her mind.

  Mowr Ees is sitting on one of the large, upholstered wicker chairs the antlions have brought for people of respect, but he has chosen to stay away from the pavilion, further back, leaving a large empty space around him. He stands about ten yards in front of her, who until now had struggled to keep from staring at his silvery fur-covered head, his large ears set a little lower today.

  The First Counselor did not follow the performance of the three fools. He, who always trembled with excitement the first time any of his works —be it music, dance, drama, drawing or poetry— was presented in public, remained hunched over in his seat this time, leaning forward with his head, his snout in his hands, gathered in meditation.

  Does he not care how his creation is received?

  He is crying, a voice from within tells her, but she ignores it.

  Nonsense, why should Mowr Ees cry? They are together now. They can't talk to each other, but they are together. They can at least warm each other and feed on each other's love.

  The little one is a warm bundle on her right foot.

  This is a happy day.

  Happy, she repeats emphatically.

  When the lovers' song begins, with the last wail of the abandoned woman, Mowr Ees lifts his head sharply, his shoulders heaving, and moves backward. He needs to catch his breath, really needs it.

  “Who gives me help, who comforts me?” moans the singer, rising from the crouch with which she ended the song. “Here I stay on this lonely shore.”

  A small hand snaps accusingly at the male singer's face.

  “Cruelest!”

  It is a cry, on a long tone.

  “Though you leave and forsake me!”

  The lady runs her fingers through her powdered hair, turns her back to him, takes two steps away to lean lightly against a pillar, and there she remains, her eyes half closed and an expression frozen with pain that will never change.

  And Mowr Ees turns in his chair. For her. In the half-darkness, his huge eyes shine, reflecting the few rays of light from the sky. It seems to her that he is looking at her from an infinite distance that neither of them can ever cross, and an unreasonable sadness overcomes her.

  What troubles you, my love?

  After an unexpected chord in the major key, the music returns to the same theme in the minor key to accompany the man's version.

  “Too cruel is my lot,” he says. That's it. “Farewell, life of my life.”

  The words pierce her, daggers of ice stabbing through bronze armor to explode in a thousand sharp splinters in the center of her heart, tearing it apart.

  “My heart remains the most faithful,” is the oath of the lover who must leave, and she knows it is sincere, but it cannot change the reality, which is that their happiness is over.

  Though you leave and forsake me.

  These are the words he wrote. He wrote them for her.

  She clings to the fiery gaze of her unattainable love and refuses to waver, to remember.

  This reality is different, she insists. It is now; it is always.

  These will be happy days.