Sarm entered Misk

Sarm entered Misk’s compartment, where I was waiting for him. …his head was crowned with an aromatic wreath of green leaves, the first thing green I had seen in the Nest, and about his neck there hung…a necklace, perhaps of accouterments, perhaps of pure ornaments, small pieces of metal, some shallow and rounded like tiny scoops, others rounded and pointed, others slender and bladed. His entire person I also noted was anointed with unusual and penetrating scents.
‘It is the Feast of Tola-- the Feast of the Nuptial Flight,’ said Sarm."
(Page 149)
" ‘Where did you get green leaves?’ I asked.
‘We grow them in special chambers under lamps,’ said Sarm. ‘They are worn on Tola by all Priest-Kings in memory of the Nuptial flight, for the Nuptial flight takes place above the ground in the sun and there on the surface there are many things which are green.’ "
"Sarm’s foreleg touched the metals dangling from his necklace. ‘These, too,’ he said, ‘have their significance.’ "
"I approached Sarm and regarded the pieces of metal. Some of them reminded me of shallow scoops, others of awls, others of knives.
‘They are tools,’ I said.
‘Long ago,’ said Sarm, ‘in Nests long before this one, in times of which you cannot conceive, it was by means of these things that my people began the journey that lead in time to Priest-Kings.’ " Priest-Kings
Pages 147-148&149 [~back to search page~]

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