Home certainly wasn’t where Nafai wanted to be, not tonight. He had been hoping Father would be somewhere else, so Meb would have a chance to calm down before they talked. But no, of course not, Father wanted to talk to Meb. He had already spent an hour talking with Elemak-Nafai wasn’t too broken up about missing that scene-and now he seemed to have the fantasy that he might possibly persuade Meb to believe in his vision.
The yelling started as soon as Mebbekew located Father in the study. Nafai had seen what these arguments were like, and so he quickly retreated to his room. On his way through the courtyard, he caught a glimpse of Issib peering out of his doorway. Another refugee, thought Nafai.
For the first hour or so, all that could be heard was the low murmur of Father’s voice, presumably trying to explain about his vision, interrupted every few minutes by Mebbekew’s clear, piercing shout making comments that ranged from accusation to derision. Then it finally came out, amid all of Mebbekew’s complaints about how Father was humiliating the family, that Meb had been doing a fair job of bringing the family into disrepute by working as a masker. Then it was Father’s turn to shout and Mebbekew’s to try to explain, which was good for another hour of quarreling before Meb left the house in a rage and Father went out to the stables to tend to the animals until he calmed down.
Only then did Nafai venture to the kitchen, absolutely starving by now, for his first serious meal of the day. To his surprise, Elemak was there, sitting with Issib at the table.
“Elya, I didn’t know you were here,” said Nafai.
Elemak looked up at him, blankly, and then remembered. “Forget it,” he said. “J was angry this morning but it’s nothing, forget it.”
Nafai had forgotten, with all that had happened since, that Elemak had warned him not to come home. “I guess I already did,” he said.
Elemak gave him a disgusted look and then went back to his food.
“What did I say?”
“Never mind,” said Issib. “We’re trying to think what we should do.”
Nafai headed for the freezer and started scanning the food that Truzhnisha had stocked there for occasions like this. He was dying of hunger and yet nothing looked good. “Is this all that’s left?”
“No, I have the rest hidden in my pants,” said Issib.
Nafai picked something that he remembered liking before, even though it didn’t sound particularly good tonight. While it was heating he turned around and faced the others. “So, what have we decided?”
Elemak didn’t look up.
“‘Wehaven’t decided anything,” said Issib.
“Oh, what, am I suddenly the only child in the house, while the men are making all the decisions?”
“Pretty much, yes,” said Issib.
“And what decisions do you have to make? Who has any decisions to make at a //, besides Father? It’s his house, his business, his money, and his name that’s getting laughed at all through Basilica.”
Elemak shook his head. “Not all through Basilica.”
“You mean somebody hasn’t heard about this yet?”
“I mean,” said Elemak, “that not everybody is laughing.”
“They will if that satire runs long. I saw a rehearsal. Meb was really pretty good. Of course he quit since it was about Father, but I think he really has talent. Did you know he sings?”
Elemak looked at him with contempt. “Are you really this shallow, Nyef?”
“Yes,” said Nafai. “I’m so shallow that I actually think our embarrassment isn’t all that important, if Father really saw a vision.”
“We know Father saw it,” said Elemak. “The problem is what he’s doing about it.”
“What, he gets a vision from the Oversold- warning about the destruction of the world, and he should keep it a secret?”
“Just eat your food,” said Elemak.
“He’s going around telling people that the Oversold wants us to go back to the old laws,” said Issib.
“Which ones?”
“All of them.”
“I mean which ones aren’t we already following?”
Elemak apparently decided to go straight to the heart of things. “He went to the clan council and spoke against our decision to cooperate with Potokgavan in their war with the Wetheads.”
“Who?”
“The Gorayni. The Wetheads.”
They had got the nickname because of their habit of wearing their hair long, in ringlets, dripping with a perfumed oil. They were also known as vicious warriors with a habit of slaughtering prisoners who hadn’t proved their valor by sustaining a serious wound before surrendering. “But they’re hundreds of kilometers north of here,” said Nafai, “and the Potoku are way to the southeast, and what do they have to fight about?”
“What do they teach you in your little school?” said Elemak. “The Potoku have extended their protection over all the coastal plain up to the Mochai River.”
“Sure, right. Protection from what?”
“From the Gorayni, Nafai. We’re between them. It’s called geography.”
“I know geography,” said Nafai. “I just don’t see why there should ever be a war between the Gorayni and the Potoku, and if there was, how they’d go about fighting it. I mean, Potokgavan has a fleet-all their homes are boats, for heaven’s sake-but since Goraynivat has no seacoast-”
“ Hadno seacoast. They’ve conquered Usluvat.”
“I guess I knew that.”
“Oh, I’m sure you did,” said Elemak. “They have horsewagons. Have you heard of those?”
“Wheels,” said Nafai. “Horses pulling men in boxes into battle.”
“And carrying supplies to feed an army on a long march. A very long march. Horsewagons are changing everything.” Suddenly Elemak sounded enthusiastic. It had been a lot of years since Nafai had seen Elya excited about anything. “I can envision a day when we’ll widen the Ridge Road and the Plains Road and Market Street so that the farmers can haul their produce up here in horsewagons. The same number of horses can haul ten times as much. One man, two horses, and a wagon can bring what it takes a dozen men and twenty horses to haul up here now. The price of food drops. The cost of transporting our products downhill drops even lower- there’s money there. I can envision roads going hundreds of kilometers, right across the desert-fewer animals in our caravans, less feed to haul and no need to find as much water on the journey. The world is getting smaller, and Father’s trying to block it.”
“AH this has something to do with his vision?”
“The old laws of the Oversold. Wheels for anything other than gears or toys are forbidden. Sacrilege. Abomination. Do you realize that horsewagons have been known about for thousands and thousands of years and nobody has ever built any?”
“Till now,” said Issib.
“Maybe there was a good reason,” said Nafai.
“The reason was superstition, that was the reason,” said Elemak, “but now .we have a chance to build two hundred horsewagons with Potokgavan paying for it and providing us with the designs, and the price Gaballufix has negotiated is high enough that we can build two hundred more for ourselves.”
“Why don’t the Potoku build their own wagons?”
“They’re coming here on boats,” said Elemak. “Instead of building the wagons in Potokgavan and then floating them all the way, they’ll simply send their soldiers and have the wagons waiting for them here.”
“Why here ?”
“Because here is where they’re going to draw the line. The Gorayni go no farther, or they face the wrath of the Potoku. Don’t try to understand it, Nafai, it’s men’s business.”
“It sounds to me like Father would be right to try to block this just on general principles,” said Nafai. “I mean, if they find out we’re building horsewagons for the Potoku, won’t that just make the Gorayni send an army here to stop us?”
“They won’t know until it’s too late.”
“Why won’t they know? Is Basilica so good at keeping secrets?”
“Even if they know, Nyef, the Potoku will be here to stop them from trying to punish us.”
“But if the Potoku weren’t coming, and therefore we weren’t making wagons for them, there’d be nothing for the Gorayni to punish us for .”
Elemak lowered his head to the table, making a show of his despair at trying to explain anything to Nafai.
“The world is changing,” said Issib. “We’re used to wars being local quarrels. But the Gorayni have changed it. They’re conquering other countries that never did them any harm.”
Elemak picked up the explanation. “Someday they’d reach us, with or without the Potoku here to protect us. Personally, I prefer letting the Potoku do the fighting.”
“I can’t believe all this has been going on and nobody’s even talking about it in the city,” said Nafai. “I really don’t have my ears plugged with mud, and I haven’t heard anything about us building wagons for Potokgavan.”
Elemak shook his head. “It’s a secret. Or it was, till Father brought it up before the entire clan council.”
“You mean somebody was doing this and the clan council didn’t even know?”
“It was a secret? said Elemak. “How many times do I have to say it?”
“So somebody was going to do this thing in the name of Basilica and the Palwashantu clan, and nobody in the clan council or the city council was going to be consulted about it?”
Issib laughed ruefully. “When you put it that way, it sounds pretty strange, doesn’t it.”
“It doesn’t sound strange at all,” said Elemak. “I can see that you’re already with Roptat’s party.”
“Who’s Roptat?”
Issib answered, “He’s a Palwashantu, Elya’s age is all, who’s been using this war talk to build up his reputation as a prophet. Not like Father, he doesn’t have visions from the Oversoul, he just writes prophecies that read like a shark tearing your leg off. And he keeps saying the same things that you just said.”
“You mean this secret plan is so well known that there’s already a party led by this Roptat trying to block it?”
“It wasn’t that secret,” said Ekmak. “There’s no plot. There’s no conspiracy. There’s just some good people trying to do something that’s in Basilica’s vital interest, and some traitors doing everything they can to stop it.”
Clearly Elemak had a one-sided view of things. Nafai had to offer another point of view. “Or maybe it’s some greedy profiteers putting our city in a terribly dangerous situation so they can get rich, and some good people are trying to save the city by stopping them. I’m just suggesting this as a possibility.”
Elemak was furious. “The people working on this project are already so rich that they hardly need any more money,” he said. “And what I don’t get is how a fourteen-year-old scholar who’s never had to do a man’s work in his life suddenly has opinions about political issues that he didn’t even know existed until ten minutes ago.”
“I was just asking a question,” said Nafai. “I wasn’t accusing you of anything.”
“Well of course you weren’t accusing me? said Elemak. “I’m not part of the project anyway.”
“Of course not,” said Nafai. “It’s a secret project.”
“I should have beaten the teeth out of your mouth this morning,” said Elemak.
Why did it always come down to threats? “Do you beat the teeth out of the mouth of everybody who asks you questions you don’t have any good answers for?”
“Never before,” said Elemak, getting up. “But now I’m going to make up for all those missed opportunities.”
“Stop it!” shouted Issib. “Don’t we have enough problems?”
Elemak hesitated, then sat back down. “I shouldn’t let him get to me.”
Nafai breathed again. He hadn’t noticed that he wasn’t breathing.
“He’s a child, what does he know?” said Elemak. “Father’s the one who should know better. He’s making a lot of people very angry. Some very dangerous people.”
“You mean they’re threatening him?” asked Nafai.
“Nobody threatens,” said Elemak. “That would be crude. They’re just . . . concerned about Father.”
“But if everybody’s laughing at Father, why should they care what he says? It sounds like it’s this Roptat they ought to be worried about.”
“It’s the vision thing,” said Elemak. “The Oversoul. Most men don’t take it all that seriously, but the women . . . the city council . . . your mother isn’t helping things.”
“Or she is helping things, depending on which side you’re on.”
“Right,” said Elemak. He got up from the table, but this time he wasn’t threatening. “I can see which side you’re on, Nyef, and I can only warn you that if Father has his way, we’ll end up in Gorayni chains.”
“Why are you so sure?” asked Nafai. “The Oversoul give you a vision or something?”
“I’m sure, my little half friend, because I understand things. When you grow up, you might actually come to know what that means. But I doubt it.” Elemak walked out of the kitchen.
Issib sighed. “Does anybody actually like anybody else in this family?”
Nafai’s food was overcooked, but he didn’t care. He was trembling so violently that he could hardly carry his tray to the table.
“Why are you shaking?”
“I don’t know,” said Nafai. “Maybe I’m afraid.”
“Of Elemak?”
“Why should I be afraid of him?” said Nafai. “Just because he could break my neck with his elbow.”
“Then why do you keep provoking him?”
“Maybe I’m also afraid for him.”
“Why?”
“Don’t you think it’s funny, Issib? Elya can sit here and talk about Father being in danger from powerful people-and yet his solution for it isn’t to denounce those dangerous people, it’s to try to get Father to stop talking.”
“Nobody’s being rational.”
“I actually do understand politics,” said Nafai. “I study history all the time. I left my class behind years ago. I know something about how wars start and who wins them. And this is the stupidest plan I’ve ever heard. Potokgavan has no chance of holding this area and no compelling reason to try. All that will happen is they’ll send an army, provoke the Gorayni into attacking, and then they’ll realize they can’t win and go home to their floodplain where the Wetheads can’t touch them, leaving us to bear the brunt of the Gorayni wrath. Building war wagons for them is so obviously going to lead to disaster that only a person completely blinded by greed could possibly support it. And if the Oversoul is telling Father to oppose the building of wagons, then the Oversoul is right.”
“I’m sure the Oversoul is relieved to have your approval.”
“Anything I can do to help.”
“Nafai, you’re fourteen.”
“So?”
“Elemak doesn’t want to hear that kind of thing from you.”
“Neither do you, right?”
“I’m really tired. It’s been a long day.” Issib floated out of the kitchen.
Nafai finally started to eat. To his disgust he had no appetite, even though he knew he was still hungry. Must eat, can’t eat. Forget it. He flushed the food down the drain and put the plate in the cleaning rack.
He walked out into the courtyard, heading for his room. The night air was chilly already-they were close enough to the desert to get sharp fells in temperature when the sun was down. He was still trembling. He didn’t know why. It wasn’t because of Father’s vision of the destruction of the world, and it wasn’t because of the war that would probably come to Basilica if they went ahead with the idiotic alliance with Potokgavan. Those were dangers, yes, but distant ones. And it wasn’t because of Elemak’s threats of violence, he’d lived with those all his life.
It wasn’t until he was lying on his mat, still shaking even though his room was not cold, that he finally realized what was bothering him. Elemak had mentioned that Gaballufix was involved in negotiating the price with the Potoku. Obviously this whole plan had Gaballufix’s support-who else but the clan chief would think he could commit the Palwashantu to such a dangerous course of action without even consulting the council? And so it was reasonable to suppose that when Elya warned about the dangerous enemies Father was making, it was Gaballufix he was referring to.
Gaballufix, whose house Elemak secretly visited today.
Where was Elemak’s loyalty? With Father? Or with his half-brother Gaballufix? Clearly Elya was involved with this war wagon plan. What else was he involved with? The dangerous people weren’t making threats, he had said. So what were they making-plans? Was Elya in on a plan to do something ugly to Father, and his hints were an attempt to warn Father away?
Just today, Mebbekew had spoken of metaphorical patricide.
No, thought Nafai. No, I’m simply upset because all of this has happened so suddenly, in one day. Father has a vision, and suddenly he’s caught up in city politics in a way he never was before, almost as if the Oversoul sent him this vision specifically because of this stupid provocative project of Gaballufix’s, because action needed to be taken now.
Why? What did the fate of Basilica matter to the Oversoul? Countless cities and nations had risen and fallen-dozens every century, thousands and thousands in all of human history. Maybe millions. The Oversoul hadn’t lifted a finger. It wasn’t war that the Oversoul cared about; it certainly wasn’t preventing human suffering. So why was the Oversoul getting involved now? What was the urgency? Was it worth tearing their family apart? And even if maybe it was, who decided anyway? Nobody had asked the Oversoul for this, so if they really were getting bounced around as part of some master plan, it might be nice if the Oversoul let them in on what it had in mind.
Nafai lay on his mat, trembling.
Then he remembered. I wasn’t going to sleep on a mat tonight. I was going to try to be a real man.
He almost laughed aloud. Sleeping on the bare floor- that would make me a man? What an idiot I am. What an ass.
Laughing at himself, now he could sleep.
“Wheredid you spend all day yesterday?”
Nafai didn’t want this conversation, but there was no avoiding it. Mother was not one to let one of her students disappear for a day without an accounting.
“I walked around.”
As he had expected, this was not going to be enough for Mother. “I didn’t think that you flew? “ she said. “Though I’m surprised you didn’t curl up somewhere and sleep. Where did you go?”
“To some very educational places,” said Nafai. He had in mind Gaballufix’s house and the Open Theatre, but of course Mother would interpret his words as she wished.
“Dolltown?” she asked.
“There’s nothing much going on there in the daytime, Mother.”
“And you shouldn’t be going there at all,” she said. “Or do you think you already know everything about everything, so that you have no further need of schooling?”
“There are some subjects you just don’t teach here, Mother.” Again, the truth-but not the truth.
“Ah,” she said. “Dhelembuvex was right about you.”
Oh, yes, wonderful. Time to get an Auntie for your little boy.
“I should have seen it coming. Your body is growing so fast-too fast, I fear, outstripping your maturity in every other area.”
This was too much to bear. He had planned to listen calmly to everything she said, let her jump to her own conclusions, and then get back to class and have done with the whole thing. But to have her thinking that his gonads were running his life when, if anything, his mind was more mature than his body-
“Is that as smart as you know how to be, Mother?”
She raised an eyebrow.
He knew he was already overstepping himself, but he had begun, and the words were there in his mind, and so he said them. “You see something inexplicable going on, and if it’s a boy doing it, you’re sure it has to do with his sexual desires.”
She half-smiled. “I do have some knowledge of men, Nafai, and the idea that the behavior of a fourteen-year-old might have some link to sexual desire is based on much evidence.”
“But I’m your son, and still you don’t know me from a pile of bricks.”
“So you didn’t go to Dolltown?”
“Not for any reason you’d imagine.”
“Ah,” she said. “I can imagine many reasons. But not one of the possible reasons for you to go to Dolltown suggests that you have very good judgment.”
“Oh, and you’re the expert on good judgment, I imagine.”
His sarcasm was not playing well. “You forget, I think, that I am your mother and your schoolmistress.”
“It was you, Mother, and not I who invited those two girls to that family meeting yesterday.”
“And this showed poor judgment on my part?”
“Extremely poor. By the time I got to the Open Theatre it was still several hours before dark, and already the word was out about Father’s vision.”
“That’s not surprising,” said Mother. “Father went directly to the clan council. It would hardly be a secret after that.”
“Not just his vision^ Mother. There was already a satire in rehearsal-one of Drotik’s, too, no less-that included a fascinating little portico scene. Since the only people present who were not family were those two witchgirls-”
“Hold your tongue!”
He immediately fell silent, but with an undeniable sense of victory. Yes, Mother was furious-but he had also scored a point with her, to get her this angry.
“Your referring to them by that demeaning manw&rd is offensive in the extreme,” said Mother. Her voice was quiet now; she was really angry. “Luet is a seer and Hushidh is a raveier. Furthermore, both have been completely discreet, mentioning nothing to anyone.”
“Oh, have you watched them every second since-”
“I said to hold your tongue.” Her voice was like ice. “For your information, my bright, wise, mature little boy, the reason there was a portico scene in Drotik’s satire- which, by the way, I saw, and it was very badly done, so it hardly worries me-the reason there was a portico scene was because while your father was going to the clan council, I was at the city council, and when I told the story I included the events on this portico. Why, asks my brilliant son with a deliciously stupid look on his face? Because the only thing that made the council take your father’s vision seriously was the fact that Luet believed him and found his vision consonant with her own.”
Motherhad told. Mother had brought down ridicule and ruin upon the family. Unbelievable. “Ah,” said Nafai.
“I thought you’d see things a little differently.”
“I see that there was nothing wrong with having Luet and Hushidh at the family meeting,” said Nafai. “It was you who should have been excluded.”
Her hand lashed out across his face. If she had been aiming for his cheek, she missed, perhaps because he reflexively drew his head back. Instead her fingernail caught him on the chin, tearing the skin. It stung and drew blood.
“You forget yourself, sir,” she said.
“Not as badly as you have forgotten yourself, Madam,” he answered. Or rather, that was how he meant to answer. He even began to answer that way, but in the middle of the sentence the enormity of her having struck him that way, the shock and hurt of it, the sheer humiliation of his mother hitting him reduced him to tears. “I’m sorry,” he said. Though what he really wanted to say was How dare you, I’m too old for that, I hate you. It was impossible to say such harsh things, however, when he was crying like a baby. Nafai hated it, how tears had always come so easily to him, and it wasn’t getting any better as he got older.
“Maybe next rime you’ll remember to speak to me with proper respect,” she said. But she, too, was unable to maintain her sharp tone, for even as she spoke he felt her arm around him as she sat beside him, comforted him.
She could not possibly understand that the way she nestled his head to her shoulder only added to the humiliation and confirmed him in his decision to regard her as an enemy. If she had the power to make him cry because of his love for her, then there was only one possible solution for him: to cease loving her. This was the last time she would ever be able to do this to him.
“You’re bleeding,” she said.
“It’s nothing,” he said.
“Let me stanch it-here, with a clean handkerchief, not that horrible rag you carry in your pocket, you absurd little boy.”
That’s all I’ll ever be in this house, isn’t it? An absurd little boy. He pulled away from her, refused to let the handkerchief touch his chin. But she persisted, and dabbed at the wound, and the white cloth came away surprisingly bloody-so he took it from her hand and pressed it against the wound. “Deep, I guess,” he said.
“If you hadn’t moved your head back, my nails wouldn’t have caught your chin like that.”
If you hadn’t slapped me, your nails would have been in your lap. But he held his tongue.
“I can see that you’re taking our family’s situation very much to heart, Nafai, but your values arc a little twisted. What does the ridicule of the satirists matter? Everyone knows that every great figure in the history of Basilica was darted at one time or another, and usually for the very thing that made her-or him-great. We can bear that. What matters is that Father’s vision was a very clear warning from the Oversold, with immediate implications for our city’s course of action over the next few days and weeks and months. The embarrassment will pass. And among the women in this city who really count, Father is viewed as quite a remarkable man-their respect for him is growing. So try to control your embarrassment at your father’s having come to the center of attention. All children in their early teens are excruciatingly sensitive to embarrassment, but in time you will learn that criticism and ridicule are not always bad. To earn the enmity of evil people can speak very well of you.”
He could hardly believe she thought so little of him as to think he needed such a lecture as this one. Did she really believe that it was embarrassment he feared? If she had listened instead of lecturing, he might have told her about Elemak’s warning about danger to Father, about his secret visit to Gaballufix’s house. But it was clear that in her eyes he was still nothing but a child. She wouldn’t take his warning seriously. Indeed, she’d probably give him another lecture about not letting fears and worries take possession of your mind, but instead to concentrate on his studies and let adults worry about the real problems in the world.
In her mind, I’m still six years old and I always will be. “I’m sorry, Mother. I’ll not speak to you that way again.” In fact, I doubt that I’ll ever say anything serious or important to you again as long as you live.
“I accept your apology, Nafai, as I hope you’ll accept mine for having struck you in my anger.”
“Of course, Mother.” I’ll accept your apology- whenyou offer it and when I believe that you mean it. However, as a matter of fact, dear beloved breadbasket out of whom I sprang, you did not actually apologize to me at any point in our conversation. You only expressed the hope that I would accept an apology which in fact was never offered.
“I hope, Nafai, you will resume your studies and not allow these events in the city to disturb the normal routines of your life any further. You have a very keen mind, and there is no particular reason for you to let these things distract you from the honing of that mind.”
Thank you for the dollop of praise, Mother. You’ve told me that I’m childish, that I’m a slave of lust, and that my views are to be silenced, not listened to. You’ll pay serious attention to every word drooled from the mouth of that witch girl, but you start from the assumption that anything I say is worthless.
“Yes, Mother,” said Nafai. “But Pd rather not go back to class right now, if you don’t mind.”
“Of course not,” she said. “I understand completely.”
Dear Oversoul, keep me from laughing.
“I can’t have you out wandering the streets again, Nafai, I’m sure you can understand that. Father’s vision has attracted enough attention that someone will say something that will make you angry, and I don’t want you fighting.”
So you’re worried about me fighting, Mother? Kindly remember who struck whom here on your portico today.
“Why not spend the day in the library, with Issib? He’ll be a good influence on you, I think-he’s always so calm.”
Issib, always calm? Poor Mother-she knows nothing at all about her own sons. Women never do understand men. Of course, men don’t understand women any better-but at least we don’t suffer from the delusion that we do.
“Yes, Mother. The library’s fine.”
She arose. Then you must go there now. Keep the handkerchief, of course.”
She left the portico, not waiting to see if he obeyed.
He immediately got to his feet and walked around the screen, straight to the balustrade, and looked out over the Rift Valley.
There was no sign of the lake. A thick cloud filled the lower reaches of the valley, and since the valley walls seemed to grow steeper just before the fog began, for all he knew the lake might be invisible from this spot even without the fog.
All he could see from here was the white cloud and the deep, lush greens of the forest that lined the valley. Here and there he could see smoke rising from a chimney, for there were women who lived on the valley slopes. Father’s housekeeper, Truzhnisha, was one of them. She kept a house in the district called West Shelf, one of the twelve districts of Basilica where only women were allowed to live or even enter. The Women’s Districts were far less populated than any of the twenty-four districts where men were allowed to live (though not own property, of course), yet on the City Council they wielded enormous power, since their representatives always voted as a bloc. Conservative, religious-no doubt those were the councilors who were most impressed by the fact that Luet had confirmed Father’s vision. If they agreed with Father on the war wagon issue, then it would take the votes of only six other councilors to create stalemate, and of seven councilors to take positive action against Gaballufix’s plans.
It was these same councilors from the Women’s Districts who, for thousands of years, had refused to allow any subdivision of the thickly populated Open Districts, or to give a council vote to any of the districts outside the walls, or to allow men to own property within the wall, or anything else that might tend to dilute or weaken the absolute rate of women in Basilica. Now, looking out over the secret valley, filled with rage against his mother, Nafai could hardly see how beautiful this place was, how rich with mystery and life; all he could see was how unbelievably few the houses were.
How do they divide this into a dozen districts? There must be some districts where the three women who live there take turns being the councilor.
And outside the city, in the tiny but expensive cubicles where unmated men without households were forced to live, there was no legal recourse to demand fairer treatment, to insist on laws protecting bachelors from their landlords, or from women whose promises disappeared when they lost interest in a man, or even from each other’s violence. For a moment, standing there looking out over the untamed greenery of the Rift, Nafai understood how a man like Gaballufix might easily gather men around him, struggling to gain some power in this city where men were unmanned by women every day and every hour of their lives.
Then, as the wind gusted a little over the valley, the cloud moved, and there was a shimmer of reflected light. The surface of a lake, not at the center of the deepest part of the rift, but higher, farther away. Without thinking, Nafai reflexively looked away. It was one thing to come to7 the balustrade in defiance of his Mother, it was another thing to look on the holy lake where women went for their worship. If there was one thing becoming clear in all this business, it was that the Oversoul might very well be real. There was no point in earning its wrath over something as stupid as looking at some lake over the edge of Mother’s portico.
Nafai turned away from the view and hurried back around the screen, feeling foolish all the while. What if I’m caught? Well, so what if I am? No, no, the defiance wasn’t worth the risk. He had more practical work to do. If Mother wasn’t going to listen to his fears about the danger to Father, then Nafai would have to do something himself. But first he had to know more-about Gaballufix, about the Oversoul, about everything.
For a moment he toyed with the idea of going to Luet and asking her questions. She knew about the Oversoul, didn’t she? She saw visions all the time, not just once, like Father. Surely she could explain.
But she was a woman, and at this moment Nafai knew that he’d get no help of any kind from women. On the contrary-women in Basilica were taught from child- hood on how to oppress men and make them feel worthless. Luet would laugh at him and go straight to Mother to tell her about his questions.
If he could trust anyone in this, it would be other -men-and precious few of them, since the danger to Father was coming from Gaballufix’s party. Perhaps he could enlist the help of this Roptat that Elya had talked about. Or find out something about what the Oversoul was doing in the first place.
Issib wasn’t thrilled to see him. “I’m busy and I don’t need interruptions.”
“This is the household library,” said Nafai. “This is where we always come to do research.”
“See? You’re interrupting already.”
“Look, I didn’t say anything, I just came in here, and you started picking at me the second I walked in the door.”
“I was hoping you’d walk back out.”
“I can’t. Mother sent me here.” Nafai walked over behind Issib, who was floating comfortably in the air in front of his computer display. It was layered about thirty pages deep, but each page had only a few words on it, so he could see almost everything at once. Like a game of solitaire, in which Issib was simply moving fragments from place to place.
The fragments were all words in weird languages. The ones Nafai recognized were very old.
“What language is th a t?” Nafai asked, pointing to one.
Issib sighed. “I’m so glad you’re not interrupting me.”
“What is it, some ancient form of Vijati?”
“Very good. It’s Slucajan, which came from Obilazati, the original form of Vijati. It’s dead now.”
“I read Vijati, you know.”
“ Idon’t,”
“Oh, so you’re specializing in ancient, obscure languages that nobody speaks anymore, including you?”
“I’m not learning these languages, I’m researching lost words.”
“If the whole language is dead, then all the words are lost.”
“Words that used to have meanings, but that died out or survived only in idiomatic expressions. Like ‘dancing bear.’ What’s a bear^ do you know?”
“I don’t know. I always thought it was some kind of graceful bird.”
“Wrong. It’s an ancient mammal. Known only on Earth, I think, and not brought here. Or it died out soon. It was bigger than a man, very powerful. A predator.”
“And it danced ?”
“The expression used to mean something absurdly clumsy. Like a dog walking on its hind legs.”
“And now it means the opposite. That’s weird. How could it change?”
“Because there aren’t any bears. The meaning used to be obvious, because everybody knew what a bear was and how clumsy it would look, dancing. But when the bears were gone, the meaning could go anywhere. Now we use it for a person who’s extremely deft in getting out of an embarrassing social situation. It’s the only case where we use the word bear anymore. And you see a lot of people misspelling it, too.”
“Great stuff. You doing a linguistics project?”
“No.”
“What’s this for, then?”
“Me.”
“Just collecting old idioms.”
“Lost words.”
“Like bear? The word isn’t lost, Issya. It’s the bears that are gone.”
“Very good, Nyef. You get full credit for the assignment. Go away now.”
“You’re not researching lost words. You’re researching words that have lost their meanings because the thing they refer to doesn’t exist anymore.”
Issya slowly turned his head to look at Nafai. “You mean that you’ve actually developed a brain?”
Nafai pointed at the screen. “Kolesnisha. That’s a word in Kunic. You’ve got the meaning right there - war wagon. Kunic hasn’t been spoken in ten million years. It’s just a written language now. And yet they had a word for war wagon. Which was only just invented. Which means that there used to be war wagons a long time ago.”
Issib laughed. A low chuckle, but it went on and on.
“What, am I wrong?”
“It just kills me, that’s all. How obvious it is. Even you can just walk up to a computer display and see the whole thing at once. So why hasn’t anybody noticed this before? Why hasn’t anybody noticed the fact that we had the word wagon already, and we all knew what it meant, and yet as far as we know there have never been any wagons anywhere in the world ever?
“That’s really weird, isn’t it?”
“It isn’t weird, it’s scary. Look at what the Wetheads are doing with their war wagons - their kolesnishety. It gives them a vital advantage in war. They’re building a real empire, not just a system of alliances, but actual control over nations that are six days’ travel, away from their city. Now, if war wagons can do that, and people used to have them millions of years ago, how did we ever forget what they were? “
Nafai thought about that for a while. “You’d have to be really stupid,” he said. “I mean, people don’t forget things like that. Even if you had peace for a thousand years, you’d still have pictures in the library.”
“No pictures of war wagons,” said Issib.
“I mean, that’s stupid,” said Nafai.
“And this word,” said Issib.
“Zrakoplov?said Nafai. “That’s definitely an Obilazati word.”
“Right.”
“What does it mean? ‘Air’something.”
“Broken down and loosely translated, yes, it means ‘air swimmer.’“
Nafai thought about this for a while. He conjured up a picture in his mind-a fish moving through the air. “A flying fish?”
“It’s a machine,” said Issib.
“A really fast ship?”
“Listen to yourself, Nafai. It should be obvious to you. And yet you keep resisting the plain meaning of it.”‘
“An underwater boat?”
“How would that be an air swimmer, Nyef?”
“I don’t know.” Nafai felt silly. “I forgot about the air part.”
“You forgot about it-and yet you recognized the ‘air part’ right off, by yourself. You knew that Zraky was the Obilazati root for air, and yet you forgot the ‘air part.’“
“So I’m really, really dumb.”
“But you’re not, Nyef. You’re really really smart, and yet you’re still standing here looking at the word and I’m telling you all this and you still can’t think of what the word means.”
“Well, what’s this word,” said Nafai, pointing ztpuscani prah. “I don’t recognize the language.”
Issib shook his head. “If I didn’t see it happening to you, I wouldn’t believe it.”
“What?”
“Aren’t you even curious to know what a zrakoplov is?”
“You told me. Air swimmer.”
“A machine whose name is air swimmer.”
“Sure. Right. So what’s a puscani prah?”
Issib slowly turned around and faced Nafai. “Sit down, my dear beloved brilliant stupid brother, thou true servant of the Oversoul. I’ve got something to tell you about machines that swim through the air.”
“I guess I’m interrupting you,” said Nafai.
“I want to talk to you,” said Issib. “It’s not an interruption. I just want to explain the idea of flying-”
Td better go.”
“Why? Why are you so eager to leave?”
“I don’t know.” Nafai walked to the door. “I need some air. I’m running out of air.” He walked out of the room. Immediately he felt better. Not lightheaded anymore. What was all that about, anyway? The library was too stuffy. Too crowded. Too many people in there,
“Why did you leave?” asked Issib.
Nafai whirled. Issib was silently floating out of the library after him. Nafai immediately felt the same kind of claustrophobia that had driven him out into the hall. “Too crowded in there,” said Nafai. “I need to be alone.”
“I was the only person in there,” said Issib.
“Really?” Nafai tried to remember. “I want to get outside. Just let me go.”
“Think,” said Issib. “Remember when Luet and Father were talking yesterday?”
Immediately Nafai relaxed. He didn’t feel claustrophobic anymore. “Sure.”
“And Luet was testing Father-about his memories. When his memory of the vision he saw was wrong, he felt kind of stupid, right?”
“He said.”
“Stupid. Disconnected. He just stared into space.” . ”I guess.”
“Like you,” said Issib. “When I pushed you about the meaning of zrakoplov”
Suddenly Nafai felt as if there were no air in his lungs. “I’ve got to get outside!”
“You are really sensitive to this,” said Issib. “Even worse than Father and Mother when I tried to tell them?
“Stop following me!” Nafai cried. But Issib continued to float down the hall after him, down the stairs, out into the street. There, in the open, Issib easily passed Nafai, floating here and there in front of him. As if he were herding Nafai back toward the house.
“Stop it!” cried Nafai. But he couldn’t get away. He had never felt such panic before. Turning, he stumbled, fell to his knees.
“It’s all right,” said Issib softly. “Relax. It’s nothing. Relax.”
Nafai breathed more easily. Issib’s voice sounded safe now. The panic subsided. Nafai lifted his head and looked around. “What are we doing out here on the street? Mother’s going to kill me.”
“You ran out here, Nafai.”
“I did?”
“It’s the Oversoul, Nafai.”
“What’sthe Oversoul?”
“The force that sent you outside rather than listen to me talk about-about the thing that the Oversoul doesn’t want people to know about.”
“That’s silly,” said Nafai. “The Oversoul spreads information, it doesn’t conceal it. We submit our writings, our music, everything, and the Oversoul transmits it from city to city, from library to library all over the world.”
“Your reaction was much stronger than Father’s,” said Issib. “Of course, I pushed you harder, too.”
“What do you mean?”
“The Oversoul is inside your head, Nafai. Inside all of our heads. But some have it more than others. It’s there, watching what we think. I know it’s hard to believe.”
But Nafai remembered how Luet had known what was in his mind. “No, Issya, I already knew that.”
“Really?” said Issib. “Well then. As soon as the Over-soul knew that you were getting close to a forbidden subject, it started making you stupid”
“Whatforbidden subject?”
“If I remind you, if it’ll just set you off again,” said Issib.
“When did I get stupid?”
“Trust me. You got very stupid. Trying to change the subject without even realizing it. Normally you’re extremely insightful, Nafai. Very bright. You get things. But this time up in the library you just stood there like an idiot, with the truth staring you in the face, and you didn’t recognize it. When I reminded you, when I pushed, you got claustrophobic, right? Hard to breathe, had to get out of the room. I followed you, I pushed again, and here we are.”
Nafai tried to think back over what had happened. Issib was right about the order of events. Only Nafai hadn’t connected his need to get out of the house with anything Issib said. In fact, he couldn’t for the life of him remember what it was that Issib had been talking about. “You pushed?”
“I know,” said Issib. “I felt it, too, when I first started getting on the track of this a couple of years ago. I was playing around with lost words, just like that dancing bear thing. Making lists. I had a l&ng list of terms like that, with definitions and explanations after each one, along with my best guess about what each lost word meant. And then one day I was looking at a list that I thought was complete and I realized that there were a couple of dozen words that had no meanings at all. That’s stupid, I thought. That’s ruining my list. So I deleted all those words.”
“Deleted them?” Nafai was appalled. “Instead of researching them?”
“See how stupid it can make you?” said Issib. “And the moment I finished deleting them, it came to me-what am I doing! So I reached for the undelete command, but instead of pushing those keys, I reflexively gave the kill command, completely wiping out the delete buffer, and then I saved the file right over the old one.” , “That’s too complicated to be clumsiness,” said Nafai.
“Exactly. I knew that deleting them was a mistake, and yet instead of undoing that mistake and bringing the words back, I killed them, wiped them out of the system.”
“And you think the Oversoul did that to you?”
“Nafai, haven’t you ever wondered what the Oversoul is? What it does?”
“Sure.”
“Me too. And now I know.”
“Because of those words?”
“I haven’t got them all back, but I retraced as much of my research as I could and I got a list of eight words. You have no idea how hard it was, because now I was sensitized to them. Before, I must have simply overlooked them, gotten stupid when I saw them-the way Father did when he was getting wrong ideas about the Oversoul’s vision. That’s how they got on my first list, but without definitions-I just got stupid whenever I thought of them. But now when I saw them I’d get that claustrophobic feeling. I needed air. I had to get out of the library. But I forced myself to go inside. It’s the hardest thing I’ve ever done. I forced myself to stay and think about the unthinkable. To hold concepts in my mind that the Oversoul doesn’t want us to remember.
Concepts that once were so common that every language in the world has words for them. Ancient words. Lost words.”
“The Oversoul is hiding things from us?”
“Yes.”
“Like what?”
“If I tell you, Nafai, you’ll take off again.”
“No I won’t.”
“You wtil? said Issib. “Do you think I don’t know? Do you think I haven’t had my own struggle this past year? So you can imagine my surprise when last night Elemak sits there in the kitchen and explains to us about one of the forbidden things. War wagons.”
“Forbidden? How could it be forbidden, it isn’t even ancient.”
“See? You’ve forgotten already. The word kolesnisha”
“Oh, yes. That’s right. No, I remember that.”
“But you didn’t till I said it.”
That’s right, thought Nafai. A memory lapse.
“Last night you and Elemak were sitting there talking about war wagons, even though it took me months to be able to study the word kolesnisha without gasping the whole time.”
“But we didn’t say kolesnisha.”
“What I’m telling you, Nafai, is that the Oversold is breaking down.”
“That’s an old theory.”
“But it’s a true one,” said Issib. “The Oversoul has certain concepts that it is protecting, that it refuses to let human beings think about. Only in the past few years the Wetheads have suddenly become able to think about one of them. And so have the Potoku. And so have we. And last night, hearing Elemak talk about it, I felt not one twinge of the panic.”
“But it still made me forget the word. Kolesnisha,?
“A lingering residual effect. You remembered it this time, right? Nafai, the Oversoul has given up on keeping us away from the war wagon concept. After millions of years, it isn’t trying anymore.”
“What else?” asked Nafai. “What are the other concepts?”
“It hasn’t given up on those yet. And you seem to be really sensitive to the Oversoul, Nyef. I don’t know if I can tell you, or if you’d be able to remember for five minutes even if I did.”
“You mean I can know that the Oversoul is keeping us from knowing things, only I can’t know which things because the Oversoul is still keeping me from knowing them.”
“Right.”
“Then why doesn’t the Oversoul stop people from thinking about murder^ Why doesn’t the Oversoul stop people from thinking about war, and rape, and stealing? If it can do this to me^ why doesn’t it do something useful?”
Issib shook his head. “It doesn’t seem right. But I’ve been thinking about it-I’ve had a year, remember-and here’s the best thing IVe come up with. The Oversoul doesn’t want to stop us from being human. Including all the rotten things we do to each other. It’s just trying to hold down the scale of our rottenness. All the things that are forbidden-how can I tell you this without setting you off?-if we still had the machines that the forbidden words refer to, it would make it so that anything we did would reach farther, and each weapon would cause more damage, and everything would happen faster:”
“Time would speed up?”
“No,” said Issib. He was obviously choosing his words carefully. “What if . . . what if the Gorayni could bring an army of five thousand men from Yabrev to Basilica in one day.”
“Don’t make me laugh.”
“But if they could ?”
“We’d be helpless, of course.”
“Why?”
“Well, we’d have no time to get an army together.”
“So if we knew other nations could do that, we’d have to keep an army all the time, wouldn’t we, just in case somebody suddenly attacked.”
“I guess.”
“So then, knowing that, suppose the Gorayni found a way to get, not five thousand, but fifty thousand soldiers here, and not in a day, but in six hours.”
“Impossible.”
“What if I tell you that it’s been done?”
“Whoever could do that would rule the whole world.”
“Exactly, Nyef, unless everybody else could do it, too. But what kind of world would that be? It would be as if the world had turned small, and everybody was right next door to everybody else. A cruel, bullying, domineering nation like the Gorayni could put their armies on anybody’s doorstep. So all other nations of the world would have to band together to stop them. And instead of a few thousand people dying, a million, ten million people might die in a war.”
“So that’s why the Oversoul keeps us from thinking about . . , quick ways . . . to get lots of soldiers from one place to another.”
“That was hard to say, wasn’t it?”
“I kept ... my mind kept wandering.”
“It’s a hard concept to keep in your mind, and you aren’t even thinking about anything specific.”
“I hate this,” said Nafai. “You can’t even tell me how anybody could do a trick like that. I can hardly even hold the concept in my mind as it is. I hate this.”
“I don’t think the Oversoul is used to having anybody notice. I think that the very fact that you’re able to think about the concept of unthinkable concepts means that the Oversoul is losing control.”
“Issya, I’ve never felt so helpless and stupid in my life.”
“And it isn’t just wars and armies,” said Issib. “Remember the stories of Klati?”
“The slaughter man?”
“Climbing in through women’s windows in the night and gutting them like cattle in the butcher’s shop.”
“Why couldn’t the Oversoul have made him get stupid when he thought of doing that?”
“Because the Oversoul’s job isn’t to make us perfect,” said Issib. “But imagine if Klati had been able to get on a-been able to travel very quickly and get to another city in six hours.”
“They would have known he was a stranger and watched him so closely that he couldn’t have done a thing.”
“But you don’t understand-thousands, millions of people every day are doing the same thing-”
“Butchering women?”
“Flying from one place to another.”
“This is too crazy to think about!” shouted Nafai. He bounded to his feet and moved toward the house.
“Come back,” cried Issib. “You don’t really think that, you’re being made to think it!”
Nafai leaned against one of the pillars of the front porch, Issib was right. He had been fine, and then suddenly Issib said whatever it was that he said and suddenly Nafai had to leave, had to get away and now here he was, panting, leaning up against the pillar, his heart pounding so hard that somebody else could probably hear it from a meter away. Could this really be the Oversoul, making him so stupid and fearful? If it was, then the Oversoul was his enemy. And Nafai refused to surrender. He could think about things whether the Oversoul liked it or not. He could think about the thing that Issib had said, and he could do it without running away.
In his mind Nafai retraced the last few moments of his conversation with Issib. About Klati. Going from city to city in a few hours. Other cities would notice him, of course-but then Issib said what if thousands of people . . . were ... flying.
The picture that came into Nafai’s mind was ludicrous. To imagine people in the air, like birds, soaring, swooping. He should laugh-but instead, thinking of it made his throat feel tight. His head felt tight, constrained. A sharp pain grew out of his neck and up into the back of his head. But he could think of it. People flying. And from there he could finish Issib’s thought. People flying from city to city, thousands of them, so that the authorities in each city had no way of keeping track of one person.
“Klati could have killed once in each city and no one would ever have found him,” said Nafai.
Issib was beside him again, his arm resting oh-so-lightly across Nafai’s shoulder as he leaned against the pillar. “Yes,” said Issib.
“But what would it mean to be a citizen of a place?” asked Nafai. “If a thousand people ... flew here . . . to Basilica . . . today.”
“It’s all right,” said Issib. “You don’t have to say it.”
“Yes I do,” said Nafai. “I can think anything. It can’t stop me.”
“I was just trying to explain-that the Oversoul doesn’t stop the evil in the world-it just stops it from getting out of hand. It keeps the damage local. But the good things-think about it, Nafai-we give our art and music and stories to the Oversoul, and it offers them to every other nation. The good things do spread. So it does make the world a better place.”
“No,” said Nafai. “In some ways better, yes, but how can it help but be a good thing to live in a world where people . . . where we could . . . fly?
The word almost choked him, but he said it, and even though he could hardly bear to stay in the same place, the air felt so close and unbreathable, nevertheless he stayed.
“You’re good,” said Issib. “I’m impressed.”
But Nafai didn’t feel impressive. He felt sick and angry and betrayed. “How does the Oversoul have the right? he said. “To take this all away from us.”
“What, armies appearing at our gates without warning? I’m glad enough not to have that.”
Nafai shook his head. “It’s deciding what I can think?
“Nyef, I know the feeling, I went through all this months ago, and I kww^ it makes you so angry and frightened. But I also know that you can overcome it. And yesterday, when Mother talked about her vision. Of a planet burning. There’s a word for-well, you couldn’t hear it now, I know that-but the Oversoul has been keeping us from that. For thirty or forty million years- don’t you realize that this is a long time? More history than we can imagine. It’s all stored away somewhere, but the most we can hold onto, the most that we can get into our minds is the most skeletal sort of plan of what’s happened in the world for the last ten million years or so-and it takes years and years of study to comprehend even that much. There are kingdoms and languages we’ve never heard of even in the last million years, and yet nothing is really lost. When I went searching in the library, I was able to find references to works in other libraries and trace my way back until I read a crude translation from a book written thirty-two million years ago and do you know what it said? Even then the writer was saying that history was now too long, too full for the human mind to comprehend it. That if all of human history were compressed into a single thousand-page volume, the whole story of humankind on Earth would be only a single page. And that was thirty-two million years ago.”
“So we’ve been here a long time.”
“If I take that writer’s arithmetic literally, that would mean that human history on Earth lasted only eight thousand years before the planet . . . burned.”
Nafai understood. The Oversold had kept human beings from expanding the scale of their destructiveness, and so humanity had lasted five thousand times longer on the planet Harmony than it did on Earth.
“So why didn’t the Oversoul keep Earth from being destroyed?”
“I don’t know,” said Issib. “I have a guess.”
“And what’s that?”
“I don’t know if you’ll be allowed to think about it.”
“Give me a try.”
“The Oversoul wasn’t made until people got to Harmony. It has the same meaning in every language, you know-the name of the planet. Sklad. Endrakt. So-glassye. Maybe when they got here, with Earth in ashes behind them, they decided never to let it happen again. Maybe that’s when the Oversoul was put in place-to stop us from ever having such terrible power.”
“Then the Oversold would be-an artifact.”
“Yes,” said Issib. “This isn’t hard for you to think about?”
“No,” said Nafai. “Easy. It’s not that uncommon a thought. People have talked about the Oversoul as a machine before.”
“It was hard for me? said Issib. “But maybe because I came to the idea another way. Through a couple of unthinkable paths. Genetic alteration of the human brain so it could receive and transmit thoughts from communications satellites orbiting the planet.”
Nafai heard the words, but they meant nothing to him.
“You didn’t understand that, did you,” said Issib.
“No,” said Nafai.
“I didn’t think you would.”
“Issya, what is the Oversoul doing to us now?”
That’s what I’ve been working on. Trying to look through the forbidden words, find the pattern, find out what it means to be giving Father this vision of a world on fire. And Mother. And the dream of blood and ashes that Luet was given.”
“It means that we’re puppets.”
“No, Nafai. Don’t talk yourself into hating the Over-soul about this. That does no good at all-I know that now. We have to understand it. What it’s doing. Because the world really is in danger, if the Oversoul’s control is breaking down. And it is. It’s given up on war wagons- what will it give up on next? What empire will be the next to get out of hand? Which one will discover-that word you asked about-puscani prah. It’s a powder that when you put flame to it, it blows up. Pops like a balloon, only with thousands of times more force. Enough to make a wall fall down. Enough to kill people.”
“Please stop,” whispered Nafai. It was more than he could bear, fighting off the panic he felt as he heard these words.
“The Oversoul is not our enemy. In feet, I think-I think it called on Father because it needs help.”
“Why haven’t you said any of this before?”
“I have-to Father. To Mother. To some teachers. Other students. Other scholars. I even wrote it up in an article, but if nobody ever remembers receiving it, they can never find it. Even when I sent it to the same person four times. I gave up.”
“But you told me?
“You came into the library,” said Issib. “I thought- why not?”
“ Zrakoplov,” said Nafai.
“I can’t believe you remembered the word,” said Issib.
“A machine. The people don’t just ... fly. They use a machine.”
“Don’t push it,” said Issib. “You’ll just make yourself sick. You have a headache already, right?”
“But I’m right, yes?”
“My best guess is that it was hollow, like a house, and people got inside it to fly. Like a ship, only through the air. With wings. But we had them here, I think. You know the district of Black Fields?”
“Of course, just west of the market.”
“The old name of it was Skyport. The name lasted until twenty million years ago, more or less. Skyport. When they changed it, nobody remembered what it even meant.”
“I can’t think about this anymore,” said Nafai.
“Do you want to remember it, though?” asked Issib.
“How can I forget it?”
“You will, you know. If I don’t remind you. Every day. Do you want me to? It’ll feel like this every time. It’ll make you sick. Do you want to just forget this, or do you want me to keep reminding you?”
“Who reminded you ?”
“I left myself notes,” said Issib. “In the library computers. Reminders. Why do you think it took me a year to get this far?”
“I want to remember,” said Nafai.
“You’ll get angry at me.”
“Remind me not to.”
“It’ll make you sick.”
“So I’ll faint a lot.” Nafai slid down the pillar and sat on the porch, looking out toward the street. “Why hasn’t anybody noticed us out here? We haven’t exactly been whispering.”
Issib laughed. “Oh, they noticed. Mother came out once, and a couple of the teachers. They heard us talking for a couple of moments and then they just sort of forgot why they came out.”
“This is great. If we want them to leave us alone, all we have to do is talk about the zmkoplovs?
“Well,” said Issib, “that only works with people who are still closely tied with the Oversoul.”
“Who isn’t?”
“Whoever thought of the war wagons, for instance.”
“You said the Oversoul had given up on them.”
“Sure, recently^ said Issib. “But there were people in Basilica planning to build war wagons, people dealing with the Potoku about them for a long rime. More than a year. They had no trouble with the Oversoul. It’s like they’re deaf to it now. But most people aren’t-which is why Gaballufix and his men were able to keep it secret for so long. Most people who heard anything about war wagons would simply have forgotten they even heard it. In fact,” added Issib, “the Oversoul may have deliberately stopped forbidding that idea in the last little while precisely because there had to be open discussion of the war wagon thing in order to stop it.”
“So the people who are deaf to the Oversoul-in order to stop them, the Oversoul has to stop controlling the rest of us, too.”
“It’s a double bind,” said Issib. “In order to win, the Oversoul has to give up. I’d say that the Oversoul is in serious trouble.”
It was making sense to Nafai, except for one thing. “But why did it start talking to Father ?”
“That’s what we need to figure out. That, and what it’s going to tell Father to do next.”
“Oh, hey, let’s let the Oversoul keep a few surprises up its sleeve.” Nafai laughed, but he didn’t really think it was funny.
Neither did Issib. “Even if we believe in the Oversoul’s cause, Nafai, somewhere along in here we may find out that the Oversoul is causing more harm than good. What do we do then?”
“Hey, Issya, it may be doing a bad job these days, but that doesn’t mean that we’d do better without it.”
“I guess we’ll never know, will we?”
For a week Nafai worked with Issib every day. They slept at Mother’s house every night-they didn’t ask, but then, Mother didn’t send them away, either. It was a grueling time, not because the work was so hard but because the interference from the Oversoul was so painful. Issib was right, however. It could be overcome; and even though Nafai’s aversive response was stronger than Issib’s had been, he was able to get over it more quickly-mostly because Issib was there to help him, to assure him that it was worth doing, to remind him what it was about.
They began to work out a pretty clear picture of what it was that humans had once had, and that the Oversoul had long kept them from reinventing.
A communications system in which a person could talk instantly and directly to a person in any other city in the world.
Machines that could receive artwork and plays and stories transmitted through the air, not just from library to library, but right into people’s homes.
Machines that moved swiftly over the ground, without horses.
Machines that flew, not just through the air, but out into space. “Of course there must be space traveling machines, or how did we get to Harmony from Earth?” But until he had punched his way through the aversion, Nafai had never been able to conceive of such a thing.
And the weapons of war: Explosives. Projectile weapons. Some so small that they could be held in the hand. Others so terrible that they could devastate whole cities, and burn up a planet if hundreds were used at once. Self-mutating diseases. Poisonous gases. Seismic disruptors. Missiles. Orbital launch platforms. Gene-wrecking viruses.
The picture that emerged was beautiful and terrible at once.
“I can see why the Oversoul does this to us,” said Nafai. “To save us from these weapons. But the cost, Issya, The freedom we gave up.”
Issib only nodded. “At least the Oversoul left us something. The ability to get power from the sun. Computers. Libraries. Refrigeration. All the machines of the kitchen, the greenhouses. The magnetics that allow my floats to work. And we do have some pretty sophisticated handweapons. Charged-wire blades. And pulses. So that large strong people don’t have any particular advantage over smaller, weaker ones. The Oversoul could have stripped us. Stone and metal tools. Nothing with moving parts. Burning trees for all our heat.”
“We wouldn’t even be human then.”
“Human is human,” said Issib. “But civilized-that’s the gift of the Oversoul. Civilization without self-destruction.”
They tried explaining it to Mother once, but it went nowhere. She stupidly failed to understand anything they were talking about, and left them with a cheerful little jest about how nice it was that they could be friends and play these games together despite the age difference between them. There was no chance to talk to Father.
But there was someone who took an interest in them.
“Why don’t you come to class anymore?” asked Hushidh.
She sat down on the porch steps beside Nafai and bit into her bread and cheese. A large mouthful, not the delicate bites that Eiadh took. Never mind that Mother was the one who taught all her girl students to use their mouths when they ate, and not to take the mincing little bites that were in fashion among the young women of Basilica these days. Nafai didn’t have to find Hushidh’s obedience to Mother attractive.
“I’m working on a project with Issib.”
“The other students say that you’re hiding,” said Hushidh.
Hiding. Because Father was so notorious and controversial. “I’m not ashamed of my father.”
“Of course not,” said Hushidh. “They say you’re hiding. Not me.”
“And what do you think I’m doing? Or has the Oversoul told you?”
“I’m a raveler,” she said, “not a seer.”
“Right. I forgot.” As if he should keep track of what kind of witch she was.
The Oversoul doesn’t have to tell me how you’re weaving yourself into the world,”
“Because you can see it.”
She nodded. “And you’re very brave.”
He looked at her in consternation. “I sit in the library with Issya.”
“You’re weaving yourself into the weakest of the quarreling parties in Basilica, and yet it’s the best of them. The one that should win, though no one can imagine how.”
“I’m not party of any party.”
She nodded. “I’ll stop talking if you don’t want to hear the truth.”
As if she were going to be the fount of irresistible wisdom.
“I’ll listen to a pig fart as long as it’s the truth” said Nafai.
Immediately she got to her feet and moved away.
That was really stupid, Nafai rebuked himself. She’s just trying to help, and you make a stupid joke out of it. He got up and followed her. “I’m sorry,” he said.
She shrugged away from him.
“I’m used to making stupid jokes like that,” said Nafai. “It’s a bad habit, but I didn’t mean it. It’s not as if I don’t know for myself now that the Oversold is real.”
“I know that you know? she said coldly. “But it’s obvious that knowing the Oversoul exists doesn’t mean you automatically get brains or kindness or even decency.”
“I deserve it, and the next three nasty things you think of.” Nafai stepped around her, to face her. This time she didn’t turn away.
“I see patterns,” she said. “I see the way things fit together. I see where you are starting to fit. You and Issib.”
“I haven’t been following things in the city,” said Nafai. “Busy with the project we’re working on. I don’t really know what’s going on.”
“It’s been wearing you out,” she said.
“Yes,” said Nafai. “I guess so.”
“Gaballufix is the center of one party,” she said. “It’s the strongest, for more reasons than one. It isn’t just about the war wagons anymore, or even about the alliance with Potokgavan. It’s about men. Especially men from outside the city. So he’s strong in numbers, and he’s also strong because his men are asserting themselves with violence.”
Nafai thought back to conversations he had overheard at mealtimes. About the tolchocks, men who were knocking down women in the street for no reason. “His men are the tolchocks?”
“He denies it. In fact, he claims that he’s sending his soldiers out into the streets of Basilica in order to protect women from the tolchocks.”
“Soldiers?”
“Officially they’re the militia of the Palwashantu clan. But they all answer to Gaballufix, and the clan council hasn’t been able to meet to discuss the way the militia are -being used. You’re Palwashantu, aren’t you?”
“I’m too young for the militia yet.”
“They’re not really militia anymore,” she said. “They’re hired. Men from outside the walls, the hopeless kind of men, and very few of them really Palwashantu. Gaballufix is paying them. And he paid the tolchocks, too.”
“How do you know this?”
“I was pushed. I’ve seen the soldiers. I know how they fit together.”
More of the witchery. But how could he doubt it? Hadn’t he felt the influence of the Oversoul whenever he thought about forbidden words? It made him sweat just to think of what he’d been through during the past week. So why couldn’t Hushidh just look at a soldier and a tolchock and know things about them? Why couldn’t camels fly? Anything was possible now.
Except that the Oversoul’s influence was weakening. Hadn’t he and Issib overcome its power, in order to think about forbidden things?
“And you know that I’m not one of them.”
“But your brothers are.”
“Tolchocks?”
“They’re with Gaballufix. Not Issib, of course. But Elemak and Mebbekew.”
“How do you know them ? They never come here- they’re not Mother’s sons.”
“Elemak has come here several times this week,” said Hushidh. “Didn’t you know?”
“Why would he come here?” But Nafai knew at once. Without being able to think the thought himself, he knew exactly why Elemak would come to Rasa’s household. Mother’s reputation in the city was of the highest; her nieces were courted by many, and Elemak was of an age-well into the age, in fact-for a serious mating, intended to produce an heir.
Nafai looked around the courtyard, where many girls and a few boys were eating their supper. All the students from outside were gone, and the younger children ate earlier. So most of the girls here were eligible for mating, including her nieces, if Rasa released them. Which of them would Elemak be courting?
“Eiadh,” he whispered.
“One can assume,” said Hushidh. “I know it isn’t me.”
Nafai looked at her in surprise. Of course it wasn’t her. Then he was embarrassed; what if she realized how ridiculous it had seemed to him, that his brother might desire her.
But Hushidh continued as if she didn’t even notice his silent insult. Certainly she was oblivious to how the idea of Elya courting Eiadh might hurt Nafai. “When your brother came, I knew at once that he was very close to Gaballufix. I’m sure that it’s causing Aunt Rasa a great deal of sorrow, because she knows that Eiadh will say yes to him. Your brother has a great deal of prestige.”
“Even with Father’s visions causing such a scandal?”
“He’s with Gaballufix,” said Hushidh. “Within the Party of Men-those who favor Gaballufix-the worse your father looks, the belter they like Elemak. Because if something happened to your father, then Elemak would be a very rich and powerful man.”
Her words reawakened Nafai’s worst fears about his brother. But it was a monstrous, unbearable thought. “Gabaliufix wants Elya to influence Father, that’s all.”
Hushidh nodded. But was she nodding in agreement, or just silencing him so she could get on with what she had to say? “The other strong party is Roptat’s people. They’re being called the Party of Women now, though they are also led by a man. They want to ally with the Gorayni. And also they want to remove the vote from all men except those currently mated with a citizen, and require all non-mated men to leave the city every night by sundown, and not return until dawn. That’s their solution to the tolchock problem-and to Gaballufix, as well. They have a wide following-among mated men and women.”
“Is that the group that Father’s with?”
“Everyone in the Party of Men thinks so, but Roptat’s people know better.”
“So what’s the third group?”
“They call themselves the City Party, but what they truly are is the Party of the Oversoul. They refuse to ally with any warring nation. They want to return to the old ways, for the protection of the Lake. To make this a city above politics and conflict. To give away the great wealth of the city and live simply, so no other nation will desire to possess us.”
“Nobody will agree to that.”
“You’re wrong,” she said. “Many do agree. Your father and Aunt Rasa have won over almost all the women of the Lake Districts.”
“But that’s hardly anybody. Only a handful of people live in the Rift Valley.”
“They have a third of the council votes.”
Nafai thought about that. “I think that’s very dangerous for them,” he said.
“Why do you think so?”
“Because they don’t have anything but tradition to back them up. The more Gaballufix pushes against tradition, the more he frightens people with tolchocks and soldiers, the more people will demand that something be done. All that Father and Mother are doing is making it impossible for anyone to get a majority on the council. They’re blocking Roptat from stopping Gaballufix.”
Hushidh smiled. “You’re really very good at this.”
“Politics is what I study most.”
“You’ve seen the danger. But what you haven’t told me is how we’ll get out of it.”
“We?”
“Basilica.”
“No,” said Nafai. “You said that you knew what party I was in.”
“You’re with the Oversoul, of course,” she said.
“You don’t know that. I don’t even know that. I’m not sure I like the way the Oversoul manipulates us.”
Hushidh shook her head. “You may not make the decision in your mind for many days yet, but the decision in your heart is already made. You reject Gaballufix. And you are drawn to the Oversoul.”
“You’re wrong,” said Nafai. “I mean, yes, I’m drawn to the Oversoul, Issib came to that decision long ago and his reasons are good. Despite all its secret manipulation of people’s minds, it’s even more dangerous to reject the Oversoul. But that doesn’t mean I’m ready to turn the future of Basilica over to the tiny minority of crazy religious fanatics who live in the Rift Valley and have visions all the time.”
“We’re the ones who are close to the Oversoul.”
“The whole world has the Oversoul inside their brains,” said Nafai. “You can’t get closer than that.”
“We’re the ones who choose the Oversoul,” she insisted. “And the whole world doesn’t have her inside their brains, or they would never have started carrying war to faraway nations.”
For a moment Nafai wondered if she, too, had somehow discovered how the Oversoul had blocked the discovery of war wagons until recently. Then he realized that of course she was thinking of the seventh codicil: “You have no dispute with your neighbor’s neighbor’s neighbor; when she quarrels, stay home and close your window.” This had long been interpreted to be a prohibition of entangling alliances or quarrels with countries so far away that the outcome made no difference to you. Nafai and Issib knew the purpose and origin of such a law, and the way that the Oversoul had enforced it within people’s minds. To Hushidh, though, it was the law itself that had fended off wars of imperial aggression for all these millennia. Never mind that many nations had tried to create empires, and only the lack of efficient means of travel and communication had hindered them.
“I’m not with you,” said Nafai. “You can’t turn back the clock.”
“If you can’t,” she said, “then we’re as good as destroyed already.”
“Maybe so,” said Nafai. “If Roptat wins, then when the Potoku fleet arrives, they come up the mountain and destroy us before the Wetheads can get here. And if Gaballufix wins, then when the Wetheads finally come they destroy the Potoku first and then they come up the mountains and destroy us in retaliation.”
“So,” said Hushidh. “You see that you are with us.”
“No,” said Nafai. “Because if the City Party keeps up this stalemate, either Gaballufix or Roptat will get impatient and people will start to die. Then we won’t need outsiders to destroy us. We’ll do it ourselves. How long do you think women will continue to rule in this city, if it comes to civil war between two powerful men?”
Hushidh looked off into space. “Do you think so?” she said.
“I may not be a raveler” said Nafai, “but I’ve read history.”
“So many centuries we’ve kept this a city of women, a place of peace.”
“You never should have given men the vote,”
^They’ve had the vote for a million years.”
Nafai nodded. “I know. What’s happening now-it’s the Oversoul.”
He could see now that Hushidh was looking off into nothingness because her eyes were so full of tears. “She’s dying, isn’t she?”
It hadn’t occurred to him that someone could take this so personally. As if the Oversoul were a dear relative. But to someone like Hushidh, perhaps it was so. Besides, she was the daughter of a wilder, a so-called holy woman. Even though everyone knew that wilders’ children were usually the result of rape or casual coupling in the streets of the city, they were still called “children of the Over-soul.” Maybe Hushidh really thought of the Oversoul as ho- father. But no-the women called the Oversoul she. And Hushidh knew that her mother was a wilder.
Still, Hushidh was barely containing her tears.
“What do you want from me?” asked Nafai. “I don’t know what the Oversoul is doing. Your sister-like you said, she’s the seer.”
“The Oversoul hasn’t spoken to her all week. Or to anyone.”
Nafai was surprised. “You mean not even at the lake?”
“I knew that you and Issib were very, very closely tied to the Oversoul all this week. She was wearing you out, the way she does with Lutya and . . . and me, sometimes. The women have been going into the water, more and more of them, and yet they come out with nothing, or with silly sleep-dreams. It’s making them afraid. But I told them, I said: Nafai and Issib, they’re being touched by the Oversoul. So she’s not dead. And they asked me ... to find out from you.”
“Find out what?”
The tears finally spilled out and slid down her cheeks. “I don’t know,” she said miserably. “What to do. What the Oversoul expects of us.”
He touched her shoulder, to comfort her-Nafai didn’t know what else to do. “I don’t know,” he said. “But you’re right about one thing-the Oversoul is wearing down. Wearing itself out. Still, I’m surprised that it would stop giving visions. Maybe it’s distracted. Maybe it’s ...”
“What?”
He shook his head. “Let me talk to Issib, will you?”
She nodded, ducking her head at the end to wipe away tears. “Please, yes,” she said. “I couldn’t-talk to him”
Why in the world not ? But he didn’t ask. He was too confused by all that she’d told him. All this time that he and Issib thought their research was secret, and here was Hushidh telling all the women of Basilica that the two of them were being worn out by the Oversoul! And yet, for all that they knew, the women were also hopelessly ignorant-how could he and Issib know anything about the reason why their visions had stopped?
Nafai went straight to the library and repeated to Issib all he could remember of his conversation with Hushidh. “So what I’m thinking is this. What if the Oversoul isn’t all that powerful? What if the reason the visions have stopped is that the Oversoul can’t deal with us and give visions all at the same time?”
Issib laughed. “Come on, Nyef, as if we’re the center of the world or something.”
“I’m serious. How much capacity would the Oversoul have to have, really? Most people are ignorant or stupid or weak enough that even if they thought of one of these forbidden subjects, they couldn’t do anything about it, so why watch them? That means the Oversoul has to monitor relatively few people. And with them, if it checks in on them every now and then, it has plenty of time to turn them away from dangerous projects. But now, with the Oversoul weakening, you were able to desensitize yourself. That was a contest between you and the Oversoul, and you won , Issib. What if during all those struggles, the Oversoul was completely focused on you, giving no visions to anyone else, monitoring no one else. But you were going slowly enough that it still had time leftover.”
“But the two of us, working together,” said Issib. “It had to concentrate on us, constantly. And it’s losing, too-weakening even more.”
“So I’m thinking, Issib-we’re not helping here, we’re hurting”
Issib laughed again. “It can’t be? he said. “This is the Oversoul we’re talking about, not a teacher with a couple of unruly students.”
“The Oversoul has failed before. Or there wouldn’t be any war wagons.”
“So what should we do?”
“Stop,” said Nafai. “For a day. Stay away from the forbidden subjects. See if people start getting visions again.”
“You seriously think that we, the two of us, have taken up so much of the Oversoul’s time that it can’t give visions to people? What about during the time we sleep and eat? There are plenty of breaks.”
“Maybe we’ve got it conftised. Maybe it’s panicking about us because it doesn’t know what to do.”
“Right,” said Issib. “So let’s not just quit. Let’s give the Oversoul some advice, why not!”
“Why not?” said Nafai. “It was made by human beings, wasn’t it?”
“We think. Maybe.”
“So we tell it to stop worrying about trying to block us. That’s a pointless assignment and it should stop wasting time on it ryfht now, because even if we easily think of every forbidden subject in the world, we’re not going to tell anybody else and we’re not going to try to build any ourselves. Are we?”
“We’re not.”
“So take an oath to that, Issib. I’ll take it too. I swear it right now-you listening, Oversoul?-we’re not your enemies, so you don’t need to waste another second worrying about us. Go back and give visions to the women again. And spend your time blocking the dangerous guys. The Wetheads, for instance. Gaballufix. Roptat probably, too. And if you can’t block them, then at least let us know what to do so we can block them.”
“Who are you talking to?”
“The Oversoul.”
“This feels really stupid,” said Issib.
“It’s been telling us what to think our whole lives,” said Nafai. “What’s so stupid about giving it a suggestion now and then? Take the oath, Issya.”
“Yes, I promise, I take the most solemn oath. You listening, Oversoul?”
“It’s listening,” said Nafai. “That much we know?
“So,” said Issib. “You think it’s going to do what we say?”
“I don’t know,” said Nafai, “But I know this- we’re not going to learn anything more by hanging around the library for the rest of the day. Let’s get out of here. Spend the night at Father’s house. Maybe we’ll have a really good idea. Or maybe Father will have a vision. Or something.”
It was only that afternoon, as he was leaving Mother’s house, that Nafai remembered that Elemak was courting Eiadh. Not that Nafai had a right to hate him for it. Nafai had never said anything to anyone about his feelings toward her, had he? And at fourteen he was far too young to be taken seriously as a possible legal mate. Of course Eiadh would look at Elemak and desire him. It explained everything-why she was so nice to Nafai and yet never seemed to get close to him. She wanted to keep his favor in case he had some influence over Elemak. But it would never have crossed her mind that she might give a contract to Nafai. After all, he was a child.
Then he remembered how Hushidh had spoken of Issib. I couldn’t talk to him. Because he was a cripple? Not likely. No, Hushidh was shy with Issib because she was looking at him as a possible mate. Even I know enough about women to guess that, thought Nafai.
Hushidh is my age, and shrt looking at my older brother when she thinks of mating. While I might as well be a tree or a brick for all the sexual interest a girl my age would have in me. And Eiadh is older than me-one of the oldest in my class, while I’m one of the youngest. How could I have ever thought ...
He felt the hot blush of embarrassment on his cheeks, even though no one knew of his humiliation except himself.
Moving through the streets of Basilica, Nafai realized that except for an occasional walk in Rain Street he had not been out of Mother’s house since he began his research with Issib. Perhaps because of what Hushidh had told him, he was aware of a change in the city. Were there fewer people on the streets? Perhaps-but the real difference was more in the way they walked. People in Basilica often moved with purpose, but usually they did not let that purpose close them to what was going on around them. Even people in a hurry could pause for a moment, or at least smile, when they passed a street musician or a juggler or a comic reciting his doggerel. And many people sauntered, taking things in with real pleasure, conversing with their companions, of course, but also freely speaking with strangers on the street, as if all the people of Basilica were neighbors, or even relatives.
This evening was different. As the sun silhouetted the western rooftops and cast angled slabs of blackness across the streets, the people seemed to dodge the sunlight as if it might burn their skin. They were closed off to each other. The street musicians were ignored, and even their music seemed more timid, as if they were ready to break off their song at the first sign of displeasure in a passerby. The streets were quieter because almost no one was talking.
Soon enough the reason became obvious. A troop of eight men jogged up the street, pulses in their hands and charged-wire blades at their waists. Soldiers, thought Nafai. Gabalhifix’s men. No-officially, they were the militia of the Palwashantu, but Nafai felt no kinship with them.
They didn’t seem to look to left or right, as if their errand were set. But Nafai and Issib noticed at once that the streets seemed to empty as the soldiers passed. Where had the people gone? They weren’t actually hiding, but still it took several minutes after the soldiers had passed before people began emerging again. They had ducked into shops, pretending to have business. Some had simply taken alternate routes down side streets. And others had never left the street at all, but like Nafai and Issib they had stopped, had frozen in place, so that for a few minutes they were part of the architecture, not part of the life of the place.
It did not seem at all as though people thought the soldiers were making the city safer. Instead the soldiers had made them afraid.
“Basilica’s in trouble,” said Nafai.
“Basilica is dead? said Issib. “There are still people here, but the city isn’t Basilica anymore.”
Fortunately, it wasn’t as bad when they got farther along Wing Street-the soldiers had passed where Wing crossed Wheat Street, only a few blocks from Gaballufix’s house. When they got into Old Town there was more life in the streets. But changes were still visible.
For instance, Spring Street had been cleared. Spring was one of the major thoroughfares of Basilica, running in the most direct route from Funnel Gate through Old Town and right on to the edge of the Rift Valley. But as often happened in Basilica, some enterprising builder had decided that it was a shame to let all that empty space in the middle of the street go to waste, when people could be living there. On a long block between Wing and Temple, the builder had put up six buildings.
Now, when a Basilican builder started putting up a structure that blocked a street, several things could happen. If the street wasn’t very busy, only a few people would object. They might scream and curse and even throw things at the builders, but since the workers were all such burly men, there would be little serious resistance. The building would go up, and people would find new routes. The people who owned houses or shops that used to front on the now-blocked road were the ones who suffered most. They had to bargain with neighbors to gain hallway rights that would give them street access-or take those rights, if the neighbor was weak. Sometimes they simply had to abandon their property. Either way, the new hallways or the abandoned property soon became thoroughfares in their own right. Eventually some enterprising soul would buy a couple of abandoned or decaying houses whose hallways were being used for traffic, tear out an open streetway, and thus a new road was born. The city council did nothing to interfere with this process-it was how the city evolved and changed over time, and it seemed pointless in a city tens of millions of years old to try to hold back the tide of time and history.
It was quite another thing when someone started building on a much-used thoroughfare like Spring Street. There, the passersby gained courage from their numbers-and from their outrage at the thought of losing a road they often used. So they would deliberately sabotage the construction as they passed, knocking down masonry, carrying away stones. If the builder was powerful and determined, with many strong workers, a brawl could easily start-but then it might easily come to a court trial, where the builder was always found to be at fault, since building in a street was regarded as ample provocation for legal assault.
The builder in Spring Street had been clever, though.
She had designed her six buildings to stand on arches, so that the road was never actually blocked. The houses instead began on the first floor, above the street-and so, while passersby were annoyed, they weren’t so provoked that they got serious about their sabotage. So the buildings had been finished early that summer, and some very wealthy people had taken up residence.
Inevitably, however, the archways became crowded with streetsellers and enterprising restaurateurs-which the builder surely knew would happen. Traffic slowed to a crawl, and other builders began to put up permanent shops and stalls, until only a few weeks ago it became physically impossible to get from Temple to Wing on Spring Street-the little buildings now completed blocked the way. Another street in Basilica had been killed, only this time it was a major thoroughfare and caused serious inconvenience to a lot of people. Only the original builder and the enterprising little shopkeepers truly profited; the people who bought the inner buildings now found it harder and harder to get to the stairways leading up to their houses, and people were already preparing to - abandon old structures that no longer faced on a street.
Now, as Nafai and Issib passed Spring Street, they saw that someone had gone through the blocked section and torn down all the small structures. The new buildings were still there, arching over the street, but the passageway remained open underneath them. More significantly, a couple of soldiers stood at each end of the street. The message was clear: No new building would be tolerated.
“Gaballufix isn’t a fool,” said Issib.
Nafai knew what he meant. People might not like seeing soldiers trot by in the streets, with the threat of violence and the loss of freedom that they implied. But seeing Spring Street open would go a long way toward making the soldiers seem like a mixed evil, one perhaps worth tolerating.
Wing Street eventually fed into Temple Street, and Nafai and Issib followed it until it came to the great circle around the Temple itself. This was the one outpost of the men’s religion in this city of women, the one place where the Oversoul was known to be male, and where blood rather than water was the holy fluid. On impulse, though he hadn’t been inside since he was eight and his foreskin was drowned in his own blood, Nafai stopped at the north doors. “Let’s go in,” he said.
Issib shuddered. “I deeply hate this place,” he said.
“If they used anesthetic, worship would be more popular with kids,” said Nafai.
Issib grinned. “Painless worship. Now there’s a thought. Maybe dry worship would catch on among the women, too.”
They went through the door into the musty, dark, windowless outer chamber.
Though the temple was perfectly round, the inner chambers were designed to recall the chambers of the heart: the Indrawing Auricle, the Airward Ventricle, the Airdrawing Auricle, and the Outflowing Ventricle. The winding halls and tiny rooms between them were named for various veins and arteries. Before their circumcision boys had to learn all the names of all the rooms, but they did it by memorizing a song that remained meaningless to most who learned it. So there was nothing particularly familiar about the names written on each door lintel or keystone, and Issib and Nafai were immediately lost.
It didn’t matter. Eventually, all halls and corridors funneled worshipers into the central courtyard, the only bright space in the temple, open to the sky. Since it was so close to sunset, there was no direct sunlight on the stone floor of the courtyard, but after so much darkness even reflected sunlight was painfully dazzling.
At the gateway, a priest stopped them. “Prayer or meditation?” he asked.
Issib shuddered-a convulsive movement, for him, since the floats exaggerated every twitch his muscles made. “I think I’ll wait in the Airdrawing Auricle.”
“Don’t be a poddletease,” said Nafai. “Just meditate for a minute, it won’t kill you.”
“You mean you’re going to pray?” said Issib.
“I guess so,” said Nafai.
Truth to tell, Nafai wasn’t sure why, or for what. He only knew that his relationship with the Oversoul was getting more complicated every day; he understood the Oversoul better than before, and the Oversoul was meddling in his life now, so it had become important to try to communicate clearly and directly, instead of all this slantwise guesswork. It wasn’t enough to slack off their research into forbidden words and hope that the Over-soul got the hint. There had to be something more.
He watched as the priests jabbed Issib’s finger and wiped the tiny wound over the bloodstone. Issib took it well enough-he really wasn’t a poddle, and he’d had enough pain in his life that a little fingerjab was nothing. He just had little use for the rituals of the men’s worship. He called it “blood sports” and compared it to shark-fights, which always started out by getting every shark in the pool to bleed. As soon as his little red smear was on the rough stone, he drifted over toward the high bench against the sunny wall, where there was still about a half-hour of sunlight. The bench was full, of course, but Issib could always float just beside it. “Hurry up,” he murmured as he passed Nafai.
Since Nafai was here to pray, the priest didn’t jab him. Instead he let him reach into the golden bowl of prayer rings. The bowl was filled with a powerful disinfectant, which had the double effect of keeping the barbed prayer rings from spreading disease and also making it so that every jab stung bitterly for several long seconds. Nafai usually took only two rings, one for the middle finger of each hand, but this time he felt that he needed more. That even though he had no idea what he was praying about, he wanted to make sure that the Oversoul understood that he was serious. So he found prayer rings for all four fingers of each hand, and thumb rings as well.
“It can’t be that bad,” said the priest.
“I’m not praying for forgiveness,” said Nafai.
“I don’t want you fainting on me, we’re short-staffed today.”
“I won’t faint.” Nafai walked to the center of the courtyard, near the fountain. The water of the fountain wasn’t the normal pinkish color-it was almost dark red. Nafai well remembered the powerful frisson the first time he realized how the water got its color. Father said that when Basilica was in great need-during a drought, for instance, or when an enemy threatened-the fountain flowed with almost pure blood, there was so much blood. It was a strange and powerful feeling, to pull off his sandals and strip off his clothes, then kneel in the pool and know that the tepid liquid swirling around him, almost up to his waist if he sat back on his heels, was thick with the passionate bloody prayers of other men.
He held his barbed hands open in front of him for a long time, composing himself, readying himself for the conversation with the Oversoul. Then he slapped his hands vigorously against his upper arms, just as he did in his morning prayers; this time, though, the barbed rings cut into his flesh and the sting was deep and harsh. It was a good, vigorous opening, and he heard several of the meditators sigh or murmur. He knew that they had heard the sharp sound of his slap and seen his self-discipline as he restrained himself from so much as gasping in pain, and they respected this prayer for its strength and virtue.
Oversoul, he said silently. You started all this. Weak as you are, you decided to start intruding in my family’s life. You’d better have a plan in mind. And if you do, isn’t it about time you let us know what it is?
He slapped himself again, this time on the more sensitive skin of his chest. When the sting faded he could feel blood tickling through the invisible new hairs growing there. I offer this sacrifice to you, Oversoul, I offer my pain if you need it, I’ll do whatever you want me to do but I expect a promise from you in return. I expect you to protect my father. I expect you to have a real purpose in mind, and to tell Father what it is. I expect you to keep my brothers from getting mixed up in some terrible crime against the city and particularly from getting involved in a crime against my father. If you protect Father and let us know what’s going on, then I’ll do everything I can to help your plan work, because I know that the purpose that was programmed into you from the beginning is to keep humanity from destroying itself, and I’ll do all I can to serve that purpose. I am yours, as long as you treat us fairly.
He slapped his belly, the sharpest pain yet, and now he heard several of the meditators commenting out loud, and the priest came up behind him. Don’t interrupt me, thought Nafai. Either the Oversoul is hearing this or it isn’t, and if it is hearing me, then I want it to know that I’m serious about it. Serious enough to cut myself to ribbons if need be. Not because I think this bloodletting has anything to do with holiness, but because it shows my willingness to do what I’m told, even when it has a harsh personal cost. I’ll do what you want, Oversoul, but you must keep faith.
“Young man,” whispered the priest.
“Get lost,” whispered Nafai in return.
The sandals shuffled away over the stone.
Nafai reached over his shoulders and scraped his hands up along his back. This was tearing now, not jabbing, and the wounds would not be trivial. Do you see this, Oversoul? You’re inside my head, you know what I’m thinking and what I’m feeling. Issib and I are letting you alone so you can give people visions again. Now get to work and get this situation under control. And whatever you want me to do, I’ll do. I will. If I can bear this pain, you know I can bear whatever you set me to suffer. And, knowing exactly how it hurts, I can do it again.
He scraped again. The pain this time, as new wounds crossed old ones, brought tears to his eyes-but not a sound to his lips.
Enough. Either the Oversoul heard him or it didn’t.
He let himself fall forward into the bloody water, his eyes still closed. It closed over his head, and for a moment he was completely immersed. Then the water buoyed him up, and he felt the cool evening air on his back and buttocks as they floated on the surface.
A moment more. Hold your breath a moment more. Longer. Just a little longer. Wait for the voice of the Oversoul. Listen in the silence of the water.
But no answer came to him. Only the growing pain of the wounds in his upper back and shoulders.
He arose to his feet, dripping wet, and turned toward the edge of the fountain, opening his eyes for the first time since entering the pool. Someone was handing him a towel. Hands reached for him to help him over the lip of the pool. When his eyes were dry, he could see that almost all the meditators had come away from the wall, and were now gathered around, offering him towels, his clothes. “A mighty prayer,” they were whispering. “May the Oversoul hear you.” They would not let him towel himself, or even dress. “Such virtue in one so young.” Instead it was other hands gently dabbing at his wounded back, vigorously toweling at his thighs. “Basilica is blessed to have such a prayer in this temple.” It was other hands that pulled his shirt over his head and drew his trousers up his legs. “A Father’s pride is a young son bowed with piety yet lifted up with courage.” They laced his sandals up his legs, and when they found that the thongs ended below his knee, they nodded, they murmured. “No foolish styles in this one.” “A working man’s sandals.”
And as Nafai followed Issib away from the fountain, he could hear the murmurs continuing behind him. “The Oversoul was here with us today.”
At the doorway leading to the Outflowing Ventricle, Nafai was momentarily blocked by someone coming in through that door. Since his head was bowed, he saw only the man’s feet. As one whose shirt was stained with the blood of prayer, he expected the man blocking him to make way for him, but it seemed he would not go.
“Meb,” said Issib.
Nafai lifted his gaze from the man’s shoes. It was Mebbekew. In a moment of piercing clarity, it seemed as though he saw his brother whole. He was no longer dressed in the flamboyant costume that had long been his style. Meb was now dressed as a man of business, in clothing that must have cost considerable money. It was not his clothing that Nafai cared about, nor the mystery of where he got the money to buy it-for that was no mystery at all. Looking at Mebbekew’s face, Nafai knew- knew,without words, without reason-that Mebbekew was Gaballufbc’s man now. Maybe it was the expression on his face: Where once Meb had always had a jaunty sort of half-smile, a spark of malicious fun in his eyes, now he looked serious and important and just a little bit afraid of-of what? Of himself. Of the man he was becoming.
Of the man who owned him. There was nothing in his expression or his clothing to mark him as belonging to Gaballufix, and yet Nafai knew. This must be how it comes ih Hushidh, he thought, to see the connections between people. To have no reason, and yet also to have no doubt.
“What were you praying for?” asked Mebbekew.
“For you,” answered Nafai.
Inexplicable tears came to Mebbekew’s eyes, but his face and voice refused to admit whatever feelings called them forth. “Pray for yourself,” said Mebbekew, “and for this city.”
“And for Father,” said Nafai.
Mebbekew’s eyes widened, just a bit, the tiniest bit, but Nafai knew that he had struck home.
“Step aside,” said a quiet but angry voice behind him. One of the meditators, perhaps. A stranger, anyway. “Make way for the young man of mighty prayer.”
Mebbekew stepped back into the dark shadow of the temple’s interior. Nafai moved past him and rejoined Issib, who was waiting in the corridor just beyond Meb.
“Why would Meb be here?” asked Issib, once they were out of earshot.
“Maybe there are some things you can’t do without speaking to the Oversoul first,” said Nafai.
“Or maybe he’s decided it’s useful to be publicly seen to be a pious man.” Issib laughed a little. “He if an actor, you know, and it looks like somebody’s given him a new costume. I wonder what role he’s going to play?”