Wetchik had pitched his tents away from any road, in a narrow river valley near the shores of the Rumen Sea. They had reached it at sunset, just as a troop of baboons moved away from their feeding area near the river’s mouth, toward their sleeping niches in the steepest, craggiest cliff in the valley wall. It was the baboons’ calls and hoots that guided them during the last of their journey; Elemak was careful to lead them well upstream of the baboons. “So we don’t disturb them?” Issib asked.
“So they don’t foul our water and steal our food,” said Elemak.
Before Father allowed them to unburden the camels and water them, before they ate or drank anything themselves, Father sat atop his camel and gestured toward the stream. “Look-the end of the dry season, and yet it still has water in it. The name of this place is Elemak from now. on. I name it for you, my eldest son.
Be like the river, so that the purpose of your life is to flow forever toward the great ocean of the Oversoul.”
Nafai glanced at Elemak and saw that he was taking the peroration with dignity. It was a sacred moment, the naming of a place, and even if Father laced the occasion with a sermon, Elemak knew that it was an honor, a sign that Father acknowledged him.
“And as for this green valley,” said Father, “I name it Mebbekew, for my second son. Be like this valley, Mebbekew, a firm channel through which the waters of life can flow, and where life can take root and thrive.”
Mebbekew nodded graciously.
There was nothing named for Issib and Nafai. Only a silence, and then Father’s groan as his camel knelt for him to dismount. It was well after dark before they finally had the tents pitched, the scorpions swept outside, and the repellents set in place. Three tents-Father’s, of course, the largest though he was only one man. The next largest for Elya and Meb. And the smallest for Issib and Nafai, even though Issib’s chair took up an exorbitant amount of room inside.
Nafai couldn’t help but brood about the inequities, and when, in the darkness of the tent, Issib asked him what he was thinking, Nafai went ahead and voiced his resentment. “He names the river and the valley for them^ when Elemak’s the one who was working with Gaballu-fix, and Mebbekew^s the one who said all those terrible things to him and left home and everything.”
“So?” said Issib, ever sympathetic.
“So here we are in the smallest tent. We’ve got two extras, still packed up, both of them larger than this one.” Having undressed himself, Nafai now helped Issib undress-it was too hard for him, without his floats.
“Father’s making a statement,” said Issib.
“Yes, and I’m hearing it, and I don’t like it. He’s saying, Issib and Nafai, you’re nothing^
“What was he going to do, name a dwd after us?” Issib fell silent for a moment as Nafai pulled the shirt off over Issib’s head. “Or did you want him to name a bush for you?”
“I don’t care about the naming, I care about justice.”
“Get some perspective, Nafai. Father isn’t going to sort out his children according to who’s the most obedient or cooperative or polite from hour to hour. There’s a clear ranking involved in the assignment of tent space here.” Nafei laid his brother on his mat, farthest from the door. The fact that Elya doesn’t have a tent to himself, but shares with Meb,” said Issib, “that’s putting him in his place, reminding him that he’s not the Wetchik, he’s just the Wetchik’s boy. But then putting us in such a tiny tent tells Elya and Meb that he does value them and honor them as his oldest sons. He’s at once rebuking and encouraging them. I think he’s been rather deft.”
Nafai lay down on his own mat, near the door, in the traditional servant’s position. “What about us?”
“What about us? Are you going to rebel against the Oversold because your papa gave you a tiny tent?”
“No.”
“Father trusts us to be loyal while he works on Elya and Meb. Father’s trust is the greatest honor of all. I’m proud to be in this tent.”
“When you put it that way,” said Nafai, “so am I.”
“Go to sleep.”
“Wake me if you need anything.”
“What can I need,” said Issib, “when I have my chair beside me?”
Actually, the chair was down near his feet, and it was almost completely useless when Issib wasn’t sitting in it. Nafai was puzzled for a moment, until he realized that Issib was giving him a small rebuke: Why are you complaining, Nafai, when being away from the magnetics of the city means that I cant use my floats, and have to be tended to like an infant? It must be humiliating for Issib to have me undress him, thought Nafai. And yet he bears it uncomplaining, for Father’s sake.
Deep in the night, Nafai awoke, instantly alert. He lay there listening. Was it Issib who had called him? No-his brother was still taking the heavy, rhythmic breaths of sleep. Did he wake, then, because he was uncomfortable? No, for the sand under his mat made the floor more, not less, comfortable than his room at home. Nor was it the cold, nor the distant howling of a wild dog, and it could not have been the baboons, because they always slept the night in perfect silence.
The last time Nafai had awakened like this, he had found Luet outside in the traveler’s room, and the Oversoul had spoken in the night to Father.
Was I dreaming, then? Did the Oversoul teach me in my sleep? But Nafai could remember no dreams. Just the sudden wakefulness.
He got up from his mat-quietly, so as not to disturb Issya-and slid tinder the netted fabric draped across the door. It was cooler outside the tent than inside, of course, but they had traveled far enough south that autumn hadn’t yet arrived in this place, and the waters of the Rumen Sea were much wanner and more placid than the ocean that swept along the coastline east of Basilica.
The camels were peacefully asleep in their small temporary corral. The wards at the corners kept away even the smallest of animals not yet inured to the sound frequencies and pheromones the wards gave off. The stream splashed a syncopated music over the rocks. The leaves in the trees rustled now and then in the night breeze. If there is any place in all of Harmony where a man could sleep in peace, it’s here, thought Nafai. And yet I couldn’t sleep.
Nafai walked upstream and sat on a stone beside the water. The breeze was cool enough to chill him a little; for a moment he wished he had dressed before leaving the tent. But he hadn’t intended to get up for the day. Soon enough he’d go back inside.
He looked around him, at the low hills not that far off. Unless a person stood on one of those hills, there was no sign of a watered valley here. Still, it was a wonder that no one lived here but the tribe of baboons downstream of them, that there wasn’t even a sign of human habitation. Perhaps it had not been settled because it was so far from any trade route. The land here was barely enough to support a few dozen people, if it were all cultivated. It would be too lonely or unprofitable to settle here. Robbers might use it as a refuge, but it was too far from the caravan routes to be convenient for them. It was exactly what Father’s family needed, during this time of exile from Basilica. As if it had been prepared for them.
For a moment Nafai wondered if perhaps this valley had not even existed until they needed it. Did the Oversoul have such power that it could transform land-forms at will?
Impossible. The Oversoul might have such powers in myth and legend, but in the real world, the Oversoul’s powers seemed to be entirely confined to communication-the sharing of works of art throughout the world, and mental influence over those who received visions or, more commonly, the stupor of thought that the Oversoul used to turn people away from forbidden ideas.
That’s why this place was empty till we came, thought Nafai. It would be a simple thing for the Oversoul to make desert travelers get stupid whenever they thought of turning toward the Rumen Sea near here. The Over-soul prepared it for us, not by creating it out of the rock, not by causing some hidden pool of water to burst forth into a spring, a stream for us, but rather by keeping other people away from here, so that it was empty and ready for us when we came.
The Oversoul has some great purpose here, plans within plans. We listen for its voice, we heed the visions it puts into our minds, but we’re still puppets, uncertain why our strings are being pulled, or what our dance will lead to in the end. It isn’t right, thought Nafai. It isn’t even good, for if the followers of the Oversoul are kept blind, if they can’t judge the Oversoul’s purpose for themselves, then they aren’t freely choosing between good and evil, or between wise and foolish, but are only choosing to subsume themselves in the purposes of the Oversoul. How can the Oversoul’s plans be well-served, if all its followers are the kind of weak-souled people who are willing to obey the Oversoul without understanding?
I will serve you, Oversoul, with my whole heart I’ll serve you, if I understand what you’re trying to do, what it means. And if your purpose is a good one.
Who am I to judge what’s good and what isn’t?
The thought came into Nafai’s mind, and he laughed silently at his own arrogance. Who am I, to set myself up as the judge of the Oversoul?
Then he shuddered. What put such a thought into my mind? Couldn’t it have been the Oversoul itself, trying to tame me? I will not be tamed, only persuaded. I will not be coerced or led blindly or tricked or bullied-I am willing only to be convinced. If you don’t trust your own basic goodness enough to tell me what you’re trying to do, Oversoul, then you’re confessing your own moral weakness and I’ll never serve you.
The moonlight sparkling on the shifting surface of the stream suddenly became sunlight reflected from metal satellites orbiting perpetually around the planet Harmony. In his mind’s eye, Nafai saw how, one by one, the satellites stumbled in their orbit and fell, burning themselves into dust as they entered the atmosphere. The first human settlers of this world had built tools that would last ten or twenty million years. To them that had seemed like forever-it was longer than the existence of the human species, many times over. But now it had been forty million years, and the Oversoul had to do its work with only a quarter as many satellites as it had had in the beginning, barely half as many as it had had for the .first thirty million years. No wonder the Oversoul had weakened.
But its plans were no less important. Its purpose still needed to be served. Issib and Nafai were right-the Oversoul had been set in place by the first human settler in this place, for one purpose only: to make Harmony a world where humanity would never have the power to destroy itself.
Wouldn’t it have been better, thought Nafai, to change humanity so it no longer desired to destroy itself?
The answer came into his mind with such clarity that he knew it was the answer of the Oversoul. No, it would not have been better.
But why? Nafai demanded.
An answer, many answers poured into his mind all at once, in such a burst that he could make no sense of them. But in the moments after, the moments of growing clarity, some of the ideas found language. Sentences as clear as if they had been spoken by another voice. But it was not another voice-it was Nafai’s own voice, making a feeble attempt to capture in words some straggling remnant of what the Oversoul had said to him.
What the voice of the Oversoul said inside Nafai’s mind was this: If I had taken away the desire for violence then humanity would not have been humanity. Not that human beings need to be violent in order to be human, but if you ever lose the will to control, the will to destroy, then it must be because you chose to lose it. My role was not to force you to be gentle and kind; it was to keep you alive while you decided for yourselves what kind of people you wanted to be.
Nafai was afraid to ask another question, for fear of drowning in the mental flood that might follow. And yet he couldn’t leave the question unasked. Tell me slowly. Tell me gently. But tell me: What have we decided?
To his relief, the answer wasn’t that same rush of pure unspeakable idea. This time it seemed to him as if a window had been opened in his mind, through which he could see. All the actual scenes, all the faces he saw, they were memories, things he had seen or heard of in Basilica, things that were already in his mind, ready for the Oversoul to draw on them, to bring them to the surface of his mind. But now he saw them with such clear understanding that they took on power and meaning beyond anything in his experience before. He saw memories of business dealings he had seen. He saw plays and satires he had watched. Conversations in the street. A holy woman being raped by a gang of drunken worshipers. The scheming of men who were trying to win a mating contract with a woman of note. The casual cruelty of women who played their suitors against each other. Even the way Elemak and Mebbekew had treated Nafai-and the way he had treated them. It all spoke of the willingness of people to hurt each other, the burning passion to control what other people thought and did. So many people, in secret, subtle ways, acted to destroy people-and not just their enemies, either, but also their friends. Destroying them for the pleasure of knowing that they had the power to cause pain. And so few who devoted their lives to building other people’s strength and confidence. So few who were true teachers, genuine mates.
That’s what Father and Mother are, thought Nafai. They stay together, not because of any gain, but because of the gift. Father doesn’t stay with Mother because she is good for him, but rather because together they can do good for us, and for many others. Father entered into the politics of Basilica these last few weeks, not because he hoped to gain by it, the way Gaballufix did, but because he genuinely cared more about the good of Basilica than about his own fortune, his own life. He could walk away from his fortune without a second look. And Mother, her life is what she creates in the minds of her students. Through her girls, her boys, she is trying to create tomorrow’s Basilica. Every word she breathes in the school is designed to keep the city from decay.
And yet they’re losing. It’s slipping away. The Over-soul would help them if it could, but it hasn’t the power or influence that it once had; and anyway, it hasn’t the freedom to act to make people goodhearted, only to keep their malice within fairly narrow boundaries. Spite and malice, that was the lifeblood of Basilica today; Gaballufix is only the man who happens to best express the poisonous heart of the city. Even those who hate him and fight against him are generally doing it, not because they are good and he is evil, but because they resent the fact that he is achieving dominance, when they had hoped for dominance for themselves.
I would help, said the silent voice of the Oversoul in Nafai’s mind, I would help the good people of Basilica. But there aren’t enough of them. The will of the city is for destruction. How then can I keep it from being destroyed? If Gaballufix fails in his plans, the city will raise up some other man to help it kill itself. The fire will come because the city craves it. They are far too few, those who love the living city instead of desiring to feed from its corpse.
Tears flowed from Nafai’s eyes. I didn’t understand. I never saw the city this way.
That’s because you are your mother’s son, your father’s heir. Like all human beings, you assume that behind the masks of their faces, other people are fundamentally like yourself. But it isn’t always so. Some of them can’t see other people’s happiness without wanting to destroy it, can’t see the bonds of love between friends or mates without wanting to break them. And many others, who aren’t malicious in themselves, become their tools in the hope of some short-term gain. The people have lost their vision. And I haven’t the power to restore it. All that’s left, Nafai, is my memory of Earth.
“Tell me about Earth,” whispered Nafai.
Again a window opened in his mind, only now it was not memories of his own. Instead he was seeing things he had never seen before. It overwhelmed him; he could hardly make sense of the things he saw. Bright glass-and-metal caskets speeding along gray-ribbon highways. Massive metal houses that rose up in the air, skidding along the face of the sky on slender, fragile wedges of painted steel. Tall polyhedral buildings with mirrored faces, reflecting each other, reflecting the yellow sunlight. And there amid them, shacks made of paper and cast-off metal, where families watched their babies die with bloated bellies. People tossing balls of fire at each other, or great gouts of flame flowing out of hoses. And completely inexplicable things: one of the flying houses passing over a city, dropping something that seemed as insignificant as a turd, only suddenly it burst into a ball of flame as bright as the sun, and the entire city under it was flattened, and the rubble burned. A family sitting at a huge table, covered in food, eating ravenously, then leaning over and vomiting on ragged beggars that clung hopelessly to the legs of their chairs. Surely this vision was not literal, but figurative! Surely no one ever would be so morally bankrupt as to eat more than he needed, while others were dying of hunger before their eyes! Surely anyone who could think of a way to make the sky burst into flame so hot it could destroy a whole city at once, surely such a person would kill himself before he’d ever let anyone know the terrible secret of that weapon.
“Is this Earth?” he whispered to the Oversold. “So beautiful and monstrous? Is this what we were?”
Yes, came the answer. It’s what you were, and it’s what you will be again, if I can’t find a way to re-awaken the world to my voice. In Basilica there are many who eat their fill of food, and then eat more, while they know how many there are who haven’t enough. There’s a famine only three hundred kilometers to the north.
“We could use wagons to carry food there,” said Nafai.
The Gorayni have such wagons. They carry food, too-but the food is for the soldiers that came to conquer the famine-ravaged land. Only when they had subdued the people and destroyed their government did they bring food. It was the slops a swinekeeper brings to his herd. You feed them now in order to hear them sizzle later.
The visions continued-for hours, it seemed at the time, though later Nafai would realize that it could only have been a few minutes. More and more memories of Earth, with ever more disturbing behavior, ever stranger machines. Until the great fire, and the spaceships rising up from the smoke and ice and ash that remained behind.
“They fled because they had destroyed their world.”
No, said the Oversoul. They fled because they longed to begin again. At least those who came to Harmony came, not because Earth was no longer fit for them, but because they believed they were no longer fit for Earth. Billions had died, but there was still fuel and life enough on Earth for perhaps a few hundred thousand humans to survive. But they couldn’t bear to live on the world they had ruined. We’ll go away, they said to each other, while the world heals itself. During our exile, we will also learn healing, and when we return we’ll be fit to inherit the land of our birth, and care for it.
So they created the Oversoul, and brought it with them to Harmony, and gave it hundreds of satellites to be its eyes, its voice; they altered their own genes to give themselves the capacity to receive the voice of the Oversoul inside their own minds; and they filled the Oversoul with memories of Earth and left it to watch over their children for the next twenty million years.
Surely in that time, they told each other, our children will have learned how to live together in harmony. They will make the name of this planet come true in their lives. And at the end of that time, the Oversoul will know how to bring them home, to where the Keeper of Earth is waiting for them.
“But we aren’t ready,” said Nafai. “After twice that time, we’re as bad as ever, except that you’ve kept us from developing the power to turn all the life of this planet into ashes and ice.”
The Oversoul put the thought into Nafai’s mind: By now the Keeper has surely done its part. The Earth is ready for our return. But the people of Harmony aren’t ready yet to come, I have kept all the knowledge of Earth for all these years, waiting to tell you how to build the houses that fly, the starships that will bring you home to the world of your birth; but I dare not teach you, because you’d use the knowledge to oppress and finally to obliterate each other.
“Then what are you doing?” asked Nafai. “What is your plan? Why have you brought us out here?”
I can’t tell you yet, said the Oversoul. I’m not sure of you yet. But I’ve told you what you wanted. I’ve told you my purpose. I’ve told you what I’ve already accomplished, and what is yet to be accomplished. I haven’t changed-I’m the same today as I was when your forebears first set me in place to watch over you. My plans are all designed to prepare humanity to return to the Keeper of Earth, who waits for you. It’s all I live for, to make humankind fit to return. I am the memory of Earth, all that remains of it, and if you help me, Nafai, you will be part of accomplishing that plan, if it can be accomplished at all.
If it can be accomplished at all.
The overwhelming sense of the presence of the Over-soul in his mind was gone, suddenly; it was as if a great fire inside him had suddenly gone out, as if a great rushing river of life inside him had gone abruptly dry. Nafai sat there on the rock beside the river, feeling spent, exhausted, empty, with that last despairing thought still lingering in his heart: If it can be accomplished at all.
His mouth was dry. He knelt by the water, plunged in his hands, and drew the cupped water to his mouth to drink. It wasn’t enough. He splashed into the water, his whole body, not with the reverent attitude of prayer, but with a desperate thirst; he buried his head under the water and drank deep, with his cheek against the cold stone of the riverbed, the water tumbling over his back, his calves. He drank and drank, lifted his head and shoulders above the water to gasp in the evening air, and then collapsed into the water again, to drink as greedily as before.
It was a kind of prayer, though, he realized as he emerged, freezing cold as the water evaporated from his skin in the breeze of the dark morning.
I am with you, he said to the Oversoul. I’ll do whatever you ask, because I long for you to accomplish your purpose here. I will do all that I can to prepare us all to return to Earth.
He was chilled to the bone by the time he got back to the tent, not dripping wet anymore, but not dry, either. He lay trembling on his mat for a long time, warmed by the air in the tent, by the heat of Issib’s body, until at last he was able to sleep.
There was a lot of work to do in the morning; tired though he was, Nafai had no chance to sleep late, but rather staggered through his jobs, slow and clumsy enough that Elemak and even Father barked at him angrily. Pay attention! Use your head! Not till the heat of the afternoon, when they took the nap that desert dwellers knew was as much a part of survival as water, did Nafai have a chance to recover from his night-walking, from his vision. Only then he couldn’t bear to sleep. He lay on his mat and told Issib everything that he had seen, and what he had learned from the Oversoul. When he was finished, Issib had tears streaking his face, and he slowly and with great exertion reached out a hand to clasp Nafai’s. “I knew there had to be some purpose behind it,” whispered Issib. “This makes so much sense to me. It fits everything. How lucky you were, to hear the voice of the Oversoul. Even more clearly than Father did, I think. As clearly as Luet, I think. You are like Luet.”
That made Nafai a little uncomfortable, for a moment at least. He had resented or ridiculed Luet in his own mind, and sometimes in his words. The contemptuous word witch had come so easily to his lips. Was this what she felt, when the Oversoul sent her a vision? How could I have ridiculed her for that?
He slept again, and woke, and they finished their work: a permanent corral for the camels, made of piled stones bonded with a gravitic field powered by solar collectors; refrigeration sheds for storing the dried food that would keep them for a year, if it took that long before they could return to Basilica; wards and watches placed around the perimeter of the valley, so that no one could come near enough to see them without them noticing him in return. They built no fires, of course-in the desert, wood was too precious to burn. They took it farther, though; they would cook nothing, because an inexplicable heat source might be detectable. The warmth of their bodies was all the infrared radiation they dared to give off, and the electromagnetic noise put out by their wards and watches, the gravitic field, the refrigeration, the solar collectors, and Issib’s chair was not strong enough to be picked up much beyond their perimeter, except with instruments far more sensitive than anything passing marauders or caravans were likely to have. They were as safe as they could make themselves.
At dinner, Nafai commented on how unnecessary it all was. “We’re on the errand of the Oversoul,” he said. “The Oversoul has kept people away from here all these years, keeping it ready for us-it would have kept on keeping people away.”
Elemak laughed, and Mebbekew hooted hysterically. “Well, Nafai the theologian,” said Meb, “if the Oversoul’s so capable of keeping us safe, why did it send us out here into the landscape of hell instead of letting us safely stay home?”
“How are you such an expert on the Oversoul, anyway, Nafai?” asked Elemak. “That mother of yours obviously had you spending too much time with witches.”
For once, Nafai stifled his angry retorts. There was no point in arguing with them, he realized. But then, he had realized that many times before, and hadn’t been able to hold his tongue. The difference now, Nafai realized, was that he was no longer just Nafai, the youngest of Wetchik’s boys. Now he was the friend and atiy of the Oversoul. He had more important concerns than arguing with Elya and Meb.
“Nafai,” said Father, “your reasoning is faulty. Why should we make the Oversoul waste time watching over us, when we’re perfectly capable of watching over ourselves?”
“Of course not, Father,” said Nafai. His remark had been foolish. It would be wrong for them to burden the Oversoul, when the Oversoul needed them to help bear its burden. “I’m sorry.”
Elemak smiled slightly, and Mebbekew rolled his eyes and laughed again. “Listen to them,” he said. “Rational men, supposedly, talking about whether the Oversoul should tend our camels or not.”
“It was the Oversoul that brought us here,” said Father, rather coldly.
“It was you who made us go,” said Mebbekew, “and Elemak who guided us.”
“It was the Oversoul who warned me to leave,” said Father, “and the Oversoul that brought us to this well-watered valley.”
“Oh, yes, of course, I forgot,” said Meb. “I thought that was a vulture circling, but instead it was the Oversoul, leading the way.”
“Only a fool jokes about what he doesn’t understand,” said Father.
“Only an old joke goes around calling rational men foots? said Mebbekew. “Tou’re the one who sees plots and conspiracies in shadows, Father.”
“Shut up,” said Elemak.
“Don’t tell me to shut up.”
“Shut up,” said Elemak again. He turned slowly to meet Mebbekew’s hot glare. Nafai could see that, though Elya’s eyes were heavy lidded, as if he were barely awake, his eyes were afire as he stared Meb down.
“Fine,” said Mebbekew, turning back to his dinner, smearing cold bean paste onto another cracker. “I guess I’m the only one who doesn’t think camping trips are just the funnest thing.”
“This isn’t a camping trip,” said Father. “It’s exile.”
“What I can’t figure out,” said Mebbekew, “is what I did to deserve exile.”
“You’re my son,” said Father. “None of us were safe there.”
“Come on,” said Meb. “We were all safe.”
“Drop it,” said Elemak. Again he met Mebbekew’s glare.
Now Nafai began to recognize the trend here. Elemak didn’t like Mebbekew talking about whether there was really a plot against Father, or whether there had been any reason for the whole family to flee into the desert. It was a sensitive subject, and Nafai guessed that both of them knew more than they were willing to talk about If they had some dark secret, it would be no surprise if Elemak chose to conceal it by never letting a conversation even come near it, while Mebbekew would be far more likely to try to hide it behind a smokescreen of casual denials and mocking lies.
“You both know that Father’s life was in danger in Basilica,” said Nafai.
The way they both looked at him told him that what he suspected was true. If they had been innocent, they would have taken his remark to mean only that he expected them to believe in Father’s vision. Instead, they took it much more harshly.
“What makes you think you know what other people know?” demanded Elemak.
“If you’re so sure Father’s life was in danger,” said Meb nastily, “maybe that means you were in on the conspiracy.”
Again, their reactions were typical: Elemak, defending against Nafai’s accusation by saying, in essence, You can’t prove anything, while Mebbekew was defending himself by turning the accusation back on Nafai.
Now let them realize what they are confessing, thought Nafai. “What conspiracy?” he asked. “What are you talking about?”
Mebbekew immediately realized how much he had revealed. “I just assumed-that you were saying that we had some advance knowledge or something.”
“If you knew of a plot against Father’s life,” said Nafai, “you would have told him, if you were any kind of decent human being. And you certainly wouldn’t sit here whining about how we didn’t really need to leave the city.”
“I’m not the one who whines, little boy,” said Mebbekew. His anger had lost all subtlety now. He wasn’t sure how to interpret Nafai’s words, which is why Nafai had spoken the way he did. Let Meb wonder- does Nafai know something, or not?
“Shut up, Meb,” said Elemak. “And you, too, Nafai. Isn’t it bad enough we’re in exile here without you at each other’s throats?”
Elya the peacemaker. Nafai wanted to laugh. But then-maybe it was true. Maybe Elemak hadn’t known- maybe Gaballufix had never taken him into his confidence on that subject. Of course he hadn’t, Nafai realized” Elya might be Gaballufix’s half-brother, but he was still Wetchik’s son and heir. Gaballufix would never be absolutely sure whose side Elemak was really on. He could use Elya as a go-between, a messenger to Father-but he could never trust him with real knowledge.
That would explain Elemak’s effort to keep Meb silent, too; he wanted to hide his involvement with Gaballufix, yes, but there was no murder plot to keep secret. How could Nafai have imagined it? Besides, if they were out in the desert as part of the Oversoul’s plan, didn’t that mean that Elemak and Mebbekew were also part of the plan? Here I am, filled with suspicion about them, harboring exactly the kind of malice that is going to destroy Basilica. How can I claim to be on the Oversoul’s side, if I let myself behave like the kind of person who doesn’t trust even his own brother?
“I’m sorry,” said Nafai. “I shouldn’t have said that,”
Now they all looked at him in true startlement. It took a moment for Nafai to realize that it was the first time in his life that he had ever actually apologized for some nasty thing he said to one of his brothers, without first being wrestled into submission and locked in some painful grip.
“That’s all right,” said Mebbekew. His voice was full of wonder-his eyes, though, radiated with triumphant contempt.
You think my apology means I’m weak, Nafai said silently to him. But it doesn’t. It means I’m trying to learn how to be strong.
It was then that Nafai told Father and Elemak and Mebbekew something of the visions the Oversoul showed him during the night. He didn’t get far into his account, though.
“I’m tired,” said Elemak. “I don’t have time for this.”
Nafai looked at him in astonishment. Didn’t have rime to hear the plan of the Oversoul? Didn’t have time to learn about the hope of humankind returning to Earth?
Mebbekew also yawned pointedly.
“You mean you don’t even care?” asked Issib.
Elemak smiled at his crippled brother. “You’re too trusting, Issya,” he said. “Can’t you see what’s happening here? Nafai can’t stand not to be the center of attention. He can’t prove himself by being useful or even marginally competent-so he starts having visions. Next thing you know, Nyef s going to be giving us the Oversoul’s orders and bossing us all around”
“No I’m not,” said Nafai. “I saw the visions.”
“Right,” said Mebbekew. “I saw visions last night, too. Girls that you don’t even have the gonads to dream of, Nafai. I’ll believe in your dreams of the Oversoul as soon as you’re willing to many one of the girls from my dreams. I’ll even give you one of the prettiest ones.”
Elemak was laughing, and even Father smiled a little. But Mebbekew’s taunts only filled Nafai with rage. “I’m telling you the truth,” he insisted. “I’m telling you what the Oversoul is trying to accomplish!”
“I’d rather think about what the girls in my dreams were trying to accomplish,” said Meb.
“That’s enough of such vulgarity,” said Father. But he was chuckling. It was the crudest blow, that Father plainly believed Elemak about Nafai making up his visions.
So when Elemak and Mebbekew left to see to the animals, Nafai remained behind with Father and Issib.
“Why aren’t you going?” said Father. “Issib can’t help with chores like that, here where his floats don’t work. But you can help.”
“Father,” said Nafai, “I thought that you would believe me.”
“I do,” said Father. “I believe you honestly want to be part of the work of the Oversoul. I honor you for it, and maybe some of your dreams did come from the Oversoul.
But don’t try to tell such things to your older brothers. They won’t take it from you.” He chuckled bitterly. “They barely endure it coming from me.”
“I believe Nafai,” said Issib. “They weren’t dreams, either. He was awake, by the stream. I saw him come back to the tent, wet and cold.”
Nafai had never been so grateful to anyone, to have Issib back him up. He didn’t have to do it, either. Nafai had half expected Issib to stop believing him, if Father wasn’t taking him seriously.
“I believe him, too,” said Father. “But the things you were saying were far more specific than anything the Oversold tells us in visions. So I’m just saying that there’s probably a kernel of truth in what you’re saying. But most of it must have come from your own imagination, and I for one am not going to try to sort it out, not tonight.” “I believed you ,” said Nafai.
“Not at first,” said Father. “And we don’t trade belief like favors. We give belief and trust where they are earned. Don’t expect me to be any quicker to believe you than you were to believe me?
Abashed, Nafai got up from the rug. Father’s tent was so large that he didn’t have to duck when he stood upright. “I was blind at first, when you told me what you saw. But now I see that you’re deaf, so you can’t possibly hear the things I’ve heard.”
“Help your brother back into his chair,” said Father. “And watch how you speak to your father.”
That night, in their tent, Issib tried to console Nafai. “Father’s the father, Nafai. It can’t be good news to him, to have his youngest son getting so much more information from the Oversoul than he’s ever received.” “Maybe I’m more attuned to it or something,” said Nafai. “I can’t help it. But what difference does it make, who the Oversoul talks to? Wasn’t Gaballufix supposed to believe Father, even though Father is below his station in the Palwashantu clan?”
“Below his office, maybe,” said Issib, “but not below his station. If Father had wanted to be clan leader, he would have been chosen-he’s the Wetchik by birth, isn’t he? That’s why Gaballufix has always hated him-because he knows that if Father hadn’t despised politics, he could have wiped out Gaballufix’s power and influence easily, right from the start.”
But Nafai didn’t want to talk about Basilican politics now. He fell silent, and in the silence spoke again to the Oversoul. You have to make Father believe me, he said. You have to show Father what’s really happening. You can’t show me a vision and then not help me persuade Father.
“I believe you, Nyef,” Issib whispered. “And I believe in what the Oversoul is trying to do. Maybe that’s all the Oversoul needs, did you think of that? Maybe the Oversoul doesn’t need Father to believe you right now. So just accept it. Trust the Oversoul.”
Nafai looked at Issib, but in the darkness of night inside the tent couldn’t tell whether his brother’s eyes were open or not. Had it really been Issib speaking, or was Issib asleep, and had Nafai heard the words of the Oversoul in Issib’s voice?
“Someday, Nyef, it may come down to what Elemak said. You may have to give orders to your brothers. Even to Father. Do you think the Oversoul will leave you to yourself then?”
No, it couldn’t be Issib. He was hearing the Oversoul in Issib’s voice, saying things that Issib could never say. And now that he realized that he had his answer, he could sleep again. But before he slept, questions formed in his mind:
What if the Oversoul is telling me more than Father, not because it’s part of a plan, but simply because I’m the only one who can hear and understand?
What if the Oversoul is counting on me to be able to figure out a way to persuade the others, because the Oversoul hasn’t the power to convince them anymore?
What if I’m truly alone, except for this one brother who believes me-the one brother who is crippled, and therefore can do nothing?
Belief is not nothing, said the voice whispering in Nafai’s mind. Issib’s belief in you is the only reason you haven’t yet started doubting it yourself.
Tell Father, Nafai pleaded as he drifted off to sleep. Speak to Father, so he’ll believe me.
The Oversoul spoke to Father in the night, but not with any vision that Nafai had hoped for.
“I saw the four of you going back to Basilica,” said Father.
“About time,” said Mebbekew.
“Going back, but for a single purpose,” said Father. “To get the Index and bring it back to me.”
“The Index?” asked Elemak.
“It’s been with the Palwashantu. clan from the beginning. I believe that it might have been the reason the clan has preserved its identity for all these years. We were once called the Keepers of the Index, and my father told me that it was the right of the Wetchiks to use it,”
“Use it for what?” asked Mebbekew.
“I’m not sure,” said Father. “I’ve only seen it a few times. My grandfather left it with the clan council when he began traveling, and my father never made any serious effort to get it back after Grandfather died. Now it’s in Gaballufix’s house. But from the name of it, I’d guess it’s a guide to a library.”
“How useful,” said Elemak. “And for this you’re sending us back to Basilica? To get an object whose purpose you don’t understand”
“To get it and bring it back to me. No matter the cost.”
“Do you mean that?” said Elemak. “No matter the cost?”
“It’s what the Oversoul wanted. I knew it-even though I-it’s not my personal feeling. I want you back here, safe.”
“Right,” said Mebbekew. “It’s as good as done. No problem.”
“Should we bring back more supplies?” asked Nafai.
“There won’t be more supplies,” said Father. “I told Rashgallivak to sell all the caravaning supplies.”
Nafai could see Elemak’s face turn red under its dark tan. “So when our exile is over, Father, how do you propose we restore our business?”
It was a cusp of decision, Nafai could see that: Elemak was facing the fact that Father’s actions were intended to be irrevocable. If Elya was going to rebel, it would be over this, which he could only see as the squandering of his inheritance. So Father spoke plainly in giving his reply.
“I don’t propose to restore anything,” said Father. “Do what I say, Elemak, or it won’t matter to you what the Wetchik fortune is or is not.”
There it was. It couldn’t be more clear. If Elemak was ever to be Wetchik himself, he’d better obey the present Wetchik’s commands.
Mebbekew cackled. “I never liked all those smelly animals anyway,” said Mebbekew. “Who needs them?” His message was just as clear: I’ll gladly become Wetchik in your place, Elemak--so please go ahead and get Father really really angry.
“I’ll bring you your Index, Father,” said Elemak. “But why send these others? Let me go alone. Or let me take Mebbekew, and keep the younger boys with you. Neither of them will be any use to me.”
“The Oversoul showed me all four of you going,” said Father. “So all four of you will go to Basilica, and all four of you will return. Do you understand me?”
“Perfectly,” said Elemak.
“Last night you made fun of Nafai, because he claimed to be having visions,” said Father. “But I tell you that you could learn a great deal from Nafai and Issib. They, at least, are making an effort to help. All I hear from my two elder sons is complaint.”
Mebbekew glared pointedly at Nafai, but Nafai was more afraid of Elemak, who simply gazed steadily at Father through heavy-lidded eyes. Last night you wouldn’t believe me, Father, Nafai said silently. Now today you make my brothers hate me even more than before.
“You know much, Elemak, Mebbekew,” said Father, “but in all your learning you never seem to have mastered the concept of loyalty and obedience. Learn it from your younger brothers, and then you’ll be worthy of the wealth and honors you aspire to.”
Thaf s it, Nafai said silently. I’m dead now. I might as well be a worm in their bread, the way they’ll treat me on this whole trip. I’d rather stay home than go under these conditions, Father, thank you kindly.
“Father, I’ll do all that you ask,” said Elemak. But his voice was quiet and cold, and it made Nafai sick at heart to hear it.
Elemak sullenly set about preparing for the trip. As Nafai expected, Elya ignpred him completely when he asked what he should do to help. And Mebbekew shot him such a look that Nafai felt a thrill of fear run through him. He wants me dead, he thought. Meb wants me to die.
Since he wasn’t permitted to help, and since it would obviously be wiser for him to be as inconspicuous as possible for the next while, Nafai went back to the tent he shared with Issib and helped his brother pack up, which mostly consisted of wrapping his floats and stowing them in a bag. He could see in Issib’s eyes as he looked hungrily at the floats that it didn’t matter to Issib what Elemak or Mebbekew thought of him-he wanted to be back where his body was usable again, where he was free and didn’t have to be dressed or taken outside to void himself like an infant or a pet. Such a prisoner he is, trapped in that body, thought Nafai. And then the job was done and Issib was in his chair, hovering over the ground looking like some ill-tempered monarch on his throne. He was impatient to go, impatient to return to Basilica.
All of them are, thought Nafai. But none for the right reason. None is eager to get there because of a desire to help with the Oversoul’s plan.
Nafai found himself by the water’s edge, gripping a bough that was ten centimeters thick, bending it between his hands, bending it like a horseshoe. It fought him, but it also gave under the strength of his grip,
“Don’t break that,” said Father.
Nafai turned, startled. He let go of the branch, and it whipped upward, out of control; some leaves slapped him in the face,
“It took so long for it to grow,” said Father.
“I wasn’t going to break it.”
“It was on the verge,” said Father. “I know plants. You don’t. You were on the verge of breaking it.”
“I’m not that strong.”
“Stronger than you know.” Father sized him up. “Fourteen.” He laughed a little. “Your mother’s genes, not mine, I fear. I look at you and I see-”
“Mother?”
“What Issib might have been, body as well as mind. Poor boy.”
Poor boy. Why don’t you look at me sometime, Father, and see me. Instead of some imaginary child. Instead of a little boy who makes up visions, why don’t you see what I am: a man who heard the voice of the Oversoul, even more clearly than you.
“I’m afraid,” said Father.
Nafai looked his father in the eye. Is he teasing me?
“I’m sending you into something more dangerous than I think your brothers understand. But you understand, don’t you, Nafai.”
“I think.”
“After what you’ve seen,” said Father. But it was as much a question as an answer. What was he asking, whether Nafai knew the truth about Elya and Meb? It couldnt be that, because Father didn’t know about them himself. No, Father was asking whether Nafai really saw visions.
Nafai’s first reaction was to be furious-hurt, offended. But then he realized that he was wrong to feel that way. Because Father had a right to ask, a right to let it take time to believe in his visions, just as Issib had said. He was trying to accept the idea of Nafai as a fellow servant of the Oversoul.
“Yes,” said Nafai. “I’ve seen. But nothing about the Index.”
“Gaballufix won’t let it go,” said Father. “In the vision he did, but the Oversoul can’t see everything. The Index isn’t just something you borrow. It’s very powerful.”
“Why? What can it do?”
“I don’t know what it can do, of itself. But I know that it means power. I know that among the Palwashantu, the one who keeps the Index is the one who has the trust of the clan. The greatest honor. Gabya won’t give it up. He’ll kill first. And that’s where I’m sending my sons.”
The look on Father’s face was angry. Nafai realized: He’s furious at the Oversoul for requiring him to do this.
And then, as Nafai watched, Father mastered his rage, and his face grew calm. “I hope,” said Father quietly, “I hope the Oversoul has really thought all this through.”
“Father,” Nafai said, “Pfl go and do whatever the Oversoul has asked us to do. Because I know that the Oversoul wouldn’t ask us to do it without preparing some way for it to be accomplished,”
Father studied his face for the longest time. Then he smiled. Nafai had never seen such a smile on his father’s face. The relief in it, the trust. “Not an act, is it,” said Father. “You’re not just saying what you think I want to hear.”
“When have any of your sons said anything that they thought you wanted to hear?” asked Nafai.
Now Father laughed, tossed his head back and roared. “Never!” he cried. And then, just as suddenly, the laughter stopped. Father took Nafai’s head between his hands, his large hands, callused and wiry and horned and rough from years of handling bark and leather harnesses and raw stone, and holding those great palms on either side of Nafai’s face, he leaned forward and kissed him on the mouth. “My son,” he whispered. “My son.”
For a moment they stood there together, beside the tree, beside the water, until they heard footsteps and turned. It was Elemak, his face still sour and angry. “Time to go,” he said. “If we’re going to make any kind of progress today, anyway.”
“By all means go,” said Father. “I wouldn’t delay you for a moment.”
In a few minutes they were on their camels again, heading back to the city.
Basilica was not in sight yet, but Elemak knew the road. Knew it as well as he knew the skin of his own face in the mirror, every mole of the surface, every peak or declivity that snatched at the razor and bled. He knew the shadows of every hour of the day, where water might be waiting after a rain, where robbers might hide.
It was to one of those places that Elemak now led his brothers. They had not been on the road itself for some time, but till now had always kept it in sight. Now they left it behind, and soon the ground grew rough enough that he made them stop, dismount.
“Why are we stopping here?” asked Mebbekew.
The floats are working,” said Issib. “That’s how close we are, I can move without the damn chair.”
Elemak eyed his crippled brother and shook his head. “Not reliably. We’ll dismount the chair-you’ll have to use it.”
Issib was usually so compliant, but not now. “Use it yourself, if you think it’s so comfy.”
“Look at you,” said Elemak. “It’s intermittent at best, with the float. You’ll start losing it and fall over and we can’t have that. Use the chair.”
“It’ll get better as we get closer.”
“We aren’t getting closer,” said Elemak.
“Then what are we doing?” demanded Mebbekew.
“We’re going down into this arroyo, where the magnetics of Basilica certainly do not reach, and there we’re going to wait until nightfall.”
“And then?” asked Mebbekew. “Since you seem to think you’re in command here, I thought perhaps I’d ask.”
Elemak had faced this kind of thing many times before from fellow travelers on the road, even sometimes from hired men. He knew how to handle it-brutal suppression, instant and public, so no doubt was left in anyone’s mind of who was in charge. So instead of answering Mebbekew he took him by the arms-thin, womanly arms, an actor, by the Oversoul!-and slammed him back against a wall of rock. The sudden movement spooked one of the camels. It stamped, spat, blatted out a protest. For a moment Elemak was afraid he would have to go calm the animal-but no, Nafai had it, was calming it. The boy was actually useful for something besides sucking up to Father. Not like Mebbekew, who was reliable only in his unreliability. Why Gaballufix ever confided in him, Elemak never knew. Surely Gabya knew that Mebbekew would let something slip. Even if he didn’t tell Father direcdy about the plot, he surely told someone- how else could Father have known? m There was raw panic in Meb’s eyes, and pain, too-his head had smacked sharply against the stone. Well, good, thought Elemak. Think about pain a little bit. Think hard before you question my authority on the road.
“I a w in command here,” Elemak whispered.
Meb nodded.
“And I say that we’ll wait until dark.”
“I was joking,” Meb whined. “You don’t have to be so serious about everything, do you?”
Elemak almost hit him for that. Serious? Don’t you realize that there inside Basilica, the most powerful, dangerous man in the city is almost certainly convinced that we betrayed him and warned Father to flee? To Mebbekew, Basilica was a city of pleasure and excitement. Well, there might be excitement indeed inside those walls, but of pleasure not a speck.
But Elemak did not hit Meb, because that would be excessive, and provoke resentment instead of respect among the others. Elemak knew how to lead men, and knew how to control his own feelings and not let them interfere with his judgment. He eased his grip on Mebbekew and then turned his back on him, to show his absolute confidence in his own leadership, and his contempt for Mebbekew. Meb would not dare attack him, even with his back turned.
“At nightfall, what will happen is simple enough. I will go inside the city, and I’ll speak to Gaballufix, and I’ll bring out the Index.”
“No,” said Issib. “Father said we should all go.”
Another insubordination-but not a serious one, and it was Issib, the cripple, so a show of force was completely out of the question. “And we all have come. But I know Gaballufix. He’s my half-brother-as much my brother as any of you. I have the best chance of talking him into giving us the Index.”
“You mean we came all this way,” said Issib, “and you’re going to make me stay here, in this metal coffin of mine, and never get any closer to the city than this?”
“Better your chair than a real coffin,” said Elemak. “I tell you that if you think going into the city will be fan, you’re a fool. Gaballufix is dangerous.”
“He is ,” said Nafai. “Elya is right. If we all go in together, then a failure might mean all of us killed-or imprisoned-or anything. If only one goes, then even if he fails the rest of us might still be able to accomplish something.”
“If I fail, then go back to Father,” said Elemak.
“Right,” said Meb. “I’m sure we’ve all memorized the road.”
“It can’t be you,” said Issib. “Of all of us, you’re the only one necessary to lead us home.”
“I’ll go,” said Nafai.
“Right,” said Elemak, laughing. “ You,the one who looks most like Lady Rasa. I don’t think you get the picture, Nyef-one look at you and Gaballufix is reminded of the one humiliation he’s never been able to avenge-Lady Rasa lapsing his contract after two daughters and within a week making a new contract with Father-which she hasn’t broken yet. Walk into Gaballufix’s house alone, with no one in the city even knowing you’re there, Nyef, and your life is over.”
“Me, then,” said Mebbekew.
“You’d only go get drunk or find some woman,” said Elemak, “and then come back and lie and say you spoke to Gaballufix and he said no.”
Mebbekew seemed to toy with the idea of getting angry, but then thought better of it. “Possibly,” said Mebbekew. “But it’s a better plan than I’ve heard from anyone else.”
“What about mine?” said Issib. “ Igo and ask. What is Gaballufix going to do to a cripple?”
Elemak shook his head. “Break you in half with his bare hands, if he feels like it.”
“And you were friends with him?” asked Mebbekew.
“Brothers. We’re brothers. We don’t get to choose our brothers, you know,” said Elemak. “We just make do with what we get.”
“He wouldn’t hurt a cripple,” Issib said again. “It would shame him in front of his own men.”
Elemak knew that Issib was right. The cripple might be the best one to get into and out of an interview with Gaballufix alive. The trouble was that Elemak couldn’t let Issib or Nafai talk to the man. Gaballufix might say something that would compromise Elemak. No, it had to be Elemak himself, so he could talk to Gabya alone, maybe smooth things over, persuade his brother that it wasn’t him that warned Father of the plan to kill Roptat under circumstances that would implicate and discredit Wetchik. If they ever learned of this, Meb and Issya and Nyef wouldn’t understand that in the long run it was the best plan for Father’s own sake. If they didn’t neutralize Father this way, then eventually it might be Father who died under mysterious circumstances.
“I’ll tell you what,” said Elemak. “Since we all disagree about who should go, let’s let the Oversoul decide. A time-honored tradition-we draw lots.”
He reached down and scooped up a handful of pebbles from the ground. “Three light ones, one dark one.” But as he spoke, Elemak made sure a fourth light-colored stone was tucked out of sight between two of his fingers. “Dark stone goes into the city.”
“All right,” said Meb, and the others nodded.
“I’ll hold the stones,” said Nafai.
“Nobody holds the stones, my dear little boy,” said Elemak. “Too much chance of cheating, yes?” Elemak reached up to a shelf in the rock, out of sight where they were standing. There he again made a show of mixing up the four stones. “When I’m through mixing them, though, you can mix them yourself, Nafai,” he said. “That way we know that nobody knows which stone is which.”
Nafai immediately strode forward, reached up to the shelf of stone, and mixed the stones. Four of diem, of course-Elemak knew he would feel four stones and be satisfied. What he couldn’t possibly know was that the dark stone was now between Elemak’s fingers, and the four stones on the shelf were all light.
“While you’ve got your hand up there, Nyef, go ahead and choose a stone.”
Nafai, poor fool, came away with a light-colored stone and frowned at it. What did he expect? He was playing at a man’s game. None of these boys seemed to realize that a man with Elemak’s responsibilities would never have lasted on the open road if he didn’t know how to make sure that drawing lots always turned out the way he wanted.
“Me now,” said Issib.
“No,” said Elemak. “My draw.” That was another rule of the game-Elemak had to draw early, or somebody might grow suspicious and check the rocks and see that there was no dark one there. He reached up, made a show of fumbling with the rocks, and then came away with the dark one, of course-but with the extra light one also tucked between his fingers. When they checked, they’d find only two stones left there on the shelf.
“You knew by the feel of it,” said Mebbekew.
“Don’t be a bad sport,” said Elemak. “If all goes well, maybe we can all go into the city. It all depends on how Gaballufix reacts, yes? And he’s my brother-if anyone can persuade him, I can.”
“I’m going inside no matter what,” said Issib. “I’ll wait until you come back, but I’m not leaving here without going inside.”
“Issya,” said Elemak, “I can’t promise that I’ll let you go inside the walls of the city. But I can promise that before you leave here, you’ll get close enough that you can use the floats. All right?”
Sullenly Issib nodded.
“Your word, though, that no one leaves this spot until I come back.”
“What do we do if Gaballufix kills you?” asked Meb.
“He won’t.”
“What do we do,” Meb insisted, “if you don’t come back?”
“If I’m not back by dawn,” said Elemak, “then I’m either dead or incapacitated. At that point, my dear brotherlets, I won’t be in charge anymore and so I don’t really care what you do. Go home, go back to Father, or go into the city and get laid or killed or lost, it will make not a speck of difference to me. But don’t worry-I’ll be back.”
That gave them plenty to think about as he led them down the arroyo into a dear area where no one was likely to find them. “But look,” said Elemak. “You can see the city walls from here. You can see High Gate.”
“Is that the gate you’ll be using?” asked Nafai.
“On the way in,” said Elemak. “On the way out, I’ll use any gate I can get to.”
With that he left them, striding boldly away, wishing that he felt half as bold as the show he was putting on for them.
Entering the city through High Gate was nowhere near as difficult as it would have been at Market Gate-after all, there was no Gold Market to protect. Still, Elemak had to have his thumb scanned to prove his citizenship, and thus the city computer knew he had entered. Elemak had no doubt that even if Gabya’s house computer wasn’t tied directly to the city computers-which would be, of course, illegal-he certainly had informants in the city government, and if Gabya cared whether Elemak entered Basilica, he would know the information within moments.
Elemak was actually quite relieved not to be detained by the guard at the gate; it meant that Gaballufix had not put out his name for immediate arrest. Or else it meant that Gabya didn’t yet have quite as much power in the city as he boasted about to his friends and supporters. Maybe it was still beyond his reach to issue orders to the gate guards to detain his personal enemies.
Am I his enemy? thought Elemak. His brother, yes. His friend, no. An ally of convenience for a while, yes. We both saw ways to get benefit from a closer relationship. But now will he see me as an old business deal gone sour, as a possibly useful friend, or as a traitor to be punished?
Elemak meant to go straight to Gaballufix’s house, but once he was inside the city he couldn’t bring himself to do it. He jogged from High Funnel up Library Street, then took Temple to Wing. Either Temple or Wing would have carried him near to Gabya’s house, but by now Elemak was becoming more and more alarmed by the soldiers he was passing, or that were passing him. There were more of them, for one thing, than in the days before Father led them out into the desert, and even though he carefully avoided looking directly at them, he began to feel more and more uneasy about them. Finally, when he saw a group of a dozen turning onto Wing Street, he ducked into a doorway and then allowed himself to look at them directly as they passed.
Immediately he realized what was wrong. They were all identical--the faces, the clothing, the weaponry, everything. “Impossible,” he whispered. There could not be so many identical people in the world at the same time. The ancient stories of cloning flashed through his mind-witches and wizards who tried to rule the world by creating genetically identical copies of themselves, which inevitably (in the stories, at least) turned on their creators and killed them. But this was the real world, and these were Gabya’s soldiers; he had no more notion how to clone than how to fly, and if he could make clones, he could certainly have chosen a better model than this nondescript, stupid-looking hulk that was going up and down the streets by dozens.
“It’s all fakery,” said a woman.
No one stood in the doorway with Elemak. Only when he stepped out did he see the speaker, an ageless, filthy wilder, naked except for the layers of grime and dust that covered her. Elemak was not one of those who saw wilders as objects of desire, though some of his friends used them as casually as if they were urinals for lust. He would have ignored her, except she seemed to be answering his whispered comment, and besides, whom could he speak to more safely than to an anonymous holy woman from the desert?
“How do they do it?” he asked. “Look all alike, I mean.”
“They say it’s an old theatre costume technique, much in vogue a thousand years ago.”
She didn’t talk like a desert woman. “How does it work?”
“It’s a fine netting, worn like a cloak. A control at the waist turns it on and off. It automatically adjusts itself to the surrounding light-it becomes very bright in sunlight, much more subtle in moonlight or shadow. A very clever device.”
Her voice sounded more and more refined the more she talked.
“Who are you?” he asked.
She looked into his face. “I am the Oversoul,” she said. “And who are you, Elemak? Are you my friend or my enemy?”
For a moment Elemak stood in terror. He had been so worried about Gaballufix, so fearful that a soldier would recognize him, call out his name, and carry him off or perhaps’ even kill him on the spot, that to now be recognized by a madwoman in the street left him completely empty-headed. How do you hide when even the street beggars know your name? Only when she moved, inserting her index finger into her navel and twiddling it around as if she were stirring some loathsome mixture there, did his disgust overcome his fear and send him out into the street, running blindly away from her.
Thus his plan of casual, unobtrusive movement through the streets was ruined. He did have enough presence of mind, however, not to go directly to Gabya’s house, not in this state of mind. Where else could he go, though? Habit would lead him to his mother’s house- oki Hosni kept a fine old house in The Wells, near Back Gate, where she meddled in politics and made and broke reputations of rising young men and women of government. But desire triumphed over custom, and instead of taking refuge with his mother, he found himself on the porch of Rasa’s house.
He had studied here as a boy, of course, even before Father first mated with her; indeed, it was because his mother had placed him with Rasa that his father and his teacher first met. It had been vaguely embarrassing to have the other students gossip about the liaison between their mistress and Elya’s father, and from then on he had never been fully comfortable there until he gratefully left off his schooling at the age of thirteen. Now, though, he came to Rasa’s house, not as a student, but as a suitor- and one whose suit had long been welcomed.
For a moment, hesitating at the door, Elemak realized that he, was doing exactly what he had forbidden his young brothers to do-he was conducting personal business when he was supposed to be on Father’s errand. But whatever qualms he felt, he immediately dispelled them. His wooing of Eiadh was far more than pursuit of an advantageous match. Sometime in the last few months he had fallen in love with her; he desired her more than he had ever thought he could desire a woman. Her voice was music to him, her body an infinitely variable sculpture that astonished him with every movement. But as his devotion for her grew, he had become increasingly fearful that in her there was no matching increase of love for him. For all he knew, she still desired him only as the heir of the great Wetchik, who could provide her with enormous fortune and prestige. And if that was all she saw in him, all she felt for him, then recent events would turn her against him. There might be no advantage to her in marrying the Wetchik’s heir w ow, with so much of the business being closed down and sold off. How would she respond to him now?
He pulled the cord; the bell rang. It was an old-fashioned bell, a deepish gong rather than the musical chimes that were all the fashion now. To his surprise, it was none other than Rasa herself who answered the door.
““A man comes to my door,” she said. “A strong young man, with the dirt and sweat of the desert on his face. What am I to make of you? Are you bringing me word from my mate? Are you bringing more threats from Gaballufix? Are you here to carry off my niece Eiadh? Or have you come with fear in your heart, back to the house of your childhood schooling, hoping for a bath and a meal and four stout walls to keep you safe?”
All was said with such humor that Elemak’s fear was dispelled. It felt good to have Rasa address him almost as an equal, and with genuine affection, too. “Father is well,” he answered, “I haven’t seen Gabya since I returned to the city, I hope to see Eiadh but have no plans for abduction at the moment, and as for the bath and the meal-I would accept such hospitality gratefully, but I would never have asked for it.”
“I’m sure you wouldn’t have,” said Rasa. “You would have bounded in and expected Eiadh to be glad of your embrace when you smell like a camel and you spread dust with every step you take. Come in, Elemak.”
As he luxuriated in the bath he again felt some guilt, thinking of his brothers waiting for him in the rocks through the heat of the day-but then, bathing and cleansing himself before seeing Gaballufix was the most sensible of plans. It would make him look far less desperate and give the clear message that-he had friends in the city-a much better bargaining position. Unless Gaballufix saw it as further proof that Elemak had played a double game against him. Never mind, never mind. His clothing, freshly washed and aired, was laid out for him in the secator, and he slipped it on gratefully when he arose from the bath, letting the secator dry him off as he dressed. He disdained the hair oils-keeping the hair oil-free was one of the ways the pro-Potokgavan party identified themselves, refusing to resemble the Wetheads in any way.
Eiadh met him in Rasa’s own salon. She seemed timid, but he took that as a good sign-at least she did not seem haughty or angry. Still, did he dare to take the liberties she had granted him at his last wooing? Or would that be too presumptuous now, seeing how his circumstances had changed. He strode toward her, but instead of seating himself beside her on the couch, he sank to one knee before her and reached for her hand. She let him-and then reached out her other hand and touched his cheek. “Are we strangers now?” she asked. “Are you unwilling to sit beside me?”
She had understood his hesitation, and this was the reassurance that he needed. Immediately he sat beside her, kissed her, put his hand at her waist and felt how she breathed so passionately, how she yielded to him so eagerly. They said little at first, at least in words; in actions she told him that her feelings for him were undiminished.
“I thought you were gone forever,” she whispered, after long silence.
“Not from you,” he said. “But I don’t know what the future holds for me. The turmoil in the city, Father’s exile-”
“Some say that your brother was plotting to kill your father-” .
“Never.”
“And others that your father was plotting to kill your brother- “
“Nonsense. Laughable. They’re both strong-minded men, that’s all.”
“That’s not all ,” said Eiadh. “Your father never came here with soldiers, threatening that he could come in whenever he wanted the way Gaballufix did.”
“He came here!” said Elemak, angry. “For what?”
“He was Aunt Rasa’s mate once, remember-they have two daughters. ...”
“Yes, I think I’ve met them.”
“Of course,” she said, laughing. They’re your nieces, I know. And they’re Nyef s and Issya’s sisters, too-aren’t families so complicated? But what I meant was, Gaballufix’s coming wasn’t what was strange. It’s the way he came, with those soldiers in their horrible costumes so they all look so-inhuman.”
“I heard it was holography.”
“A very old theatrical device. Now that I’ve seen it, I’m glad that our actors use paint or, at the most, masks. Holographs are disturbing. Unnatural.” She put her hand inside his shirt, slid it along his skin. It tickled. He trembled. “You see?” she said. “How could a holograph ever feel like that? How could anyone bear to be so unreal. “
“I imagine they’re still real enough under the holograph. And they can make faces at you without your knowing it.”
She laughed. “Imagine being an actor, though, with something like that. How would anyone ever know your facial expressions?”
“Maybe they only used them for non-speaking roles-so the same actors could play dozens of roles with instant costume changes.”
Eiadh’s eyes widened. “I didn’t know you were so knowledgeable about the theatre.”
“I once courted an actress,” said Elemak. He did it deliberately, knowing how it bothered most women to hear about old loves. “I thought she was beautiful then. You see, I had never seen you. Now I wonder if she was anything but a holograph.”
She kissed him as a reward for the pretty compliment.
Then the door opened and Rasa came in. She had allowed them the socially correct fifteen minutes- perhaps a little longer. “So nice of you to visit us, Elemak. Thank you, Eiadh, for conversing with our guest while I was detained.” It was the delicate pretense of courting, this custom of acting as if the suitor had come to call on the lady of the house, while the young woman being wooed was merely helping the lady to entertain her guest.
“For all your hospitality, I am grateful beyond expression,” said Elemak. “You have rescued a weary traveler, my lady Rasa; I didn’t know how near death I must have been, until your kindness made me so alive.”
Rasa turned to Eiadh. “He’s really very good at this, isn’t he.”
Eiadh smiled sweetly.
“Lady Rasa,” said Elemak, “I don’t know what the future will hold I have to meet with Gaballufix today, and I don’t know how that will turn out,”
“Then don’t meet with him,” said Rasa, her expression turning quite serious. “He’s become very dangerous, I think. Roptat is convinced that there was a plot to kill him in that meeting at the coolhouse, the day that Wetchik left. If Wetchik had been there, as agreed, Roptat would have walked right into a trap. I believe him-I believe Gaballufix has murder in his heart.”
Elemak knew he had; but he also had no idea what might come if he confirmed Rasa’s suspicions. For one thing, Rasa and Eiadh might wonder how Elemak could have known of such a plot, and if he did, why he didn’t give warning to Roptat himself. Women didn’t understand that sometimes to avoid the thousands of casualties of a bloody war, it was kindest and most peaceable to prevent the conflict with a single timely death. Good strategy could so easily be misunderstood as murder by the unsophisticated
“Perhaps,” said Elemak. “Does anyone really know someone else’s heart?”
“I know someone’s heart,” said Eiadh. “And mine holds no secrets from him.”
“If it isn’t Elemak that you’re referring to,” said Rasa, “then poor Elemak might start contemplating some hot-blooded crime of passion himself.”
“Of course I’m talking about Elya,” said Eiadh. She took his hand and held it in her lap.
“Lady Rasa, I’m not going to Gaballufix unnecessarily. Father sent me. There’s something he needs that only Gaballufix can give.”
“There’s something we all need that only Gaballufix can give,” said Rasa, “and that is peace. You might mention that to him when you see him.”
“I’ll try,” said Elemak, though of course they both knew he wouldn’t.
“What is it that Wetchik wants? Did he send any message to me?”
“I don’t think he expected me to see you,” said Elemak. “It was a vision from the Oversoul that sent me. Actually, all four of us came-”
“Even Issib! Here!”
“No. I left them outside the city, in a safe place. No one but the two of you will know they’re here, if I can help it. With any luck, I’ll get the Index and be out of the city before night, and then I have no idea when we’ll be back again.”
“The Index,” whispered Rasa. “Then he can never come back.”
Elemak was disturbed to hear her say that. “Why? What is it?”
“Nothing,” she said. “I mean, I don’t know. Only that-let’s just say that if the Palwashantu realize that it’s gone . . .”
“How can it be that important? I never heard of it before Father sent us back for it.”
“No, it’s not much spoken of,” said Rasa. “There hasn’t been much need for it, I guess. Or perhaps the Oversoul didn’t want it known.”
“Why? There are lots of indexes-dozens in every library in the world, hundreds in Basilica alone. Why is this one the Index?”
“I’m not sure,” said Rasa. “Really I’m not. I only know that it’s the only artifact from the men’s worship that is also mentioned in the women’s lore.”
“Worship? How is it used?”
“I don’t know. It never has been used, to my knowledge. I’ve never seen it, I don’t even know what it looks like.”
“Oh, that’s good news,” said Elemak. “I assumed it would be like any other index, and now you’re telling me that Gaballufix could hand me anything and call it the Index and I’d never even know if he was cheating me.”
Rasa smiled. “Elemak, you must understand. Unless he wishes to lose his leadership of the Palwashantu, he will never give you the Index.”
Elemak was worried, but not dismayed. She dearly -meant what she was saying, but that did not necessarily mean that she was right. Nobody really knew what Gaballufix might do, and if he thought he could get some advantage out of it, he’d trade away anything. Even their mother, if Gabya ever thought old Hosni might have some value. No, the Index could be had, if the price was right And the more he realized how important this mysterious Index was, the more he wanted it, not just to humor Father, not just as part of the game he was playing to take possession of the future, but for the sake of having the Index himself. If so much power came to the one who had it, then why shouldn’t it be Elemak’s?
“Elemak,” Rasa said, “if you do, somehow, get the Index, you must realize that Gaballufix won’t let you keep it. Somehow he’ll get it back. You’ll be in terrible danger then. What I’m telling you is-if you or any of your brothers need refuge from Gabya, then trust no man. Do you understand? Trust no man .”
Elemak was unsure how to answer. He was a man; how did she expect him to respond to such advice?
“There are few women in this city,” said Rasa, “who would not rejoice to see Gabya deprived of much of his power and prestige. They would gladly help the taker of the Index to escape the grasp of Gaballufix-even if the Index had been obtained by some means that ordinarily might be viewed as ...”
“Criminal,” said Elemak.
“I hate the thought of it,” said Rasa. “But your Father is certainly right that it would be a harsh blow against Gaballufix, to lose the Index.”
“It wasn’t Father’s idea, really,” said Elemak. “He said it came to him in a dream. From the Oversoul.”
“Then it might happen,” she said. “It might. Perhaps . . . who knows whether the Oversoul might still have enough influence over Gaballufix to make him-what, temporarily stupid?”
“Stupid enough to give it to me?”
“And stupid enough not to find you and strike you down once you have it.”
Elemak felt Eiadh’s hand in his, her body leaning against him. I came here for refuge, and out of desire for you, Eiadh-but it was Rasa whose help I really needed. Imagine if I had gone into Gabya’s house, not realizing how important this Index really is! “Lady Rasa, how can I thank you for all you’ve done for me.”
“I fear that I’ve encouraged you to risk your life in an impossible endeavor,” said Rasa. “I hate to think Gaballufix might really harm you, but the stakes in this gamble arc very high. The future of Basilica is the prize-but I fear that the getting of the prize might harm the city so much that it isn’t worth the game.”
“Whatever happens,” Elemak said, “you can be sure that I will return for Eiadh if I can, and if she’ll have me.”
“Even if you’re a pariah and a criminal?” said Rasa. “Would you expect her to go with you even then?”
“Especially then!” cried Eiadh. “I don’t love Elya for his money or his position in the city, I love him for himself.”
“My dear,” said Rasa, “you’ve never known him without his money or his position. How do you know who he’ll be when he doesn’t have them anymore?”
It was a cruel thing for her to say; Elemak could not believe that she had even thought such a thought, let alone brought it to her lips. “If Eiadh were the sort of woman whose heart followed her coveting, Lady Rasa, then she would not be a woman I could love, or even trust. But I do love her, and no woman is worthier of my trust.”
Rasa smiled at him. “Oh, Eiadh, your suitor has such a beautiful vision of you. Do try to be worthy of it.”
“The way my Aunt Rasa talks, you’d think she was trying to talk you out of loving me,” said Eiadh. “Maybe she’s the teensiest bit jealous of me for having such a fine man courting me.”
“You forget,” said Rasa. “I already have the father. What would I want with the son?”
It was a tense moment; things were being said that should not- couldnot-be said in polite company. Unless it was as a joke.
At last Rasa laughed. At last. They joined in her laughter eagerly, in relief.
“May the Oversoul go with you,” said Rasa.
“Come back for me soon,” said Eiadh. She pressed herself against him so tightly that he could feel where every part of her body touched him, as if she were imprinting herself on his flesh. Or perhaps taking the imprint of his body on herself. He embraced her back; she would have no doubt of his desire or his devotion.
It was midafternoon when Elemak got to Gaballufix’s house. By habit he almost slipped down the alleyway to the private side entrance. But then he realized that his relationship with Gaballufix had changed in unpredictable ways. If Gaballufix regarded him as a traitor, then a secret arrival, completely unobserved, would give Gabya a perfect opportunity to be rid of him with no one the wiser. Besides, to come in the back way implied that Elemak was of a lower station than Gaballufix. He had had enough of that. He would come in openly, obviously, through the front entrance, like a man of importance in the city, an honored guest-with plenty of witnesses.
To his pleasure, Gaballufix’s servants were deferential, ushering him inside immediately, and there was very little waiting before Elemak was led to the library, where he had always met with Gaballufix. Nothing seemed changed-Gabya arose from his chair and greeted Elemak with an embrace. They spoke like brothers, gossiping for a few minutes about people they both knew in Gaballufix’s circle of friends and supporters. The only hint of tension between them was the way Gabya referred to Elemak’s “hasty midnight departure.”
“It wasn’t my idea,” said Elemak. “I don’t know which of your people talked, but Father woke us up hours before dawn, and we were out on the desert before the meeting was to have taken place.”
“I didn’t like being taken by surprise,” said Gaballufix. “But I know that sometimes these things are out of one’s control.”
Gabya was being understanding. Relief swept over him, and Elemak sat back more comfortably in his chair.
“You can imagine how worried I was. I couldn’t very well slip away and warn you what was happening-Father was on us the whole time, not to mention my little brothers.”
“Mebbekew?”
“It was all I could do to keep him from loosing all his sphincters on the spot. You should never have brought him into the plan.”
“Shouldn’t I?”
“How do you know he wasn’t the one who warned Father?”
“I don’t know that,” said Gaballufix. “All I know is that my dear cousin Wetchik left, and my brother Elemak with him.”
“At least he’s out of the city, He won’t be interfering with you anymore.”
“Won’t he?”
“Of course not. What can he do from some secluded valley in the desert?”
“He sent you back,” said Gaballufix.
“With a limited objective that has nothing to do with the whole debate over war wagons and Potokgavan and the Wetheads.”
“The debate has moved far beyond those concerns anyway,” said Gaballufix. “Or, perhaps I should say, it has moved far closer than those concerns. So tell me-what is your father’s limited objective, and how can I thwart him?”
Elemak laughed, hoping that Gabya was joking. “The best way to thwart him, I think, is to give him what he wants-a simple thing, nothing, really-and then we’ll go away and it’ll be between you and Roptat, the way you wanted it.”
“I never wanted it between me and anybody,” said Gaballufix. “I’m a peaceable man. I want no conflict. I thought I had a plan whereby conflict could be avoided, but at the last moment the people I counted on fell through.”
He was still smiling, but Elemak realized that things were not as steady between them as he had hoped.
“Now tell me, Elya, what is the little thing that you think I should do for your father, solely because your ‘father asks for it?”
“There’s some Index,” said Elemak. “An old thing that’s been in the family for generations.”
“An Index? Why would I have one of Wetchik’s family indexes?”
“I don’t know. I assumed you’d know which one he meant. He just called it ‘the Index’ and so I thought you’d know.”
“I have dozens of indexes. Dozens.” Then, suddenly, Gaballufix raised an eyebrow, as if he had just realized something. Elemak had seen him put on that same performance before, however, so he knew he was being played with. “Unless you mean-but no, that’s absurd, that’s nothing that ever belonged to the Wetchik house.”
Elemak dutifully played along. “What are you talking about?”
“The Palwashantu Index, of course,” said Gaballufix. “The whole reason for the clan having been established in the first place, back at the dawn of time. The most precious artifact in all of Basilica.”
Of course he would play up the value of it. Just like any merchant who was eager to sell. Pretend that what he’s selling is the most valuable thing ever to exist on the planet, so you can set some absurdly high price, and then work your way down.
That can’t be the one, then,” said Elemak, “Father certainly didn’t think it had that much value. It was more of a sentimental thing. His grandfather owned it, and lent it to the clan council for safekeeping during his travels. Now Father wants to take it with him on his travels.”
“Oh, that’s the one, then. His grandfather had it, but only as a temporary guardian. It was delegated to the Wetchik by the Palwashantu clan; he wearied of the burden, and gave it back. Now another guardian has been appointed-me. And I’m not weary. So tell your father I’m grateful that he was willing to help me with my duties, but I’ll struggle on without his help for another few years, I think,”
It was time for the price to be mentioned. Elemak waited, but Gaballufix said nothing.
And then, when the silence had stretched on for several minutes, Gaballufix arose from behind his table. “Anyway, my dear brother, I’m glad to see you back in the city. I hope you’ll be here for a long time-I can use your support. In feet, now that your father seems to have run off, I’ll certainly use my influence to try to get you appointed Wetchik in his place.”
This was not at all what Elemak had expected. It asserted a relationship between Elemak and his own inheritance that was completely intolerable. “Father is Wetchik,” he said. “He hasn’t died, and when he does, I’m Wetchik without any help from anyone.”
“Hasn’t died?” asked Gaballufix. “Then where is he? I don’t see my old friend Wetchik-but I do see the son that stands to profit most from his death.”
“My brothers will also witness that Father is alive.”
“And where are they ?”
Elemak almost blurted out the fact that they were hiding not very for from the city walls. Then he realized that this was almost certainly what Gaballufix wanted most to know-who Elemak’s allies were, and where they were hiding. “You don’t think I’d enter the city alone, do you, when my brothers are as eager to come back to Basilica as I am!”
Of course Gaballufix knew that Elemak was lying-or, at the least, he knew that Elemak’s thumbprint was the only one that had shown up at any of the city gates. What Gabya couldn’t know was whether Elemak was merely bluffing, and his brothers were all far away in the desert-or whether they had circumvented the guards at the gates and even now were in the city, plotting some mischief that Gaballufix would need to worry about. Yet Gaballufix couldn’t say anything about the fact that he knew Elemak was the only one to enter the city legally-it would be as much as admitting that he had complete access to the city’s computers.
“I’m glad they were able to return to the pleasures of the city,” said Gabya. “I hope they’re careful though. A rough element has been brought into the city-mostly by Roptat and his gang, I’m afraid-and even though I’m helping the city by letting a few of my employees put in extra duty hours patrolling the streets, it’s still possible for young men wandering alone through the city to get involved in unfortunate incidents. Sometimes dangerous ones,”
“I’ll warn them to look out.”
“And you, too, Elemak. I worry for you, my brother. There are those who think your father was involved in a plot against Roptat. What if they take out their resentment on you ?”
At that moment Elemak realized that his mission had failed. Gabya clearly did believe that Elemak had betrayed him-or else had concluded that Elemak was no longer useful and might even be dangerous enough to be worth killing. There was no hope now of getting anything through a pretense of polite brotherliness. But it might be worth taking a different tack.
“Come nowj Gabya,” said Elemak, “you know that you’re the one who’s been putting out that story about Father plotting against Roptat. That was the plan, remember? For Father to be found in the coolhouse with Roptat’s murdered corpse. He wouldn’t be convicted, but he’d be implicated, discredited. Only Father didn’t come, and therefore Roptat wouldn’t get close enough for your thugs to kill him, and now you’re trying to salvage as much of the plan as you can. We sat here and talked about it-why should we pretend now that we don’t both know exactly what’s going on?”
“But we dwft both know what’s going on,” said Gaballufix. “I haven’t the faintest idea what you’re talking about.”
Elemak looked at him with contempt. “And to think I once believed you were capable of leading Basilica to greatness. You coukbrt even neutralize your opposition when you had the chance.”
“I was betrayed by fools and cowards,” said Gaballufix.
“That’s the excuse that fools and cowards always give for their failures-and it’s always true, as long as you , realize that it’s self-betrayal they’re talking about.”
“You call me a fool and a coward?” Gaballufix was angry now, losing control. Elemak had never seen him like this, except a flash of temper now and then. He wasn’t sure that he could handle this, but at least it wasn’t the suave indifference that Gabya had been showing him till now. “At least I didn’t sneak off in the middle of the night,” said Gaballufix. “At least I didn’t believe every story I was told, no matter how idiotic it was.”
“And I did?” asked Elemak. “You forget, Gabya, you were the only one telling’me stories. So now, I’d like to know, which of the stories was I idiotic to believe? That you were only acting in the best interests of Basilica? I never believed that one-I knew you were out for your own profit and your own power. Or perhaps you think I believed the story that you really loved my father and were really trying to protect him from getting into the political situation over his head. Do you think I actually believed that one? You’ve hated him since Lady Rasa lapsed you and remated with him, and you’ve hated him more every year that they’ve stayed together.”
“I never cared about that!” said Gaballufix. “She’s nothing to me!”
“Even now she’s the only audience you try to please- imagine, going to her house and strutting like some cockbird, showing off for her. You should hear how she laughs about you now.” Elemak knew, of course, that saying such a thing put Rasa in great danger-but this was a game with high risks, and Elemak couldn’t hope to win it unless he took some chances. Besides, Lady Rasa could handle Gaballufix.
“Laughs? She doesn’t laugh. You haven’t even spoken with her.”
“Look at me-do you see any of the filth of travel on my clothing? I bathed in her house. I’m going to mate with her favorite niece. She told me that she would as soon have mated with a rabbit as to spend another night with you.”
For a moment he thought Gaballufix would draw a weapon and kill him on the spot. Then Gabya’s face relaxed a little, into something like a smile. “Now I know you’re lying,” he said. “Rasa would never say something so crude.”
“Of course I made it up,” said Elemak. “I just wanted you to see who was the fool, believing any story that he heard.”
“It’s one thing to believe for a moment,” said Gaballufix. “It’s another story to keep believing and believing in the stupidest ideas.”
It was in that moment that it first dawned on Eleniak what the lie was that Gaballufix was saying he still believed. And Gabya was right-Elemak was a fool ever to have believed it, and a worse fool to have kept on believing it until now. “You never meant to charge Father with killing Roptat, did you?”
“Of course I did,” said Gabya.
“But not to bring him to trial.”
“Oh, no, that would be silly-a waste of time. I told you that.”
“You said it would be a waste of time because Father’s prestige in the city meant he’d never be convicted. But the truth was he would never have come to trial because you meant people to discover both Roptat’s and Father’s bodies in the coolhouse.”
“What a terrible accusation. I deny it all. You have such an evil imagination, boy?
“You were using me to betray my own father so you could kill him.”
“For the longest time,” said Gaballufix, “I assumed you knew that. I assumed you understood that we were simply not speaking directly about it because it was such an unpleasant subject. I thought you realized that the only way I could get you your inheritance early was by arranging your father’s death.”
Elemak’s fury at having almost been a conspirator in father-killing overwhelmed all his self-control. He lunged toward Gaballufix-and found himself staring at the pulse in Gaballufix’s hand.
“Yes, yes, I see that you have some idea of what a pulse can do to a man at close range. You killed a man with a weapon just like this, didn’t you? In fact,” said Gaballufix, “it might have been this weapon, mightn’t it!”
Elemak looked at the pulse and recognized the wear marks on it, where it had been laid down on stone, where it had been nicked and marked, where the color had been faded by the sunlight as it rested at his hip during countless hours of travel in the desert. “I lent that pulse to Mebbekew the day I got home from my last caravan,” he said stupidly.
“And Mebbekew lent it to me. I told him-speaking of fools-that I wanted it to surprise you with later, at a party, to honor you for drawing blood. I told him I was going to use your story to inspire my soldiers.” Gaballufix laughed. And laughed.
“That’s why you brought Meb in. To get my pulse.” But why? Elemak imagined his father lying there, dead, and then someone discovering Elemak’s pulse not far away, abandoned perhaps in his haste to flee. He imagined Gaballufix explaining to the city council, tears in his eyes. “This is where greed in the younger generation leads-my own half-brother, willing to murder his father in order to get his inheritance.”
“You’re right,” said Elemak quietly. “I was a fool.”
“You were and you are,” said Gaballufix. “You were seen in the city today-all over the city. My men tracked you through several neighborhoods. There are many witnesses-and it will be so delicious to see Rasa forced to testify against her beloved Volemak’s oldest boy. Because someone is going to die tonight, killed with this very pulse, which will be found near the body, and then everyone will know that it was Wetchik’s son who was the assassin, probably at his father’s orders. And the best part of it is, I can tell you this, and then I can let you know, I can put you out of the city alive and there’s still nothing you can do about it. If you start telling people about my plot to kill somebody-whoever I decide it should be-they’ll all assume that you were simply trying to cover up your own crime in advance. You are a fool, Elemak, just like your father. Even when you knew I wasn’t afraid to kill to accomplish my purposes, you somehow thought that you and your family would be immune, that somehow I’d be more tender with you because the same weary old womb bore you and me during our nine months sucking life out of a placenta.”
Elemak had never seen such fury, such hatred, such evil in a human face, had never imagined it was possible. Yet there he stood, looking at Gabya’s glee in describing a crime he meant to commit. It frightened Elemak, but it also made him feel an insane kind of confidence. As if Gaballufix’s having revealed his true inner smallness made Elemak realize how much larger he was himself, after all.
“Who’s the fool, Gabya,” said Elemak. “Who’s the fool.”
“I think there’s no doubt of that now,” said Gaballufix.
“True enough,” said Elemak. “You’ll make it impossible for Father and me to return to the city, for a while at least, but the death of Roptat won’t open the road for you. Are you so stupid, really? Nobody will believe for a moment that Father would kill Roptat, or that I would either.”
“I’ll have the weapon!” said Gaballufix.
“The weapon, but no witness to the killing, just your story bruited about by your people. They aren’t so stupid that they can’t add one and one. Who stands to gain from Roptat’s death and Father’s exile? Only you, Gabya. This city will rise up in bloody rebellion against you. Your soldiers will die in the streets.”
“You overestimate the will of my feeble-hearted enemies,” said Gaballufix. But his voice didn’t sound so certain anymore, and the glee was gone.
“Your enemies aren’t feeble-hearted, just because they’re unwilling to kill in order to get their way. They are willing to kill to stop a man like yow. A weak-brained, jealous, spiteful, malicious little parasitic roach like you.”
“Do you want so much to die?”
“Yes, kill me here, Gabya. Hundreds of people know I’m here. Hundreds are waiting to hear what I tell them. Your whole plan stands revealed, and none of it will work. Because you were so stupid that you had to brag.”
Elemak’s words were all bluff, of course, but Gaballufix believed him. At least enough to make him pause. To make him wonder. Then Gabya smiled. “Elya, my brother, I’m proud of you.”
Elemak recognized surrender when he heard it. He said nothing in reply.
“You are my brother after all-the blood of Volemak didn’t weaken you after all. It may even have made you stronger.”
“Do you really think I’ll swallow your flattery w ow?”
“Of course not,” said Gaballufix. “Of course you’ll disregard it-but that doesnt stop me from admiring you, does it? It just stops you from believing in my admiration! The loss is yours, dear Elya.”
“I came for the Index, Gaballufix,” said Elemak. “A simple thing. Give it to me, and I’m gone. Wetchik and his family will never bother you again, and you can play your little games until somebody puts a knife in your back just to stop that squealing noise you make whenever you think you’ve been especially clever.”
Gaballufix cocked his head to one side.
He’s going to give it to me, thought Elemak, triumphantly.
“No,” said Gaballufix. “I’d like to, but I can’t. The disappearance of the Index-that would be hard to explain to the clan council. A lot of trouble, that’s what it would cause, and why should I put myself to all that trouble just to get rid of Wetchik? After all, I’m already rid of him.”
Now, at last, Elemak was where he wanted to be: bargaining like a merchant. “What else would it take to make it worth your while?” asked Elemak.
“Make me an offer. Enough money that ifll make up for all the extra effort I have to go through.”
“Give me the Index, and Father will release funds to you. Whatever you want.”
“I’m supposed to wait for the funds? Wait for Wetchik to pay me later for an Index I give you now? Oh-I get it-I see what’s happening!” Gaballufix laughed in derision. “You can’t give me money now because you don’t have any. Wetchik still hasn’t released any of his fortune to you! He sent you on this errand and he didn’t even give you access to his money!”
It was humiliating. Father should have realized that in dealing with Gaballufix it would eventually come down to money; he should have given him password that would have let him access the Wetchik family funds. Rashgailivak, the steward, had more control over the Wetchik fortune than Elemak did. He was filled with fury and resentment against his father for putting him in such a position of weakness. The stupid short-sighted old man, always tripping over his own feet when it came to business!
“Tell me, Elya,” said Gaballufix, interrupting his own laughter. “If your own father doesn’t trust you with his money, why should I trust you with the Index?”
With that, Gaballufix reached under his table and apparently triggered some kind of switch, for three doors opened at once and identical-looking soldiers burst into the room. They took hold of Elemak and roughly thrust him out into the hall, then out the front door.
Nor was that enough. They quick-marched him to the nearest gate, which happened to be the Back Gate-right past his mother’s house-and threw him into the dirt in front of the guards.
“This one’s leaving the city!” shouted one of “the soldiers.
“And never coming back!” cried another.
The guards, however, did not seem terribly impressed. “Are you a citizen?” asked one.
“Yes,” said Elemak, dusting himself off.
“Thumb please.” They presented the thumbscreen, and Elemak held his thumb over it. “Citizen Eiemak son of Hosni by the Wetchik. It is an honor to serve you.” Whereupon the guards all stood at attention and saluted him.
It completely stunned him. Never, in all his passages into and out of the city of Basilica, had anyone done more than raise an eyebrow when the city computer reported his prestigious parentage. And now a salute!
Then Gaballufix’s soldiers jeered again, boasting about what they’d do to him if he ever returned, and Elemak understood. The official city guards were letting him and everyone else near the gate see that they were not part of Gaballufix’s little army. Furthermore, the very fact that the son of Wetchik was clearly the enemy of Gaballufix made city guards want to salute him. If Elemak could only figure out how to use this situation, he might very well be able to turn it to his advantage. What if I returned to the city as the deliverer, leading the guard and the militia in crushing Gabya and his hated army of costume clones. The city would then gladly give me all that Gabya is trying to win through trickery, intimidation, and murder. I’d have all the power Gaballufix ever imagined-and the city would love me for it.
TWELVE - FORTUNE
It was a miserable day in the desert, even allowing for the fact that except for about an hour and a half at noon, the canyon was in deep shade, with a steady breeze funneling through it. No place is comfortable, thought Nafai, when you’re waiting for someone else to do a job you think of as your own. Worse than the heat, than the sweat dripping into his eyes, than the grit that got into his clothing and between his teeth, was the sick dread Nafai felt whenever he thought of Elemak being the one entrusted with the Oversoul’s errand.
Nafai knew that Elemak had rigged the casting of lots, of course. He wasn’t such a fool as to think Elemak would actually leave such a thing to chance. Even as he admired the deftness with which Elya handled it, Nafai was angry at him. Was he even attempting to get the Index? Or was he going into the city and meeting with Gaballufix in order to plan some farther betrayal of Father and of the city and, finally, of the Oversoul’s guardianship of humanity?
Would he even return?
Then, at last, in mid-afternoon, there came the clatter and rattle of stones tumbling, and Elemak clambered noisily down into their hiding place. His hands were empty, but his eyes were bright. We have been betrayed, thought Nafai.
“He said no, of course,” said Elemak. “This Index is more important than Father told us. Gaballufix doesn’t want to give it up-at least not for nothing.”
“For what, then?” asked Issib.
“He didn’t say. But he has a price. He made it clear that he’s willing to hear an offer. The trouble is-we have to go back to Father and get access to his finances.”
Nafai didn’t like this at all. How did they know what Elemak and Gaballufix had promised each other?
“All the way back, empty-handed,” said Mebbekew. “Tell you what, Elya. You go back, and the rest of us will wait here till you come back with the password to Father’s accounts.”
“Right,” said Issib. “I’m not going to spend the night out here in the desert, when I can go into the city and use my floats.”
“How stupid are you, really?” said Elemak. “Don’t you realize that things are different now? You can’t go wandering anonymously through the city anymore. Gab-ya’s troops are all over it. And Gaballufix is not Father’s friend. Therefore he’s not our friend, either.”
“He’s your brother,” said Mebbekew.
“He’s nobody’s brother,” said Elemak. “He’s got both the morals and the surface properties of slime. I know him better than any of you, and I can promise you that he’d just as soon kill any of us as look at us.”
Nafai was amazed to hear Elemak talking this way. “I thought you wanted him to lead Basilica.”
“I thought his plan was the best hope for Basilica in the coming wars,” said Elemak. “But I never thought Gaballufix was out to get anything except his own advantage. His soldiers are all over the city-wearing some kind of holographic costume that covers their whole bodies, so all his soldiers look absolutely identical.”
“Whole-body masks!” cried Mebbekew. “What a great idea!”
“It means,” said Elemak, “that even when somebody sees one of Gaballufix’s soldiers committing a crime-like kidnapping or killing a stray son of old Wetchik-no one can possibly identify the individual who did it.”
“Oh,” said Mebbekew.
“So,” said Nafai, “even if Father gives us access to his money, what then? What makes you think Gaballufix would sell it?”
“Think, Nafai. Even a fourteen-year-old should be able to grasp something of the affairs of men. Gaballufix is paying hundreds and hundreds of soldiers. His fortune is large, but not large enough to keep that up forever, not without getting control of the tax money of Basilica to support them all. Father’s money could make a huge difference. At the moment, Gaballufix probably needs money more than he needs the prestige of possessing this Index, which hardly anybody has even heard of anymore.”
Swallowing Elemak’s condescension, Nafai realized that Elemak’s analysis was right. “The Index is for sale, then.”
“Couldbe,” said Elemak. “So we go back to Father and see whether the Index is worth spending money for, and how much money. Then he gives us access to his finances and we go back and bargain-”
“And I say y o ugo home and let me take my chances in the city,” said Mebbekew.
“I want to get away from my chair tonight,” said Issib.’
“When we come back,” said Elemak, “ thenyou can get into the city.”
“Like this time? You make us wait again, just like this time, and we’ll never get in,” said Issib.
“Fine,” said Elemak. “I’ll go back alone and tell Father that you’ve abandoned him and his cause, just so you can go into the city and float around and get laid.”
Tin not going in to get laid!” protested Issib.
“And I’m not going in to float,” said Mebbekew, grinning.
“Wait a minute,” said Nafai. “If we go back to Father and get permission, then what? It’ll be almost a week. Who knows how things might have changed by then? There could already be civil war in Basilica. Or by then Gaballufix might have arranged other financing, so that our money wouldn’t mean anything to him. The time to make an offer is now.”
Elemak looked at him in surprise. “Well, yes, of course, that’s true. But we don’t have access to Father’s money.”
In answer, Nafai looked at Issib.
Issib rolled his eyes. “I promised Father,” he said.
“You mean you have access to Father’s password?” said Mebbekew.
“He said that somebody else ought to know it, in case of an emergency,” said Issib. “How did you know about it, Nafai?”
“Come on,” said Nafai, “I’m not an idiot. In your research you were getting access to city library files that they’d never let a kid like you get into without specific adult authorization. I didn’t know Father h&dgiren it to you, though.”
“Well,” said Issib, “he only gave me the entry code. I kind of figured out the back half myself.”
Mebbekew was livid. “All this time that I’ve been living like a beggar in the city, you had access to Father’s entire fortune?”
“Think about it, Meb,” said Elemak. “Who else could Father trust with his password? Nafai’s a child, you’ve a spendthrift, and I was constantly disagreeing with him about where we ought to invest our money. Issib, though-what was he going to do with the money?”
“So because he doesn’t need money, he gets all he wants?”
“If I had ever used his password to get money, he would have changed it and so of course I never used it,” said Issib. “Maybe he has still another password for getting into the money-I never tried. And I’m not trying now, either, so you can forget it. Father didn’t authorize us to go dipping into the family fortune.”
“He told us that the Oversold wanted us to bring him the Index,” said Nafai. “Don’t you see? The Index is so important that Father had to send us back to face his enemy, a man who planned to kill him-”
“Oh, come on, Nyef, that was Father’s dream, not anything real,” said Mebbekew. “Gaballufix wasn’t planning to kill Father.”
“Yes he was,” said Elemak. “He was planning to kill Roptat and Father, and then put the blame on me.”
Mebbekew’s jaw hung open.
“He was going to arrange to have them find my pulse-the one I lent to you , Mebbekew-near Father’s body. Clumsy of you to lose my pulse, Meb.”
“How do you know all this?” asked Issib.
“Gaballufix told me,” said Elemak. “While he was trying to impress me with my helplessness.”
“Let’s go to the council,” said Issib. “If Gaballufix confessed-”
“He confessed-or rather bragged-to me,in a room alone. My word against his. There’s no point in telling anybody. It wouldn’t do any good.”
“This is the opportunity,” said Nafai. “Today, right now. We go down to the house, access Fathers files through his own library, convert all the fiinds into liquid assets. We go to the gold market and pick it up as metal bars and negotiable bonds and jewels and what-not, and then we go to Gaballufix and-”
“And he steals it all from us and kills us and leaves the chopped-up bits of our bodies for the jackals to find in some ditch outside the city,” said Elemak.
“Not so,” said Nafai. “We take a witness with us- someone he worit dare to touch.”
“Who?” said Issib.
“Rashgallivak,” said Nafai. “He isn’t just the steward of the house of Wetchik, you know. He’s Palwashantu, and has a great deal of trust and prestige. We bring him along, he watches everything, he witnesses the exchange of Father’s fortune for the Index, and we all walk out alive. Gaballufix might be able to kill us, because we’re in hiding and Father’s an exile, but he can’t touch Rash.”
“You mean all jow of us go to Gaballufix?” asked Issib.
“Into the city?” asked Mebbekew.
“It’s not a bad plan,” said Elemak. “Risky, but you’re right about this being the time to act.”
“So let’s go down to the house,” said Nafai. “We can leave the animals here for the night, can’t we? Issib and I can go to Father’s library to do the funds transfer, while you and Meb find Rash and bring him there so we can go meet Gaballufix together.”
“Will Rash go along with it?” asked Issib. “I mean, what if Gaballufix decides to kill us all anyway?”
“Yes,” said Elemak. “He’s a man of perfect loyalty. He will never swerve from his duty to the house of Wetchik.”
It took only an hour or so. It was late afternoon when they walked into the Gold Market and began the final transactions. All of the funds that were not tied up in real property were all in spendable form in Issib’s bank file-actually, like all the brothers’ bank files, a mere subfile of Father’s all-inclusive account. If anyone doubted that Issib was authorized to spend so much, there was Rashgallivak, silently observing. Everyone knew that if Rash was there, it had to be legitimate.
The amount involved was the largest single purchase of portable assets in the recent history of the Gold Market. No one broker had anything like enough ingots or jewels or bonds to handle even a large fraction of the buy. For more than an hour, until the sun was behind the red wall and the Gold Market was in shadow, the brokers scrambled among themselves until at last the whole amount was laid out on a single table. The fiinds were transferred; a staggering amount was moved from one column to another in all the computer displays-for all the brokers were watching now, in awe. The ingots then were rolled up in three cloth packages and tied, the jewels were rolled in cloth and bagged, and the bonds were folded into leather binders. Then all the parcels were distributed among the four sons of Wetchik.
One of the brokers had already arranged for a half-dozen of the city guards to accompany them wherever they were going, but Elemak sent them away. “If the guards are with us, then every thief in Basilica will see and take note of where we’re going. Our lives will be worthless then,” said Elemak. “We’ll move swiftly and without guard, without notice.”
Again the brokers looked at Rashgallivak, who nodded his approval.
Half an hour through the streets of the city, nervously aware of everyone who glanced at them, and then at last they were at the doors of Gaballufix’s house. Nafai saw at once that both Elemak and Mebbekew were recognized here. So, too, was Rashgallivak-but Rash was widely known in the Palwashantu clan, so it would have been a surprise if he had not been recognized. Only Nafai and Issib had to be introduced as they stood before Gaballu-fix in the great salon of his-no, not his, but his wife’s- house.
“So you’re the one who flies,” said Gaballufix, looking at Issib.
“I float,” said Issib.
“So I see,” said Gaballufix. “Rasa’s sons, the two of you.” He looked Nafai in the eye. “Very large for one so young.”
Nafai said nothing. He was too busy studying Gaballufix’s face. So ordinary, really. A little soft, perhaps. Not young anymore, though younger than Father, who had, after all, slept with Gaballufix’s mother-enough to produce Elemak. There was some slight resemblance between Elya and Gaballufix, but not very much, only in the darkness of the hair, and the way the eyes were perhaps a little close together under heavy-ridged brows.
It was in the eyes that they were alike, but also in the eyes that they differed most, for there was a rheuminess, a scarlet-rimmed look in Gaballufix’s eyes that was the opposite of Elya’s sharpness. Elemak was a man of action and strength, a man of the desert, who could face strangers and unknown places with courage and confidence and vigor. Gaballufix, by contrast, was a man who went nowhere and did nothing; rather he denned himself here and let others do his work for him. Elemak went out and penetrated the world, changing it where he would; Gaballufix stayed in one place and sucked the world dry, emptying it in order to fill himself.
“So the young one is speechless,” said Gaballufix.
“For the first time in his life,” said Meb. There was some nervous laughter.
“Why do the sons and the steward of Wetchik honor me with this visit?”
“Father wanted us to trade gifts with you,” said Elemak. “We’re living in a place where we need little in the way of money, yet Father has taken it into his heart-no, the Oversold has commanded him-to bring the Index with him. While you, Gaballufix, have little use for the Index-have you even looked at it in all your years as leader of the clan council?-and might be able to turn some portion of the Wetchik estate to better advantage than Father ever could, being far from the city.”
It was an eloquent, truthful, and completely deceptive speech, and Nafai admired it. There was no doubt in anyone’s mind that a purchase was being attempted here, and yet it was delicately disguised as an exchange of gifts, so that no one could openly accuse Gaballufix of having sold the Index, or Father of having bought it.
“I’m sure my kinsman Wetchik is far too generous to me,” said Gaballufix. “I can’t imagine that I would be of much help to him, managing some trifling portion of his great fortune.”
In answer, Elemak stepped forward and unrolled a heavy parcel of platinum ingots. Gaballufix picked up one ingot and hefted it in his hands. “This is a thing of beauty,” he said. “And yet I know this is such a tiny part of the Wetchik fortune that I could not feel right about doing such a small favor for my kinsman, when he would bear in exchange the heavy burden of guarding the Palwashantu Index.”
“This is only a sample,” said Elemak.
“If I’m to be trusted with this, shouldn’t I see the extent of my guardianship?”
Elemak removed all the rest of the treasure that he carried on his person, and laid it on the table. “Surely that is all that Father would dare ask you to be burdened with,” he said.
“Such a slight burden,” said Gaballufix. “I would be ashamed to have this be all the help I gave my kinsman.” Yet Nafai could see that Gaballufix’s eyes were shining at the sight of so much wealth all in one place. “I assume that it’s only a quarter of what you carry.” Gaballufix looked from Nafai to Issib and Mebbekew.
“I think that’s enough,” said Elemak.
“Then I couldn’t agree to lay the burden of the Index on my kinsman,” said Gaballufix.
“Very well,” said Elemak. He reached out and started rolling up the ingots.
Is that all? thought Nafai. Do we give up so easily? Am I the only one who can see that Gaballufix hungers for the money? That if we offer just a little more, he’ll sell?
“Wait,” said Nafai. “We can add what I carry to this.”
Nafai was aware that Elemak was glaring at him, but it was unthinkable to come so close and leave empty-handed. Didn’t Elemak realize that the Index was important More important than mere money, that was certain. “And if that isn’t enough, Issib has more,” Nafai said. “Show him, Issib. Let me show him.”
In moments, they had tripled the offer.
“I fear,” said Elemak, his voice icy, “that my younger brother has inconsiderately offered to burden you with far more than I ever intended you to have to deal with.”
“On the contrary,” said Gaballufix. “It is your younger brother who has more correctly estimated how much of a burden I’m willing to bear. Indeed, I think that if the last quarter of what you carried into my house were upon this table, I’d feel right about weighing down my dear kinsman with the heavy responsibility of the Palwashantu Index.”
“I say it’s too much,” said Elemak.
“Then you hurt my feelings,” said Gaballufix, “and I can’t see any reason for further discussion.”
“We came for the Index,” said Nafai. “We came because the Oversold demands it.”
“Your father is famous for his holiness and his visions,” said Gaballufix.
“If you’re willing to accept all that we have,” said Nafai, “we’ll gladly lay it before you in order to fulfil the will of the Oversoul.”
“Such obedience will long be remembered in the Temple,” said Gaballufix. He looked at Mebbekew. “Or is Nafai’s holiness not matched by that of his brother Mebbekew?”
Anguished with indecision, Mebbekew looked back and forth between Elemak and Gaballufix.
But it was Elemak who acted. He reached down and again rolled up ingots into the cloth.
“No!” cried Nafai. “We won’t turn back now!” He held out his hand to Mebbekew. “You know what Father would want you to do.”
“I see that only the youngest has true understanding,” said Gaballufix.
Mebbekew stepped forward and began laying parcels on the table. As he did, Nafai could feel Elemak grip his shoulder, the fingers biting deep, and Elemak whispered in his ear, “I told you to leave this to me. You’ve given him four times what we needed to pay, you little fool. You’ve left us with nothing.”
Nothing but the Index, thought Nafai. But still, he vaguely realized that Elemak might in feet have known better how to handle the bargaining, and perhaps he should have kept his mouth shut and let Elya handle things. But at the time he acted, Nafai was so sure that he had to speak or they would never get the Index.
All the Wetchik fortune except the land and buildings themselves was on Gaballufix’s table.
“Is that enough?” asked Elemak dryly.
“Exactly enough,” said Gaballufix. “Exactly enough to prove to me that Volemak the Wetchik has completely betrayed the Palwashantu. This great fortune has been put into the hands of children, who have, with childish stupidity, resolved to waste it all on the purchase of that which every true Palwashantu knows can never be sold. The Index, the sacred, holy trust of the Palwashantu- did Volemak think it could be bought? No, impossible, it could not be! I can only conclude that he has either lost his mind or you have killed him and hidden his body somewhere.”
“No!” cried Nafai.
“Your lies are obscene,” said Elemak, “and we won’t tolerate them.” He stepped forward and reached out for a third time to gather up the treasure.
“Thief!” shouted Gaballufix.
Suddenly the doors opened, and a dozen soldiers entered the room.
“Do you think you can do this in the presence of Rashgallivak?” demanded Elemak.
“I insist on doing it in his presence,” said Gaballufix. “Who do you think first came to me with the news that Volemak was betraying the trust of the Wetchiks? That Volemak’s sons were gutting the Wetchik fortune for some mad whim?”
“I serve the house of Wetchik,” said Rashgallivak. He looked at each of the brothers, his face a mask of sadness, “It could not possibly be in the interest of that great house to let the fortune be destroyed by one madman who thinks he sees visions. Gaballufix could hardly believe what I told him, but he agreed with me that the fortune of Wetchik had to be shifted into the care of another branch of the family.”
“As chief of the Palwashantu clan,” Gaballufix intoned, “I hereby declare that Volemak and his sons, having proven themselves unfit and unreliable as guardians of the greatest house in the clan, are therefore removed as heirs and possessors of the house of Wetchik for all time. And in recognition of years of loyal service, by himself and his ancestors for many centuries, I grant temporary guardianship of the Wetchik fortune, and the use of the name of Wetchik, to Rashgallivak, to care for all aspects of the Wetchik house until such time as the clan council shall dispose of them otherwise. As for Volemak and his sons, if they make any effort to protest or dispute this action, they will be regarded as blood-enemies of the Palwashantu, and shall be dealt with by laws more ancient than those of the city of Basilica.” Gaballufix leaned forward across the table, smiling at Elemak, “Did you understand all that, Elya?”
Elemak looked at Rashgallivak. “I understand that the most loyal man in Basilica is now the worst traitor.”
“You were the traitors,” said Rash. “This sudden madness of visions, a completely unprofitable journey into the desert, selling off ail the animals, dismissing all the workers, and now this-as steward of the house of Wetchik, I had no choice but to involve the clan council.”
“Gaballufix isn’t the clan council,” said Elemak. “He’s a common thief, and you’ve put our fortune in his hands.”
“Youwere putting the fortune in his hands,” said Rashgallivak. “Don’t you see that I did this for you? For all four of you? The council will leave me as guardian for a few years, until all this blows over, and in that time if one of you proves himself to be a sober and completely reliable man, worthy of the responsibility, the Wetchik name and fortune will be returned to you.”
“There’ll be no fortune left,” said Elemak. “Gabya will spend it on his armies before the year is out.”
“Not at all,” said Gaballufix. Tin turning it all over to Rash, to continue as steward.”
Elemak laughed bitterly. “As steward, required to use it as the council directs. And how will the council direct? You’ll see, Rash. Very quickly indeed-because the council has incurred some pretty heavy expenses with all these soldiers they’re paying.”
Rashgallivak looked quite uncomfortable. “Gaballufix did mention that some small part of this might need to be deducted to meet present expenses, but your father would have contributed to clan expenses anyway, if he were still in his right mind.”
“He’s played you for the fool,” said Elemak, “and me too. All of us.”
Rash looked at Gaballufix, dearly concerned. “Maybe we ought to call in the council on this,” he said.
“The council has already met,” said Gaballufix.
“How heavy are the clan expenses?” asked Rashgallivak.
“A trifle,” said Gaballufix. “Don’t waste time worrying about it. Or are you going to prove yourself as unreliable as Volemak and his sons?”
“See?” said Elemak. “Already it begins-do as Gabya wants, or you wont be steward of the Wetchik fortune anymore.”
“The law is the law,” said Gaballufix. “And now it’s time for these worthless young spendthrifts to leave my house before I charge them with the murder of their father.”
“Before we say anything more to help Rash see the truth, you mean,” said Elemak.
“We’ll go,” said Mebbekew. “But all this talk about the Palwashantu clan council and making Rashgallivak the Wetchik is rat piss. You’re a thief, Gabya, a lying murdering thief who would have killed Roptat and Father if we hadn’t left the city the day we did, and we’re not leaving our family fortune in your bloody hands!”
With that Mebbekew lunged forward and seized a bag of jewels.
Immediately the soldiers were upon them, all four of them. The jewels were out of Meb’s hands in a moment, and with no particular gentleness all four of them were out of the salon, out of the front doors, and thrown into the street.
“Away from here!” cried the soldiers. “Thieves! Murderers!”
Nafai hardly had a chance to think before Mebbekew was at his throat. “You’re the one who had to lay all the treasure on the table!”
“He meant to have it all anyway,” Nafai protested.
“Shut up, fools,” said Elemak. This isn’t over. Our lives aren’t worth dust-he probably has men waiting to kill us not fifty meters off. Our only hope is to split up and run. Don’t stop for anything. And remember- something Rasa told me today- trust no man?He said it again, changing the emphasis a little. “Trust no man. We’ll meet tonight where the camels are. Anyone who isn’t there by dawn we’ll assume is dead. Now run-and not for any place that they’d expect you to go.”
With that Elemak began to stride off toward the north. After only a few steps he turned back. “Now, fools! See-they’re already signaling the assassins!”
Sure enough Nafai could see that one of the soldiers on Gaballufix’s porch had raised one arm and was pointing at them with the other. “How fast can you go with those floats?” Nafai asked Issib.
“Faster than you,” he answered. “But not faster than a pulse.”
“The Oversoul will protect us,” said Nafai.
“Right,” said Issib. “Now move, you fool.”
Nafai ducked his head and plunged into the thickest part of the crowd. He had run a hundred meters south along Fountain Street when he turned back and saw why people were shouting behind him: Issib had risen some twenty meters into the air, and was just disappearing over the roof of the house directly across from Gaballufix’s. I never knew he could do that, thought Nafai.
Then, as he turned to run again, it occurred to him that Issib probably hadn’t known it, either.
“There’s one,” said a harsh voice. Suddenly a man appeared in front of him, a charged-wire blade in his hand. A woman gasped; people shied away. But almost without knowing that he knew it, Nafai could feel the presence of a man directly behind him. If he backed away from the blade in front, he would walk into the real assassin behind him.
So instead Nafai lunged forward. His enemy had not expected this unarmed boy to be aggressive-his swipe with the blade came nowhere near. Nafai put his knee sharply into the man’s groin, lifting him off the ground. The man screamed. Then Nafai shoved him out of his way and ran in earnest now, not looking back, barely looking ahead except to dodge people and watch for the shimmering red glow of another blade, or the hot white beam of a pulse.
THIRTEEN - FLIGHT
Issya had never tried to climb so high with his floats. He knew that they responded to his muscle tension, that whichever float he pressed down on the hardest remained fixed in its position in the air. But he had always thought that the position was somehow relative to the ground directly under the float. He was not entirely wrong-the higher he got, the more the floats tended to “slip” downward-but by and large he found that he could climb the air like a ladder until he was at roof height.
Naturally, everyone looked at him-but that’s what he wanted. Everybody watch me, and talk about the young crippled boy who “flew” up to the roof. Gaballufix’s goons wouldn’t dare shoot him with so many witnesses, at least not directly in front of their leader’s own house.
There was no one on the roofs, he saw that at once, and so he used them as a sort of highway, drifting low between vents and chimneys, cupolas and elevator housings, roofline ridges and the trees in rooftop gardens.
Once he did surprise an old fellow who was repairing the masonry on the low wall around a widow’s walk; the clattering sound of a broken tile worried Issib for a moment; when he turned, though, he saw that the man had not fallen, but rather stared gape-mouthed at Issib. Will there be a story tonight, Issib wondered, about a young demigod seen drifting through the air over Basilica, perhaps on some errand of love with a mortal girl of surpassing beauty?
It was an exceptionally long block of houses, since several roads had been built over in this area. He was able to get more than halfway to Back Gate without descending to street level, and certainly he had made better time than any possible pursuers could have. There was always the chance, of course, that Gaballufix had assassins posted at all the city gates; certainly if he had an ambush at any gate it would be at Back Gate, the one nearest to his house. So Issib couldn’t afford to be careless, once he was down at street level.
Before he left the roofs, though, he cast a longing gaze at the red wall of the city. High as he was, the sun was still up, split in half by the wall line. If only I could just fly over that. But he knew that the wall was loaded with complicated electronics, including the nodes that created the magnetic field that powered his floats. There was no crossing there-the tiny computer at his belt could never equalize the violently conflicting forces at the top of the wall.
He reached the end of a roof and drifted down into the crowd. This was the upper end of Holy Road, where men were allowed to go. Many noticed his descent, of course, but once he reached street level he immediately lowered himself to sitting position and scooted through the traffic at child-height. Let an assassin try to shoot me n ow, he thought. In minutes he was at the gate. The guards recognized his name the moment the thumb-scanner brought it up, and they clapped him on the back and wished him well.
It was not desert here at Back Gate, of course, but rather the fringes of Trackless Wood. To the right was the dense forest that made the north side of Basilica impassable; to the left, complicated arroyos, choked with trees and vines, led down from the well-watered hills into the first barren rocks of the desert. For a normal man, it would be a nightmare journey, unless he knew the way-as, he was sure, Elemak did. For Issib, of course, it was a matter of avoiding the tallest obstacles and floating easily down until the city was completely out of sight. He used the sun to steer by until he was down onto the desert plateau; then he bore south, crossing the roads named Dry and Desert, until, just at sunset, he reached the place where they had hidden his chair.
His floats were at the fringes of the magnetic field of the city now, and it was awkward maneuvering himself into the chair. But then everything to do with the chair was awkward and limiting. Still, it did have some advantages. Designed to be an all-purpose cripple’s chair, it had a built-in computer display tied to the city’s main public library when he was within range, with several different interfaces for people with different disabilities. He could even speak certain key words and it would understand them, and it could also produce a fair-sounding approximation of the commoner words in several dozen languages. If there were no such things as floats, the chair would probably be the most precious thing in his life. But there were floats. When he wore them, he was almost a regular human being, plus a few advantages. When he could not use them, he was a cripple with no advantages at all.
The camels were waiting outside the dependable influence of the city’s magnetics, however, so use the chair he must. He got in, switched off the floats, and then guided the chair in its slow, hovering flight through narrow back canyons until at last he smelled, then heard the camels.
No one else was there; he was the first. He settled the chair onto its legs, leveled it, and then sat there alternately listening for anyone who might be approaching while scanning the library’s news reports for word of any unexplained killings or other violent incidents. None yet. But then it might take time for word to reach the newswriters and the gossips. His brothers might be dying right now, or already dead, or captured and imprisoned and held for some sort of ransom. What would he do then? How could he hope to get home? The chair might carry him, though it was unlikely-it wasn’t meant for long distance travel. He knew from experience that the chair could only move continuously for an hour or so before it needed several hours of solar recharging.
Mother will help me, thought Issib. If they don’t come back tonight, Mother will help me. If I can get to her.
Mebbekew dodged through the crowd. He had seen several men crying to make their way toward him, but his experience as an actor-especially one who had to go through the audience collecting money-had given him a good sense of crowds, and he worked the traffic expertly against the men who were following him, heading always where the crowd was thickest, dodging through gaps that were about to be plugged by approaching groups of people. Soon the assassins-if that’s what they were- were hopelessly far behind him. That was when Mebbekew began to move, a lazy, loping run that didn’t give the impression of great haste but covered the ground very rapidly. It looked like he was running for the sheer joy of it, and in fact he was-but he never stopped watching. Whenever he saw soldiers, he headed straight for them, on the theory that Gaballufix wouldn’t dare use men clearly identified as his own to conduct a public murder in the clear light of afternoon.
Within half an hour he had worked himself all the way east to Dolltown, the district that he knew best. The soldiers were rarer here, and while there were plenty of criminals for hire here, they were the sort who didn’t stay bought for long. Meb also knew people who knew this part of town better than the city computer itself.
Trust no man, Elemak had said. Well, that was easy enough. Meb knew plenty of men, but his friendswere all women. That had been an easy choice for him, from the time he was old enough to know the practical applications of the difference between men and women. He had almost laughed when Father got an auntie for him at the age of sixteen-he had enjoyed pretending to be new at lovemaking when he went to her, but within a few days she sent him away, laughingly saying that if he came back any more he’d be teaching her things that she had never particularly wanted to learn. Meb was good with women. They loved him, and they kept loving him, not because he was good at giving pleasure, though he was, but rather because he knew how to listen to women so they knew that he heard; he knew how to talk to them so they. felt needed and protected, all at once. Not all women liked him, of course, but the ones that did liked him very much, and forever.
So it took only a few minutes in Dolltown before Mebbekew was in the room of a zither player on Music Street, and a few minutes more before he was in her arms, and a few minutes more before he was in her; then they talked for an hour, she went out and enlisted the help of some actresses they both knew, who were more than a little fond of Mebbekew themselves. Shortly after nightfall Mebbekew, in wig and gown and makeup, in voice and walk a woman, passed through Music Gate with a group of laughing, singing women. Only when he laid his thumb on the screen was his disguise revealed, and the guard, reading his name, merely winked at him and wished him a good night.
Mebbekew stayed in costume until he got to the rendezvous, and his only regret was that it was Issib who stared at him and didn’t know him until he spoke, and not Elemak. It would have been nice to let his older brother see the joke. But then, given the fact that their entire fortune and Father’s title as well had just been stolen from them, Elemak probably wouldn’t have been in the mood for a joke anyway.
Elemak’s passage from the city was the least eventful. He never saw an assassin, and had no problem getting to Hosni’s house near the Back Gate. Fearing that perhaps the assassins were waiting at the gate itself, he ducked in to visit with his mother. She fed him a wonderful meal-she always hired the best cooks in Basilicar- listened sympathetically to his story, agreed with him that if she had miscarried when pregnant with Gaballufix the world would be a better place, and finally sent him on his way several hours after dark with a bit of gold in his pocket, a sturdy metal-bladed knife at his belt, and a kiss. He knew that if Gaballufix came later that night, bragging about how he had tricked a fortune out of Voie-mak’s sons, including Wetchik, Mother would laugh and praise him. She loved anything that was amusing, and was amused by almost anything. A cheerful woman, but utterly empty. Elemak was sure that Gaballufix got his morals from her, but certainly not his intelligence. Though, truth to tell, his teacher Rasa had told him once that his mother was actually very intelligent-much too intelligent to let others know how intelligent she was. “It’s like being among dangerous foreigners,” said Rasa. “It’s much better to let them think you don’t understand their language, so that they’ll speak freely in front of you. That’s how dear Hosni is when she’s among those who fancy themselves very bright and well educated. She mocks them all unmercifully when they’re gone.”
Will she mock me to Gaballufix, as she mocked Gaballufix to me? Or ridicule us both to her woman-friends when we’re gone?
At the gate, the guards recognized him at once, saluted him again, and offered to help him in any way they could. He thanked them, then plunged out into the night. Even by starlight he knew his way through the tangled paths leading down from Trackless Wood into the desert. Through all the dark journey he could think of nothing but his fury at Gaballufix, at the way he had outmaneuvered him by getting Rash on his side. He could hear in his mind their mother’s laughter, as if it were all aimed at him. He felt so helpless, so utterly humiliated.
And then he remembered the most terrible moment of all, when Nafai had so stupidly interfered with his bargaining and given away Father’s entire fortune. If he hadn’t done that, Rashgallivak might not have concluded that they were unworthy to have the Wetchik fortune. Then he wouldn’t have acted against them, and they could have walked out with the treasure and Father’s title intact. It was Nafai, really, who had lost the contest for them. If it had been up to Elemak alone, he might have done it. Gaballufix might have come through with the Index and settled for a quarter of Father’s fortune-it was more money even so than Gaballufix could lay hands on any other way. Nafai, the stupid young jackass who could never keep his mouth shut, the one who pretended to have visions of his own so that Father would like him best, the one who, by the sheer act of being born, had made Gaballufix into Father’s permanent enemy.
If I had him in my hands right now I’d kill him, thought Elemak. He has cost me my fortune and my honor and therefore my whole future. Easy for him to give away the Wetchik fortune-it would never have been his anyway. It would have been mine. I was born for it. I trained for it. I would have doubled it and doubled it again, and again and again, because I’m a far better man of business than Father ever was or ever could be. But now I’m an exile and an outcast, accused of theft and stripped of fortune, without even the respect of the man who should have been at my right hand, Rashgallivak.
All because of Nafai. All his fault.
Nafai ran in blind panic, with no thought of destination. It was not until he broke away from the crowds and found himself in an open space that he began to calm enough to think of where he was and what he ought to do next. He was in the Old Dance, once as large a dancing space as the Orchestra in Dolltown, which replaced it many centuries ago. Now, though, the buildings encroached the dance on every side. It had lost its roundness, and even the bowl shape of the amphitheatre was lost among the houses and shops. But an open space did remain, and that was where Nafai stood, looking at the sky, pink-tinged in the west, graying to black in the east. It was nearly full dark, and he had no idea whether assassins were still following him. One thing was certain-in the dark, in this part of town, the crowds would thin out, and murder would be much easier to accomplish unobserved. All his running had got him farther from safety than ever, and he had no idea what to do next. “Nafai,” said a girl’s voice.
He turned. It was Luet
“Hi,” he greeted hen But he didn’t have time to chat. He had to think.
“Quick,” she said.
“Quick what?”
“Come with me.”
“I can’t,” he said. “I have to do something.”
“Yes,” she said. “You have to come with me.”
“I have to get out of the city.”
She grabbed him by the front of his shirt and stood on rip-toe, which she no doubt intended to bring her eye-to-eye with him, but which succeeded only in making her hang from his shirt like a puppet. He laughed, but she didn’t join him. “Listen, O thou busiest of men,” she said, “have you forgotten that I’m a seer of the Oversold?”
He had forgotten. Had forgotten even that it was her coming in the middle of the night that had saved Father from Gaballufix’s plot. There were things she still didn’t know about that, he realized. For some reason he thought he ought to explain. “Elemak and Mebbekew were involved in the plot,” he said. “But I think Gaballufix lied to them about what he meant to do.”
She had no patience for his confused babbling. “Do you think I care now? They’re looking for you, Nafai. I saw it in a dream-a soldier with bloody hands stalking the streets. I knew that I had to find you. To save you.”
“How can you save me?
“Come with me,” she said. “I know the way.”
He had no better idea. In fact, when he tried to think of any alternative to following her, his mind went blank. He couldn’t hold the thought. Finally it dawned on him that this was a message from the Oversoul. It wanted him to go with hen It had sent her to him, and so he must go with her, wherever she led him.
She took his hand and pulled him from the Old Dance down the street with the same name, until they reached the place where it narrowed, and then they took a fork to the left. “Our fortune is gone,” said Nafai. “It was my fault, too. Except Rashgallivak betrayed us.”
“Shut up,” she said. “This isn’t a good neighborhood.”
She was right. It was dark here, and the road ran between old houses, dilapidated and dirty. There were few people there, and none of them seemed willing to look them in the eye.
They wound through a couple of sharp bends in the road, and then suddenly found themselves in Spring Street, near where it ran out into the holy wood. At that moment, Nafai saw ahead of him a group of soldiers, standing watch as if they had known he would emerge there. At once he turned to run, and then saw coming up the road they had just taken a couple of men with their charged-wire blades glowing slightly in the darkness.
“Good job, Nyef,” Luet said contemptuously. “They probably wouldn’t have noticed us. Now we look suspicious.”
“ Theyalready know who we are,” he said, pointing to the men approaching out of the dark street.
“Oh well,” she said. “I had hoped to take the easy way in, but this one will have to do.”
She grabbed his hand and half-dragged him the wrong way on Spring Street, away from the city and toward the holy forest. Nafai knew it was the stupidest thing she could possibly do. In the edges of the forest there’d be no witnesses at all. The assassins would have their way. If she imagined that Nafai had some particular skill at fighting and could somehow save them by disarming or killing the assassins, she would quickly discover the sad truth that he had never been interested in fighting and had no training along those lines at all. He couldn’t even remember having hit someone in anger in his life, not even his older brothers, since fighting back against Meb or Elemak only made things worse in the end. Nafai might be large for his age, the tallest of Wetchik’s sons, but it meant nothing when it came to battle.
As they moved into the darkness at the end of Spring Street, the assassins became bolder.
“That’s right,” one of them called out-softly, but audible enough to Nafai and Luet. “Into the shadows. That’s where we’ll have our conversation.”
“We have nothing for you to steal.” Luet’s voice sounded panicked, trembling-but Nafai knew from her hand’s steady grip that she was not trembling at all.
Nafai was trembling, however.
“Into the shadows,” said the man again.
So they obeyed him. Plunged into the darkness under the trees. But to Nafai’s surprise, they didn’t stop, nor did they turn south, to skirt the forest and perhaps reenter the city at the next road. She led him almost straight east. Deeper into the forbidden country.
“I can’t go here,” he said.
“Shut up,” she said. “Neither can they, unless they hear us talking and follow the sound.”
He held his tongue, and followed her. After a while the ground began to fall away, not a slope anymore as much as a cliff, and it became very difficult to pick his way. The sky was fully dark now, and even though many leaves had fallen here, the shade of the trees was still quite deep. “I can’t see,” he whispered.
“Neither can I,” she answered.
“Stop,” he said. “Listen. Maybe they’ve stopped following us.”
“They have,” she said. “But we can’t stop.”
“Why not?”
Tve got to take you out of the city.”
“If I’m caught here, the punishment is terrible.”
“I know,” she said. “As bad for me, though, for bringing you.”
Then take me back.”
“No,” she said. “This is where the Oversold wants us to go.”
It was too hard, however, to hold hands anymore-they both needed both hands to make their way down the ragged face of the cliff. It wouldn’t have been that dangerous a climb in daylight, but in the darkness they might not see a drop-off that would kill them, so every step had to be tested. At least on this slope the trees were rarer, so the starlight could do a better job of helping them to see. At least, that’s how it was until they reached the fog.
“Now we have to stop,” he said.
“Keep climbing.”
“In the fog? We’ll get lost on the cliff face and fall and die.’
“It’s a good sign,” said Luet. “It means that we’re at least halfway down to the lake.”
“You’re not taking me to the lake!”
“Hush.”
“Why don’t I just throw myself down the quick way, then, and save them the effort of killing me?”
“Hush, you stupid man. The Oversoul will protect us.”
“The Oversoul is a computer link with satellites orbiting Harmony. It doesn’t have any magical machines to reach down and catch us if we fall.”
“She is making us alert,” said Luet. “Or she’s helping me, at least, to find the way. If you’d only stop talking and let me listen to her.”
They were hours climbing down through the fog, or so it seemed to Nafai, but at last they reached the bottom. Grass on a level plain, giving way to mud.
Warm mud. No, hot mud.
“Here we are,” she said. “We can’t go into the water here-it comes up from a rift deep in the crust of the world, where it’s so hot that it boils and gives off steam.
The water would cook the meat from our bones if we stayed in it for any length of time, even near the shore.”
“Then how do women ever-”
“We do our worship nearer to the other end, where the lake is fed by ice-cold mountain streams. Some go into the coldest water. But the visions come to most of us when we float in the water at the place where the cold and hot waters meet. A turbulent place, the water endlessly rocking and swirling, freezing and searing us by turns. The place where the heart of the world and its coldest surface come together. A place where the two hearts of every woman are made one,”
“I don’t belong here,” said Nafai.
“I know,” said Luet. “But here is where the Oversold led us, so here we’ll stay.”
And then what Nafai feared most. A woman, speaking not far off. T told you I heard a man’s voice. It came from there?
Lanterns came near, and many women. Their feet made splatting noises with each step in the hot mud, then sucking noises as they pulled them out again. How far have I sunk into the mud? wondered Nafai. Will they have trouble pulling me out? Or will they simply bury me alive right here, letting the mud decide whether to cook me or suffocate me?
“I brought him,” said Luet.
It’s Luet,” said an old woman. The name was picked up in a whisper and carried back through the gathering crowd.
“The Oversoul led me here. This man isn’t like other men. The Oversoul has chosen him.”
“The law is the law,” said the old woman. “You have taken the responsibility on yourself, but that only moves the punishment from him to you.”
Nafai saw how tense Luet looked. He realized: She doesn’t understand the Oversoul any better than I do.
For all she knows, the Oversoul doesn’t care whether she lives or dies, and may be perfectly content to let her pay with her life for my safe passage here tonight.
“Very well,” said Luet. “But you must take him to the Private Gate, and help him through the wood.”
“You can’t tell us what we must do, lawbreaker!” cried one woman. But others shushed her. Luet was held in great reverence, Nafai could see, even when she had committed an outrage.
Then the crowd parted, just a little, to let a woman pass, appearing like a ghost from the fog. She was naked, and because she was dean Nafai didn’t realize for a moment that she must be a wilder. It was only when she came very dose, plucking at Luet’s sleeve, that Nafai could see how weathered and dry her skin was, how wrinkled and how gaunt her face.
Tou,” whispered Luet.
“You,” echoed the wilder.
Then the holy woman from the desert turned to the old woman who seemed to be the leader of this band of justkers. “I have already punished her,” she said.
“What do you mean?” asked the old woman.
“I am the Oversoul, and I say she has already borne my punishment.”
The old woman looked at Luet, full of uncertainty. “Is this true speech, Luet?”
Nafai was amazed. Was their trust in Luet so complete that they would ask her to confirm or deny testimony that might cost her life or save it, depending on her own answer?
Their trust was justified, for Luet’s answer contained no special pleading for herself. “This holy woman only slapped my face. How could it be punishment enough for this?”
“I brought her here,” said the wilder. “I made her bring this boy. I have shown him great visions, and I will show him more. I will put honor in his seed, and a great nation shall arise. Let no one hinder him in his path through the water and the wood, and as for her, she has borne the mark of my hand upon her face. Who can touch her after I have done with her?”
“Truly this is the voice of the Mother,” said the old woman.
“The Mother,” whispered some.
“The Oversoul,” whispered others.
The holy woman turned to face Luet again, and reached up and touched one finger to the girl’s lips. Luet kissed that finger, gently, and for a moment Nafai ached for the sweetness of it. Then the wilder’s expression changed. It was as if some brighter soul had been inside her face, and now it was gone; she looked distracted, vaguely confused. She looked around, recognizing nothing, and then wandered off into the fog.
“Was that your mother?” whispered Nafai.
“No,” said Luet. “The mother of my body isn’t holy anymore. But in my heart, all such women arc my mother.”
“Well spoken,” said the old woman. “What a fairspoken child she is.”
Luet bowed her head. When she lifted her face again, Nafai could see tears on her cheeks. He had no idea what was happening here, or what it meant to Luet; he only knew that for a while his life had been in danger, and then hers, and now the danger had passed. That was enough for him.
The wilder had said that no one should hinder him in his path through the water and the wood. After brief discussion, the women decided that this meant he had to traverse the lake from this point to the other end, from the hot to the cold; he had no idea how they discerned that from the holy woman’s few words, but then he had often marveled at how many meanings the priests could wrest from the holy writings of the men’s religion, too. They waited a few minutes until several women called out from the water. Only then did Luet lead him near enough for him to see the lake. Now it was clear where the fog came from-it rose as sheets of steam from the water, or so it appeared to him. Two women in a long low boat were bringing it to shore, the one rowing, the other at the tiller. The bow of the boat was square and low, but since there were no waves upon the lake, and the rowing was smooth, there seemed no danger of the boat taking water at the bow. They drew close, closer to shore, until at last they had run aground. Still there were several meters of water to cross between the boat and the mud flats where Nafai and Luet stood. The mud was painfully hot now, so that Nafai had to move his feet rather often to keep from burning them. What would it be like to walk through the water?
“Walk steadily,” Luet whispered The less you splash, the better, so you mustn’t run. You’ll see that if you just keep going, you’re in the boat soon, and the pain passes quickly.”
So she had done this before. Very well, if Luet could bear it, so could he. He took a step toward the water. The women gasped.
“No,” she said quickly. “In this place, where you’re a child and a stranger, you must be led.”
Me, a child? Compared to you ? But then he realized that of course she was right. Whatever their ages might be, this was her place, not his; she was the adult and he the infant here.
She set the pace, brisk but not hurried. The water burned his feet, but it was shallow, and he didn’t splash very much, though he was not as graceful and smooth in his movements as Luet. In moments they were at the boat, but it seemed like forever, like a thousand agonizing steps, especially the hesitation as she stepped into the boat. At last she was in, and her hand drew him in after her, and he walked on feet that stung so deep within the skin that he was afraid to look down at them for fear the flesh had been cooked off them. But then he did look, and the skin looked normal. Luet used the hem of her skirt to wipe his feet. The oarsman jammed the blade of an oar into the mud under the water and pushed them back, her muscles of her massive arms rippling with the exertion. Nafai faced Luet and dung to her hands as they glided through the water.
It was the strangest journey of Nafai’s life, though not a long one. The fog made everything seem magic and unreal. Huge rocks loomed out of the water, they slipped silently between them, and then the stones were swallowed up as if they had ceased to be. The water grew hotter, and there were places where it bubbled; they steered around those spots. The boat itself was never hot, but the air around them was so hot and wet that soon they were drenched, their clothing clinging to their bodies. Nafai could see for the first time that Luet did, in fact, have a womanly shape to her; not much, but enough that he would never again be able to think of her as nothing but a child. Suddenly he was shy to be sitting there holding her hands, and yet he was more afraid to let go. He needed to be touching her, like a child holding his mother’s hand in the darkness.
They drifted on. The air cooled. They passed through narrows, with steep cliffs on either hand, seeming to lean closer together the higher they went, until they were lost in the fog. Nafai wondered if perhaps this was a cave, or, if it wasn’t, whether sunlight ever reached the base of this deep rift. Then the cliff walls receded, and the fog thinned just a little. At the same time, the water grew more turbulent. There were waves now, and currents caught the boat and made it want to spin, to yaw from side to side.
The oarsman lifted her oars; the steersman took her hand from the tiller. Luet leaned forward and whispered,
“This is the place where the visions come. I told you- where the hot and the cold meet. Here is where we pass through the water in the flesh.”
In the flesh apparently meant exactly that. Feeling even more shy to watch Luet undressing than to undress himself, he watched his own hands unfasten his clothing and fold it as Luet did hers and lay the pile in the boat. Trying to somehow watch her without seeing her, Nafai couldn’t quite grasp how she managed to slip so noiselessly into the water, then lie motionless on her back. He could see that she made no move to swim, so when he-noisily-dropped himself into the water, he also lay still. The water was surprisingly buoyant There was no danger of sinking. The silence was deep and powerful; only once did he speak, when he could see that she was drifting away from him.
“No matter,” she answered quietly. “Hush.”
He hushed. Now he was alone in the fog. The currents turned him-or perhaps they didn’t, for in the fog he couldn’t tell east from west or anything eke having to do with location, except for up and down, and even that seemed to matter very little. It was peaceful here, a place where his eyes could see and yet not see, where his ears could hear and yet hear nothing. The current did not let him sleep, however. He could feel the hot and cold wash under him, sometimes very hot, sometimes very cold, so that sometimes he thought, I can’t bear this another moment, I’ll have to swim or I might die here-and then the current changed again.
He saw no vision. The Oversold said nothing to him. He listened. He even spoke to the Oversoul, begging to know how he might somehow manage to get the Index that Father had sent him for. If the Oversoul heard him, it gave no sign.
He drifted on the lake forever. Or perhaps it was only a few minutes before he heard the soft touch of the oars in the water. A hand touched his hair, his face, his shoulder, then caught at his arm. He remembered how to turn his head and then he did it, and saw the boat, with Luet, now fully dressed, reaching out to him. It did not occur to him to be shy now; he was only glad to see her, and yet sad to think that he had to rise out of the water. He was not deft at climbing into the boat. He rocked it badly, and spilled water into it.
“Roll in,” whispered Luet.
He lay on his side in the water, reached a leg and an arm into the boat, and rolled in. It was easy, almost silent. Luet handed him his clothing, still wet, but now very cold. He drew it on and shivered as the women propelled the boat on into the bone-chilling fog. Luet also shivered, but seemed undisturbed even so.
At last they came to a shoreline, where again a group of women were waiting. Perhaps another boat had gone directly across the lake, not waiting for the ritual of passing through the water in the flesh, or perhaps there was some road for runners bearing messages; whatever the reason, the women waiting for them already knew who they were. There was no need for explanations. Luet again led the way, this time through icy water that made Nafai’s bones ache. They reached dry land-a grassy bank this time, instead of mud flats-and women’s hands wrapped a dry blanket around him. He saw that Luet also was being warmed.
The first man to pass through the water,” said a woman.
“The man who passes through the waters of women,” said another.
Luet explained to him, seeming a little embarrassed. “Famous prophecies,” she said. “There are so many of them, it’s hard not to fulfil one now and then.”
He smiled. He knew that she took the prophecies much more seriously than she pretended. And so did he.
He noticed that no one asked her what had happened on the water; no one asked whether she had seen a vision. But they lingered, waiting, until finally she said, “The Oversoul gave me comfort, and it was enough.” They drifted away then, most of them, though a few looked at Nafai until he shook his head.
“We’re through the easy part now,” she said.
He thought she was joking, but then she led him through the Private Gate, a legendary gap in the red wall that he had only half-believed was real. It was a curving passageway between a pair of massive towers, and instead of city guards, there were only women, watching. On the other side, he knew, lay Trackless Wood. Quickly he learned that it had earned its name. His face was streaked with cuts, and so was hers, and their arms and legs as well, by the time they emerged onto Forest Road.
“That way is Back Gate,” said Luet. “And down any of these canyons you’ll reach the desert. I don’t know where you’re going from there.”
“That’s good enough,” said Nafai, “I can find my way.”
Then I’ve done what the Oversoul sent me to do.”
Nafai didn’t know what to say. He didn’t even know the name for what he was feeling. “I think that I don’t know you,” said Nafai.
She looked at him, a little perplexed
“No, that’s wrong,” Nafai said “I think that I didn’t know you before, even though J thought I knew you, and now that I finally know you, I don’t really know you at all.”
She smiled. Those crossing currents do it to you every rime,” she said. “Tell no one, man or woman, what you did tonight.”
“I’m not sure, when I remember it, whether I’ll believe that it really happened myself,”
“Will we see you again, at Aunt Rasa’s house?”
“I don’t know,” said Nafai. “I only know this: that I don’t know how I can get the Index without getting killed, and yet I have to get it.”
“Wait until the Oversoul tells you what to do,” said Luet, “and then do it.”
He nodded. “That’s fine, if the Oversoul actually tells me something.”
“She will,” said Luet. “When there’s something to do, she’ll tell you.”
Then, impulsively, Luet reached out her hand and grasped his again, for just a moment. He remembered again, like an echo in his flesh, how it felt to cling to her on the lake. He was a little embarrassed now, though, and drew his hand away. She had seen him being weak. She had seen him naked.
“See?” she said. “You’re forgetting already how it really was.”
“No I’m not,” he said.
She turned away and headed down the road toward Back Gate. He wanted to call out to her and say, You were right, I was forgetting how it really was, I was remembering it through common ordinary eyes, I was remembering it as the boy I was before, but now I remember that it wasn’t me being weak or me being naked, or anything else that I should be ashamed of. It was me riding like a great hero out of prophecy across the magical lake, with you as my guide and teacher, and when we shed our clothing it wasn’t a man and woman naked together, it was rather two gods out of ancient stories from faraway lands, stripping away their mortal disguises and standing revealed in their glorious immortality, ready to float over the sea of death and emerge unscathed on the other side.
But by the time he thought of all the things he wanted to say, she had disappeared around a bend.
FOURTEEN - ISSIB’S CHAIR
Nafai didn’t know what to expect when he got to the rendezvous. All the way across the desert in the starlight, he kept imagining terrible things. What if none of his brothers escaped? They didn’t have the help of Luet and the women of Basilica. Or what if they did escape, but the soldiers followed one of them to their hiding place, and then slaughtered them? When he got there, would he find their mutilated bodies? Or would there be soldiers lying in wait for him, to take him as he made his way down the canyon?
He paused at the top of the canyon, the place where they had stopped to cast lots early that same morning. Oversoul, he said silently, should I go down there?
The answer he got was a picture in his mind-one of Gaballufix’s inhuman soldiers walking through the empty nighttime streets of Basilica. He didn’t know what sense to make of this. Was the Oversoul telling him that the soldiers were all in the city? Or was Nafai seeing this vision because the Oversoul was telling him that soldiers were waiting for him in the arroyo, and his brain had simply added irrelevant details of the city to the vision?
One thing was inescapable-the sense of urgency he was getting from the Oversoul. As if there was an opportunity he could not afford to miss. Or a danger he had to avoid.
When the message is so unclear, Nafai said silently, what can I go on except for my own judgment? If my brothers are in trouble I need to know it. I cant abandon them, even if there might be danger to myself. If I’m wrong, take this thought from me.
Then he started down the arroyo. There came no stupor, no distraction. Whatever else the Oversoul was trying to tell him, it certainly didn’t mind him going down to the rendezvous with his brothers.
Or else it had given up on him. But no-it had just gone to so much trouble to bring him out of the city, through the Lake of Women, the Oversoul could hardly plan to abandon him now.
It was so dark in the canyon that he ended up stumbling, sliding down, until he finally came to rest on the gravelly shelf where his brothers were supposed to be waiting.
“Nafai.”
It was Issib’s voice. But Nafai hardly had time to hear it before he felt a harsh blow. Someone’s sandal against his face, shoving him down into the rocks.
“Fool!” shouted Elemak. “I wish they’d caught you and killed you, you little bastard!”
Another foot, from the other side, smashing into his nose. And now Mebbekew’s voice. “All gone, the whole fortune, everything, because of you!”
“He didtft take it, you fools!” cried Issib. “Gaballufix stole it!”
“You shut up!” shouted Mebbekew, advancing on Issib. Nafai was at last able to see what was happening. Though his face stung from the tiny rocks embedded in the bottoms of their sandals, they really hadn’t hurt him seriously. Now, though, he could see that they truly were raging. But why at Nafai?
“Rash was the one who betrayed us,” said Nafai.
Immediately they turned back to him. “Is that so?” said Elemak. “Didn’t I tell you that I was going to do all the talking? I could have had the Index for a quarter of what we had, but no, you had to-”
“You were giving up!” cried Nafai. “You were walking out!”
Elemak roared in fury, pulled Nafai up by the shirt, lifting him partway from the ground. “Half of bargaining is walking out, you fool! Do you think I didn’t know what I was doing? I, who have bargained in foreign lands and made great profit on few goods-why couldn’t you trust me to know what I was doing? All you’ve ever bargained for is a few stupid myachiks in the market, little boy.”
“I didn’t know,” said Nafai.
Elemak threw him down onto the ground. Nafai’s elbows were scraped, and his head struck the stones hard enough that it hurt him. Without meaning to, he cried out.
“Leave him alone, you coward,” said Issib.
“Calling me a coward?” said Elemak.
“Gaballufix was going to have our money no matter what we did. He already had Rash pn his side.”
“So now you’re the expert on what would have happened,” said Elemak.
“Sitting on your throne, judging us!” cried Mebbekew. “You think Nafai’s so innocent, what about you ! You’re the one who got the money out of Father’s accounts!”
Nafai stood up. He didn’t like the way they were menacing Issib. It was one thing for them to take out their fury on him, but something else again when they seemed about to hurt Issya. “I’m sorry,” said Nafai. There was nothing for it but to take the blame, and their anger. “I didn’t understand, and I should have kept my mouth shut. I’m sorry.”
“What is sorry ?” said Elemak. “How many times have you said sorry when it was too late to undo the consequences? You never learn anything, Nafai. Father never taught you. His little baby, precious Rasa’s little boy, who could do no wrong. Well, it’s time you learned the lessons that Father should have taught you years ago.”
Elemak pulled one of the rods out of a pack frame leaning against the canyon wall. It was designed to carry heavy loads on the back of a camel; it had some flex to it, and it wasn’t terribly heavy, but it was sturdy and long. Nafai knew at once what Elemak intended. “You have no right to touch me,” said Nafai.
“No, nobody has the right to touch you,” said Mebbekew. “Sacred Nafai, Father’s jewel-eyed boy, no one can touch him. He can touch us , of course. He can lose our inheritance for us, but no one can touch him”
“It would never have been your inheritance, anyway,” Nafai said to Mebbekew. “It was always for Elemak.” Another thought came into Nafai’s mind, thinking of who would have received the inheritance. He knew before he said it that it wasn’t the wisest thing to say, when Elemak and Mebbekew were already in a fury. But he said it anyway. “When it comes to what you lost, you both deserved to be disinherited anyway, plotting against Father.”
“That is a lie,” said Mebbekew.
“How stupid do you think I am?” said Nafai. “You might not have known Gaballufix meant to kill Father that morning, but you knew he meant to kill somebody. What did Gaballuflx promise you, Elemak? The same thing he promised Rash-the Wetchik name and fortune, after Father was discredited and forced out of his place?”
Elemak roared and rushed at him, laying on with the rod. He was so angry that few of the blows actually landed true, but when they did, they were brutal. Nafai had never felt such pain, not even when he prayed, not even when his feet were in the scalding water of the lake. He ended up sprawled face-down in the gravel, with Elemak poised above him, ready to hit him-where, on his back? On his head?
“Please!” Nafai shouted.
“Liar!” roared Elemak.
“Traitor!” Nafai shouted back. He started to get to his knees, to his feet.
The rod fell, knocking him back down to the ground. He’s broken my back, thought Nafai. I’ll be paralyzed. I’ll be like Issib, crippled in a chair for the rest of my life.
It was as if the thought of Issib brought him into action. For as Elemak raised the rod again, Issib’s chair swung across in front of him. The chair was turning as it went-it couldn’t have been completely under control- and the rod caught Issib across one arm. He screamed in pain, and the chair lost control completely, spinning crazily and reeling back and forth. Its collision avoidance system kept it from banging into the stone walls of the arroyo, but it did bump into Mebbekew as he tried to run out of the way, knocking him down.
“Stay out of the way, Issib!” shouted Elemak.
“You coward!” cried Nafai. “You were nothing in front of Gaballufix, but now you can beat a cripple and a fourteen-year-old boy! Very brave!”
Again Elemak turned away from Issib to face Nafai. “You’ve said too much this time, boy,” he said. He wasn’t shouting this time. It was a colder, deeper anger. “I’m never going to hear that voice again, do you understand me?”
“That’s right, Elya,” said Nafai. “You couldn’t get Gaballufix to kill Father for you, but at least you can kill me. Come ahead, prove what a man you are by killing your little brother.”
Nafai had been hoping to shame Elemak into backing off, but he miscalculated. Instead Elemak lost all self-control. As Issib spun by in front of him, Elemak seized an outflung arm and dragged Issib from the chair, throwing him to the ground like a broken toy.
“No!” screamed Nafai.
He rushed for Issib, to help him, but Mebbekew was between them, and when Nafai got near enough, Mebbekew shoved him to the ground. Nafai sprawled at Elemak’s feet.
Elemak had dropped his rod. As he reached for it, Mebbekew ran to the pack frame and drew out another one. “Let’s have done with him now. And if Issib can’t keep his mouth shut, both of them.”
Whether Elemak heard or not, Nafai couldn’t tell. He only knew that the rod came whistling down, smashing into his shoulder. Elemak’s aim still wasn’t good, but this much was clear: He was striking high on Nafai’s body. He was trying for the head. He meant Nafai to die.
Suddenly there was a blinding light in the canyon. Nafai lifted his head in time to see Elemak whirl around, trying to follow the source of the light. It was Issib’s chair.
Only it couldn’t be. Issib’s chair had a passive switching system. When it was not being told explicitly what to do, it setded down, leveled itself on its legs, and waited for instructions. It had done just that the moment Elemak dragged Issib to the ground.
“What’s happening?” asked Mebbekew.
“What’s happening?” said a mechanical voice from the chair.
“You must have broken it,” said Mebbekew.
“I am not the one who is broken,” said the chair. “Faith and trust are broken. Brotherhood is broken. Honor and law and decency are broken. Compassion is broken. But I am not broken.”
“Make it stop, Issya,” said Mebbekew.
Nafai noticed that Elemak said nothing. He was eyeing the chair steadily, the rod still in his hands. Then, with a grunt, Elemak rushed forward and swung at the chair with the rod.
Lightning flashed, or so it seemed. Elemak screamed and fell back, as the rod flew into the air. It was burning, the whole length of it.
Carefully, slowly, Mebbekew slid his own rod back down into the pack frame,
“Why were you beating your younger brother with a rod, Elemak?’ said the chair. “Why did you plan his death, Mebbekew?”
“Who’s doing this?” Mebbekew said.
“Can’t you guess, fool?” Issib spoke feebly, from where he lay in the rocks. “Who sent us on this errand in the first place?”
“Father,” said Mebbekew.
“The Oversoul,” said Elemak.
“Don’t you understand yet, that because your younger brother Nafai was willing to hear my voice, I have chosen him to lead you?”
That silenced them both. But Nafai knew that in their hearts, their hatred of him had passed from hot anger to cold hard resentment that would never die. The Oversoul had chosen Nafai to lead them. Nafai, who couldn’t even get through negotiations with Gaballufix without messing everything up. Oversoul, why are you doing this to me?
“If you had not betrayed your father, if you had believed in him and obeyed him, I would not have had to choose Nafai ahead of you,” said the chak-said the Oversoul. “Now go up into Basilica again, and I will deliver Gaballufix into your hands.”
With that, the chair’s lights dimmed, and it settled slowly to the ground.
They all waited, dumbly, for a few silent moments. Then Elemak turned to Issib and gently, carefully lifted him back and put him into the chair. “I’m sorry, Issya,” he said gently. “I was not in my right mind. I would never hurt you for the world.”
Issib said nothing.
“It was Nafai we were angry at,” said Mebbekew.
Issib turned to him and, in a whisper, repeated Meb’s own words back to him. “Let’s have done with him now. And if Issib can’t keep his mouth shut, both of them.”
Mebbekew was stung. “So I guess you’re going to hold that against me forever.”
“Shut up, Meb,” said Elemak. “Let’s think.”
“Good idea,” said Mebbekew. “Thinking has done us so much good up to now.”
“It’s one thing to see the Oversoul move a chair around,” said Elemak. “But Gaballufix has hundreds of soldiers. He can kill each of us fifty times over-where are the soldiers of the Oversoul? What army is going to protect us now?”
Nafai was standing now, listening to them. He could hardly believe what he was hearing, “The Oversoul has just shown you some of its power, and you’re still afraid of Gaballufix’s soldiers? The Oversoul is stronger than these soldiers. If it doesn’t want them to kill us, the soldiers won’t kill us.”
Elemak and Mebbekew regarded him in silence.
“You were willing to kill me because you didn’t like my words,” said Nafai. “Are you willing to follow me now, in obeying the words of the Oversoul?”
“How do we know you didn’t rig the chair yourself?” said Mebbekew.
“That’s right,” said Nafai. “I knew before we ever went into the city today that you were going to blame me for everything and try to kill me, and so Issya and I rigged the chair to deliver exactly that speech.”
“Don’t be stupid, Meb,” said Elemak. “We’re going to get killed, but since we’ve lost everything else, it doesn’t really make that much difference to me.”
“Just because you’re a fatalist doesn’t mean I want to die,” said Mebbekew.
Issib swung his chair forward. “Let’s go,” he said to Nafai. “It’s the Oversoul I’m following, and you as his servant. Let’s go.”
Nafai nodded, then led the way up the canyon. For a while he heard only the sound of his own footfalls, and the faint whirring of Issib’s chair. Then, at last, came the clatter of Elemak and Mebbekew, following him up the arroyo.