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the ages.
Molly nodded. That sounds promising. What else?
Those Whose Names Are Unspoken. To the best of my knowledge, this is a
compilation of knowledge about the rrôn and the keth, gathered by veyâr only a
hundred years or so ago. As recent information, it hasn t yet had the chance
to prove its lasting value, but you might find some worth in it, if you re
willing to accept possible errors.
A hundred years old, and in Birra s eyes it was recent information. Molly
sighed. The veyâr were not people who would have much interest in the
constantly shifting, ever-updated news-driven world Molly came from. They
preferred their information well aged preferably with a bit of moss on it. She
suspected that preferring old information and suspecting new information let
them maintain the twin illusions that everything stayed pretty much the same,
and that the world was a comprehensible place.
She, however, would have loved a hot-off-the-press, possibly controversial,
untested, untried report from a team of anthropologists, biologists, and
social scientists who had been dissecting the rrôn and their society for the
past five or ten years and who had gathered all the latest dirt into one
thick, boring, multisyllabic assessment that would, somewhere in the heart of
it, tell her why she could hear the bastards thinking, why she felt a secret,
unspeakable, uncanny urge to go running out into the open spaces to scream,
Hey, I m one of you guys, at them& and what the hell she was supposed to do
about it.
Birra listed the other books and manuscripts for her Life of the Vodi Elspeth,
Life of the Vodi Melantha, Life of the Vodi Aki, Life of the Vodi Kelda.
Travels of the Veyâr from the Lost Homeland. The Recounting of Imallin
Galorayne. A couple of untitled journals.
It looked like it was going to be a long day, but Molly was fine with that.
She said, All right. Let s start with Merional s Dark Gods. Conversations at
least sound promising.
She settled back in her chair, and found Birra looking at her, confused.
What s wrong?
I don t understand, Vodi. I found you the books. What do you want me to do
with them?
Read them to me.
For just an instant, the confusion held its ground. Then the tiniest look of
relief appeared in Birra s eyes, and he said, You want me to read them to
you?
I can t read at least, not these. I read in my own language just fine.
But when you look at these books I got for you, you do not see words? You
cannot understand them& at all?
Not so much as a word, Molly said. That s something I m going to have to
remedy, but for now, I need a reader. And that reader is going to be
you& because I know I can trust you to be honest with me. Right?
Of course, Vodi, Birra said. But the tiny edge of relief didn t go away.
She wondered what was in the books that he didn t want her to find out.
Whatever it was, she was certain that she hadn t managed to convince him to
give her the truth. He still seemed to her just the smallest bit satisfied
with the situation, as if he had things under control. As long as she couldn t
do her own reading, he was right.
She would just have to hope that he wouldn t be able to figure out which
information she most needed and would let something slip.
Birra skimmed pages, offering the titles of each, and Molly said,
Pass& pass& pass& until he got to, My Discussion with Baanraak, and Molly
recognized the name. Baanraak was the killer the rrôn leader had gone off to
find.
Page 26
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Read that one, she said.
Birra frowned and sighed, but he began to read.
In the forests far from the village, Baanraak the rrôn agreed to meet with me,
with an exchange of fine yellow gold for his time and the guarantee of my
safety; we met as we d set out to do, and I gave him the first half of the
gold to prove my intent, and he did not immediately devour me, and so proved
his.
Like many of the dark gods I have so far met, he is in the flesh amiable
enough, and tells a good tale. He recounted to me some of his exploits in
worlds above this one, and though I do not credit them fully, still he told
them with enthusiasm and an eye for detail that made them fascinating to me.
He agrees with others of the dark gods that there are no other men like us in
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