Earthborn

SIX - DISILLUSION

Twice each year, Akmaro went to visit each of the seven Houses of the Keeper. When he came, all the priests and teachers in that region of the empire of Darakemba would come to the House and there he would teach them, listen to their problems, and help them make their decisions. He was very careful not to allow the priests to treat him as priests of another kind had once treated kings. There was no bowing, no special notice; they touched each other's forearms or wings in equal greeting. And when they sat, it was in a circle, and Akmaro would call upon any of them at random to lead the meeting and call on others to speak.

He came, as always, to the House of the Keeper in Bodika, the most recent addition to the empire of Darakemba. The land was at peace, having no further will to resist the rule of Motiak. But the teaching of Akmaro-that was another matter. "You must make it plain to them that it isn't my teaching," Akmaro said. "I learned all that I know from Binaro, or from dreams the Keeper sent-to me sometimes, but more often to others."

"That's the problem, Father Akmaro," said Didul. The former sons of Pabulog had all become priests or teachers, devoting their lives to serving the Keeper that had freed them from the lies and hatred of their father. "Or part of the problem. We have quite a few people who claim to have true dreams telling them that in Bodika, at least, the Keeper doesn't want any mixing of earth people, sky people, and middle people."

"Those are false dreams," said Akmaro.

"They say that yours are the false ones," said Didul. "So what it comes down to is that we must ask them to believe, not in the Keeper, but in your words about the Keeper."

"There are laws about fraud," said one of the other priests. "People can't go about attacking the teachings of the Houses of the Kept!"

"Didul won't let us take them to the underking of Bodika," said another.

Akmaro looked at Didul.

"I have my suspicion that the underking is in private sympathy with those who teach that the earth people are slaves by nature, even if they've been freed by law."

"It's better not to take these things to trial, anyway," said Akmaro.

"How can the kingdom be united, if anyone can set up in business and claim to speak for the Keeper?" demanded another teacher, this one a woman of the sky people. "There has to be some limit on these things."

"It's not for us to tell the Keeper whom he can or cannot speak to."

"Well when are you going to put a stop to the women speaking of the Keeper as a ‘she'?" asked an old man.

"When the Keeper lets us know whether his body has a womb or not, we will tell one group or the other to change their conception of him. Have you seen him?" asked Akmaro.

The old man protested that of course he had not.

"Then don't be too anxious to control other people's ideas," said Akmaro. "It might turn out to be you who would have to learn to say ‘she.' "

Didul laughed, as did many others-mostly the young ones, like him. But then, sobering, Didul added, "In the thirteen years since you have been high priest of Darakemba, Father Akmaro, there are still many who reject all the changes. Here in this gathering there are those women who hate having to teach congregations that include men, and men who hate teaching women. There are angels who dislike teaching humans, and humans who dislike teaching angels. Is it like this everywhere, or only here in Bodika where even the priests and teachers fail to have hearts that are at one with the Keeper?"

"Do they still teach those mixed congregations?" asked Akmaro.

"Yes," said Didul. "But some have left their positions because they couldn't bear it."

"Did you appoint others to take their place?"

"Yes," said Didul.

"Then it's no different here from elsewhere. The mixing of men and women, of earth people, middle people, and sky people into one people, the Kept of the Keeper-that is not to be achieved in a single year or even thirteen years."

"The quarreling among us can be bitter at times," said Didul.

"And you always take the other side against us!" cried out one young angel.

"I take the Keeper's side!" Didul insisted.

Akmaro rose to his feet. "What I wish you would all think about, my friends, is that there is a great deal more to what the Keeper asks of us than simply to associate with each other as equals."

"So let's concentrate on those things and forget the mixing up of species!" cried a woman angel.

"But if we who are priests and teachers can't be one people," said Akmaro, "how can we possibly expect them to believe anything we say? Look at you-how you have sorted yourselves out, dividing all the female humans from the female angels, and over there, the male humans, and here, the male angels, and where are the diggers? Are you still sitting in the back? In the farthest place?"

A digger man stood up, looking nervous. "We don't like to push ourselves forward, Akmaro."

"You shouldn't have to push," said Akmaro. "How many of you here even know this man's name?" Didul started to answer, but Akmaro held up his hand. "Of course you know, Didul. But is there anyone else?"

"How would we?" replied an angel. "He spends all his time holding little meetings out in the caves and tunnels of the diggers."

"Is he the only one? Don't humans and angels also teach diggers?"

Didul spoke up. "That is hard, Father Akmaro. There's a lot of resentment of humans and angels among the former slaves. They don't feel safe. The Kept among the earth people wouldn't hurt a fly, but there are others."

"And do the diggers here feel safe among the humans and angels?" asked Akmaro.

The diggers looked back and forth with embarrassment. "Here we do, sir," said one of them, finally.

Akmaro laughed bitterly. "No wonder those who lie about what the Keeper wants have such an easy time converting people to their way of thought. What kind of example do they see among the Kept?"

They went on to other business then, bringing many matters of judgment before Akmaro, but the undertone of unease lasted through the whole meeting, and while some made an effort to cross the boundaries between the groups as the day wore on, others withdrew even further into knots of their own kind.

Finally it was evening, and as the evening song of angels and humans filled the air of the city of Bodika, Akmaro went to the home where Didul lived.

"Still not married?" Akmaro said. "And after all my advice."

"Twenty is still young," said Didul.

Akmaro looked him in the eye. "There's something you're not saying."

Didul smiled sadly. "There are many things that men and women do not say, because to say them would only bring unhappiness."

Akmaro patted his shoulder. "That's true enough. But sometimes people torment themselves needlessly, fearing that if they speak the truth other people would suffer, when in fact the truth would set them free."

"I might tell you," said Didul. "I dream of telling you."

"Well, then."

"Not true dreams, Father Akmaro. Just. ...dreams." He looked very uncomfortable.

"What's for supper?" said Akmaro. "I'm famished. Talking wears me out and leaves me empty."

"I have flatcakes. Or rather we can fry some up. Let me get the fire going by the cookstone."

"Didul, the rule is for priests to work for their living, not for them to live in dire poverty. A cookstone!"

"It's all I need," said Didul. "And besides, I do my labor... well, I don't own land. I gave it to the diggers who had once been slaves on it. I didn't want to live from rents."

"Gave it to them! Couldn't you at least have sold it to them, letting them pay a little each year and-"

"It was a gift to me," said Didul. "I didn't earn it, and they were the ones who had labored on it for all their lives, some of them."

"Well, how do you earn your miserable little flatcakes?" asked Akmaro.

"I have beans, too, and good spices, and fresh vegetables and fruit all year."

"And how does this happen? Please don't tell me that you're accepting gifts from the people you teach. That's forbidden, no matter how sincerely willing the people are to give them."

"No, no!" Didul protested. "I would never-no! I hire myself out. I do day labor for the people who would have been my tenants. And others, now. My reach is longer than any digger or angel. I'm good with a scythe, and I plow a straight furrow, and no one chops down a tree and dresses the wood more skillfully than I do. Even the ones who refuse to accept my teachings hire me when they need a tree felled."

"A day laborer," said Akmaro. "Day laborers are the poorest of the poor."

"Is there anything wrong with that?" said Didul.

"Not at all," said Akmaro. "You make me ashamed of my rents."

"What I choose for myself isn't a law for anyone else," said Didul. He got out the fine-ground maizemeal and began to mix it with water and a pinch of salt.

"But when you speak, diggers and angels listen to you, I'll wager," said Akma. He helped Didul form the balls of dough and flatten them.

Didul shrugged. "Some do. Most do."

"Is it as bad as the meeting today made it look?" asked Akmaro.

"Worse."

"I don't want to use the force of law to compel compliance," said Akmaro.

"It wouldn't work anyway," said Didul. "Law can change how people behave when others are watching-that's all. As you taught me back in the land of Chelem, the power of the whip is worthless against the stubborn heart."

"Yes well, there you are," said Akmaro. "But what can I tell Mo-tiak? We have to go back to the old ways, because the people won't respect a priesthood that isn't headed by the king?"

"No, not that," said Didul.

"Or worse, tell him that we should give up trying to teach the Keeper's way! But I reread those old dreams of the Heroes as Nafai and Oykib wrote them in the ancient books, and the only meaning I can take from them is that the Keeper wants us to be one people, the three species of us, the two sexes of us, the rich and poor of us. How can I back away from that?"

"You can't," said Didul, slapping a flattened disc of dough on the sizzling cookstone.

"But if we force everyone to live together-"

"It would be absurd. Angels can't live in digger holes, and diggers can't sleep upside down on perches."

"And humans are terrified of closed-in spaces and heights, both," said Akmaro.

"So we just keep on trying to persuade them," said Didul.

"Then there's no hope," said Akmaro. He flipped over another flatcake. "I can't even persuade you to take a wife, or to tell me why you won't."

"Can't you see why I won't?" asked Didul. "See the poverty I live in."

"Then marry a woman who is willing to work hard and cares as little for wealth as you do."

"How many women are like that?" asked Didul.

"I know lots of them. My wife is like that. My daughter is like that."

Didul blushed, and suddenly Akmaro understood.

"My daughter," he said. "That's what this is about, isn't it! You come four times a year to Darakemba to meet with me-and you've fallen in love with Luet!"

Didul shook his head, trying to deny.

"Well, you foolish boy, haven't you spoken to her about it? She's not a fool, she must have noticed that you're clever and kind and, or so I'm told by the women around me, probably the most handsome young man in Darakemba."

"How can I speak to her?" said Didul.

"I would suggest using a column of air arising from your lungs, shaped by the lips and tongue and teeth into vowels and consonants," said Akmaro.

"When we were young, I tormented her," said Didul. "I humiliated her and Akma in front of everyone."

"She's forgotten that."

"No she hasn't, I haven't, either. There's not a day goes by that I don't remember what I was and what I did."

"All right, I'm sure she does remember. What I meant was that she forgave you long ago."

"Forgave me," said Didul. "But it's a long stride from there to the love a wife should have for a husband." He shook his head. "Do you want bean paste? It's quite spicy, but the earth lady who made it for me is the finest cook I've ever known."

Akmaro held out his flatcake, and Didul smeared the paste on with a wooden spoon. Then Akmaro rolled it up, folded the bottom end, and began eating from the top. "As good as you promised," he said. "Luet would like it too. Can't make it spicy enough for her."

Didul laughed. "Father Akmaro, don't you know your own family? Suppose I did speak to Luet. About this, I mean. About marriage. We talk all the time when I'm there, about other things-history and science, politics and religion, all of it, except personal things. She's- brilliant. Too fine for me, but even if I dared to speak to her, and even if she somehow loved me, and even if you gave consent, it would still be impossible."

Akmaro raised an eyebrow. "What, is there some consanguinity I'm not aware of? I had no brother, and neither did my wife, so you can't be some secret nephew in the first degree."

"Akma," said Didul. "Akma has never forgiven me. And if Luet loved me he would take it as a slap in the face. And if you then gave consent to such a marriage, there would be no forgiveness. He'd go mad. He'd-I don't know what he'd do."

"Maybe he'd wake up and get over this childish vindictiveness of his," said Akmaro. "I know he's never been the same since those days, but-"

"But nothing," said Didul. "I did it to him. Don't you understand? Akma's hatred, all of it arises from the humiliation I heaped upon him that first day and so many days afterward-"

"You were a child then."

"My father wasn't cracking a whip over my head, Akmaro. I enjoyed it! Don't you understand? When I see these people who tease digger children because of their poverty, because they live in holes and get dirty, because-I understand them. The tormentors. I was one. I know how it feels to have driven all compassion out of my heart and laugh at the pain of someone else."

"You're not the same person now."

"I have rejected that part of myself," said Didul. "But I'm the same person, all right."

"When you pass through the water-"

"Yes, a new man, I become a new man. I'm a man who does not do those things, yes. But I'm still and always the man who once did them."

"Not in my eyes, Didul. And I daresay not in Luet's."

"In Akma's eyes, Father Akmaro, I am the same one who destroyed him before his sister, his mother, his father, his friends, his people. And if it ever happened that Luet and I became married-no, if he even heard that I wanted to, or that Luet was willing, or that you approved-it would set him off. I don't know what he'd do, but he'd do it."

"He's not a violent man," said Akmaro. "He's gentle even if he does harbor ancient grudges."

"I'm not fearing for my life," said Didul. "I just know that someone as smart as Akma, as talented, as clever, as attractive-he'll find a way to make us all regret that we ever dared affront him in such a way."

"So what you're telling me is that you refuse even to offer my daughter the possibility of marrying one of the finest young men I know in this whole empire, solely because her brother can't grow out of his childish rage?"

"We have no way of knowing what it was that happened inside Akma, Father Akmaro. He may have been a child, but that doesn't make the things he felt then childish."

Akmaro took the last bite of his flatcake. The bean paste having been used up, it tasted dry and salty. "I need a drink of water," he said.

"The Milirek has no pure source," said Didul, "and it flows from low mountains, some of which lose their snow for much of the year."

"I drink the water that the Keeper gives me in every land," said Akmaro.

Didul laughed. "Then I hope you won't go down out of the gor-naya! The slow-flowing waters of the flatlands aren't safe. They're muddy and foul and things live in them. I know a man who drank it once without boiling it, and he said his bowels didn't stop running until he had lost a third of his body weight and his wife was ready to bury him, if only to save the trouble of digging yet another latrine."

Akmaro grimaced. "I hear those stories, too. But somehow we have to learn to live in the flatlands. We've had peace for so long that people from all over are coming here. Former Elemaki, people from hidden mountain valleys, coming to Darakemba because under the rule of Motiak there's peace and plenty. Well, the peace will last, I hope. But the plenty ... we have to find a way to use the flatlands."

"The diggers can't tunnel there, it all floods," said Didul. "The angels can't perch there because the trees are so thick-limbed and close together that the jaguars can reach them everywhere."

"Then we should think of some way to build houses on rafts or something," said Akmaro. "We need more land. And maybe if we opened up new lands, my young friend, where diggers and angels and humans had to live in the same kind of house, we might be able to create the kind of harmony that is so hard to bring to pass here in the gornaya."

"I'll think about it," said Didul. "But I hope you also give this problem to cleverer men and women than me."

"Believe me, I have and I will again," said Akmaro. "And to cleverer ones than me, too. I learned that from Motiak. Don't waste your time asking advice from people stupider than you."

"That's comforting advice," said Didul.

"How so?"

"I can ask anybody," he said, laughing.

"False modesty is still false, no matter how charming it might seem."

"All right, I'm smarter than some people," Didul admitted. "Like that one teacher who says that angels are afraid to go down into digger holes."

"Aren't they?"

"I know three angel physicians who do it all the time, and they've never been harmed."

"Maybe," said Akmaro, "our teachers would be less afraid if they believed their teaching was as valuable a service as the herbs of the physician."

"Well, there we are," said Didul. "If the believers weren't so torn by doubt, they might do a better job of persuading the unbelievers."

"Oh, I don't even mind their doubt," said Akmaro. "If they could just act as if they believed, they'd be more persuasive."

"If I didn't know you better," said Didul, "I'd think you were praising hypocrisy."

"I would rather live among people who behave correctly than among people with correct opinions," said Akmaro. "I've noticed no higher incidence of hypocrisy among the former than among the latter, and at least the ones who behave well don't take up so much of your time with arguing."

Bego puffed along behind Akma and Mon, complaining the whole time. "I don't see why we couldn't have this discussion, whatever it's about, in my study. I'm too old for this, and you may have noticed that my legs are less than half the length of yours!" To which Akma heartlessly replied, "So fly then." From behind, Mon gave Akma a shove in the shoulder, sending him stumbling into some brush beside the path. Akma turned, ready to be angry, ready to laugh, depending on the intention he read in Mon's eyes.

"Have respect for a friend of mine," said Mon softly, "if not for his age and office."

Akma smiled at once, his most winning and charming smile, and it worked as it always worked, suggesting as it did a sort of self-effacing humility, a believable protest of innocence, and a promise of friendship-whatever good thing the other person wished to read into it. Mon always wondered at that smile even as it triumphed over his own anger or envy. Where could such power over others come from?

"Ah, Bego, you knew I was teasing, I hope," said Akma. "Forgive me, old friend?"

"I forgive you everything, every time," said Bego wearily. "Everyone does, so why do you bother to ask anymore?"

"And do I offend so often that forgiving me should be a habit?" asked Akma, with more than a little pain in his smile this time. It made Mon want to clap an arm around his shoulders, grip him hard, assure him that no one took offense. How does he do that!

"You offend no more often than any other brilliant and undisciplined and leisured and lazy young man of twenty years," said Bego. "Now, here, in the middle of this grassy field. If you look not to be overheard, here we are."

"Ah," said Mon, pointing overhead. "Have you- overlooked the prying eyes from above?"

"The fixed star," said Bego. "Yes, yes, well, they say the Oversoul sees through roofs and leaves and solid earth, so what does it matter."

Akma threw himself to the ground and landed immediately in the grass in an elegant sprawl that would have looked practiced in anyone less lithe and natural. "Who knows how many hundreds of digger tunnels intersect under this meadow?" he asked.

"It's not a meadow," said Mon. "It's my father's park, and no one is allowed to dig under it."

"Oh, then we know that even the earthworms shy away from the boundaries," said Akma.

Mon laughed in spite of himself. "So, Father's authority isn't universal."

"Why are we here?" asked Bego. "Sitting isn't my most comfortable perch."

"But Bego," said Akma, "humans and angels and diggers are all alike now, didn't you know? The Keeper has spoken."

"Well, the Keeper had better give me a new bottom if he wants me to set it on chairs or other miserably uncomfortable places," said Bego.

"Mon and I have been thinking," said Akma.

"The two of you together?" asked Bego. "Then perhaps you have woven a thought, if you've done it long and often enough."

"We've been studying the histories of the Heroes. And the history that the Zenifi found thirteen years ago."

"The Rasulum," said Bego.

"And we wanted to try out an idea on you," said Mon.

"Which you couldn't do in my study? Perhaps immediately after I gave school to the youngest of the king's boys?"

"Our question is possibly treasonable," said Akma.

Bego immediately fell silent.

"We know that you have respect for scientific inquiry, and would never report us. But who knows what might get said by someone else, overhearing us? Perhaps exaggerating what was said?"

"What possible treason can there be in the ancient records?" asked Bego.

"If we're right," said Akma, "then we think you've been trying to hint about this for about ten years."

"I don't hint," said Bego. "And if you want to know whether you're right, it's Mon who has the gift of certitude."

"Well, that's the problem," said Mon. "If we're right, then there's no reason to trust in that supposed gift of mine. And if we're wrong, well, we get the same answer-no certainty from me."

"So we ask you," said Akma.

"You think that your own gift from the Keeper might be imaginary?" asked Bego, incredulous.

"I think that many things can come to someone's mind out of hysteria," said Mon.

"Or even some keen natural insight," said Akma. "For instance, that famous, unforgettable time when Mon helped you translate the Rasulum leaves. Who's to say that he didn't reach his certainties of right and wrong by unconsciously interpreting your own gestures, movements, vocal intonation, facial expressions."

"What good would that do him?" said Bego. "I didn't know."

"Perhaps you knew, but didn't know that you knew," said Akma.

Bego riffled his wings in a shrug.

"What we've been doing, Akma and I, is trying to see if there's anything in the ancient records that constitutes actual proof that there even is a Keeper of Earth."

"No one doubts that there's a Keeper," said Bego. "Look at the histories," said Akma. "All the records from the early Heroes say that all human life had been dispersed from Earth-that until the Keeper brought the Heroes here from the place called Harmony or Basilica-the record is ambiguous-"

"Basilica is the name of the fixed star," said Bego, "and Harmony is the name of the planet orbiting that star."

"Say the scholars," said Akma. "Who know nothing more than we do, since they reach all their conclusions from the same records. And I say the record of the Heroes is obviously wrong. There were people here, the Rasulum."

Bego shrugged. "That has caused a little consternation among the scholars."

"Come on," said Mon. "That's the very fact you keep throwing in our faces every time we discuss history. You want us to discover something from it so don't play innocent now."

Akma went on. "What if humans never left this world at all? What if humans were simply forced to stay away from the gornaya during the era when it was being lifted up by volcanos and earthquakes? The Heroes talk of how there was once a time when the land masses were getting folded into each other and raised high, the tallest mountains in the world. So what if that was what gave rise to the legend of the dispersal? No humans in the gornaya, therefore no humans in the world-but actually humans to the north, in the prairie lands. Then there's a terrible war, and as many humans as can, flee from the Rasulum. Some of them brave the old tabus and come into the gornaya. Perhaps they even come by boat, but they're afraid the gods they worship-the Oversoul and the Keeper of Earth-will be angry at them for doing it, so they talk of having come from the stars instead of from Opustoshen."

"Then why is the language of the leaves so different from our language?" asked Bego.

"Because it hasn't been a mere four hundred or five hundred years since the time of the Heroes. In fact they split off from the Rasulum a thousand years ago, perhaps more. And the languages grew more and more different, until nothing was alike."

"And what does that have to do with angels and diggers?" asked Bego.

"Nothing at all!" cried Mon. "Don't you see? The humans came and dominated everybody, and forced their gods on everybody. But didn't the diggers worship gods that the angels made for them? And didn't the angels have their own gods to worship? None of this Keeper nonsense. The angels and diggers evolved separately here in the gornaya while the humans stayed away in the land northward."

"What about the stories of Shedemei discovering some strange organ in all the sky people and all the earth people that forced us to remain together?" asked Bego.

"The story says that she caused you all to get sick and it made those organs disappear from your children," said Akma. "So now, conveniently enough, there's not a lick of evidence left that those organs ever existed."

"All the stories use for evidence things that can't be checked now," said Mon. "That's a standard rhetorical trick-one that any fool can expose in a public debate or trial. The new star in the sky is Basilica- but how do we know that star wasn't there all along?"

"The records are ambiguous about that," said Bego. "The only evidence we do have," said Akma, "is a flat contradiction of the records of the Heroes. They said there were no other humans on Earth when they arrived. But we have the bones of Opustoshen and the leaves of the Rasulum to prove otherwise. Don't you see? The only evidence denies everything."

Bego looked at them placidly. "Well, this certainly is treasonous," he finally said.

"But it doesn't have to be," said Akma. "That's what I've been explaining to Mon. His father's authority comes from being a direct descendant of the first Nafai. That part of the record isn't being questioned. The kingdom is not challenged."

"No," said Bego. "Only your father is challenged." Akma smiled. "If my father is teaching people to behave in uncomfortable ways, solely because the Keeper says they must, and then it turns out there is no Keeper, then whose will is it that my father is trying to foist onto the people?"

"I think your father is a sincere man," said Bego. "Sincere but wrong," said Akma. "And the people hate what he's teaching."

"The former slaves love it," said Bego.

"The people," said Akma.

"I gather, then, that you don't consider diggers to be people," said Bego.

"I consider them to be the natural enemies of humans and angels.

And I also think that there's no reason why humans should rule over angels."

"Now we're definitely back to treason," said Bego.

"Why not an alliance?" said Mon. "A king of the humans and a king of the angels, both ruling over peoples spread through the same territory?"

"Not possible," said Bego. "One king for one territory. Otherwise there would be war and hatred between humans and angels. The Ele-maki would seize the opportunity and destroy us all."

"But we shouldn't be required to live together, anyway," said Akma.

Bego looked at Mon. "Is that what you want?" he asked. "You, who as a child dreamed of being-"

"My childish dreams are done with!" Mon cried. "In fact if I hadn't been living among angels I wouldn't have had those wishes, would I!"

"I thought they were rather sweet. And perhaps a bit flattering," said Bego. "Considering how many angels grow up wishing they were human."

"None!" cried Mon. "Not one!"

"Many."

"They're all mad, then," Mon replied.

"Quite likely," said Bego. "So let's see if I understand you. There is no Keeper and there never was. Humans never left Earth, just the gornaya. Diggers and angels never needed each other and there was no tiny organ that Shedemei removed from our bodies with a disease. And therefore there is no reason to change our whole way of life, all our customs, just because Akmaro tells us that it's the will of the Keeper that the three species become one people, the Keeper's Children, the People of Earth."

"Exactly," said Akma.

"So what?" asked Bego.

Akma and Mon looked at each other. "What do you mean, so what?" asked Mon.

"So why are you telling me?" asked Bego.

"Because maybe you can talk to Father about this," said Mon. "Get him to stop pushing these laws."

"Take my father away from his position of authority," said Akma.

Bego blinked once at Akma's words. "If I said these things to your father, my dear friends, I would simply be removed immediately from any position of responsibility. That's the only change that would be made."

"Does my father completely control the king, then?" asked Akma.

"Careful," said Mon. "Nobody controls my father."

"You know what I mean," Akma said impatiently.

"And I know Motiak," said Bego. "He's not going to change his mind, because as far as he's concerned, you have no evidence at all. For him, the very fact that true dreams led the soldiers of Ilihiak to find the Rasulum leaves is proof that the Keeper wanted them found. Therefore it is the Keeper who corrects the mistakes of the Heroes- more proof that the Keeper lived then, and the Keeper lives now. You aren't going to dissuade someone who wants so desperately to believe in the Keeper."

Angrily, Akma pound his fist down into the sod. "My father must be stopped from spreading his lies!"

"His mistakes," said Bego. "Remember? You would never be so disloyal a son as to accuse your father of lying. Who would believe you then?"

"Just because he believes them doesn't mean they're not lies," said Akma.

"Ah, but they're not his lies, are they?" said Bego. "So you must call them mistakes, when you say they are your father's."

Mon chuckled. "Do you hear him, Akma? He's with us. This is what he wanted us to realize all along."

"Why do you think so?" asked Bego.

"Because you're advising us on strategy," said Mon.

Akma sat up, grinning. "Yes, you are, aren't you, Bego!"

Bego shrugged again. "You can't possibly have any strategy right now. Akmaro is too closely linked to the king's policy, and vice versa. But perhaps there'll come a time when the Houses of the Kept are much more clearly separated from the house of the king."

"What do you mean?" asked Akma.

"I mean only this. There are those who want to tear your father from his throne, they're so angry about these policies."

"That's not what we want!" cried Mon.

"Of course not. No one in their right mind wants that. The only reason we don't have invasions from the Elemaki every year is because the entire empire of Darakemba is united, with armies and spies constantly patrolling and protecting our borders. It's only a tiny minority of bigots and madmen who want to throw down the throne. However, that tiny treasonous minority will gain more and more support, the farther your father pushes these reforms of Akmaro's. It will mean civil war, sooner or later, and no matter who wins, we'll be weakened. There are people who don't want that. Who want us to go back to the way we were before."

"The old priests, you mean," said Mon scornfully.

"Some of them, yes," said Bego.

"And you," said Akma. "You want things to go back the way they were."

"I don't have opinions on public policy," said Bego. "I'm a scholar, and I'm reporting to you in a scholarly way the current condition of the kingdom. There are those who want to fend off civil war, protect the throne, and stop Akmaro from pushing these insane, offensive, impossible laws breaking down all distinctions between men and women, humans and diggers and angels. All this talk of forgiveness and understanding."

Akma interrupted, full of bitterness. "It's only a mask for those who want to turn this into a land where diggers strut around with weapons in their hands, tormenting their betters and-"

"You almost make me fear that you are one of those who wants to destroy this kingdom," said Bego. "If that is the case, Akma, then you'll be of no use to those who are trying to preserve the throne."

Akma fell silent, pulling at the grass. A clump came free, spraying his face with dirt. Angrily he brushed it away.

"But what if those who are trying to preserve the throne could assure the people, Just wait. The children of Motiak don't believe in this nonsense of all the species being equal children of the Keeper. The children of Akma have no intention of pursuing their father's mad policies. Be patient. When the time comes, things will go back to the old way."

"I'm not the heir," said Mon.

"Then perhaps you should work to persuade Aronha," said Bego.

"Even if I did, Father would only pass the kingdom on to Ominer, skipping us both."

"Then perhaps you should also persuade Ominer and even Khimin." At Mon's sound of disgust Bego laughed. "He's bright enough. He may be his mother's son, but he's your father's son, too. What can your father do if all his children reject this policy?"

"My father wouldn't care," said Akma. "He'd just pick one of his favorites to be high priest after him. I don't imagine he even considers me for the position."

"Dee-dool!" cried Mon derisively.

Akma's face went hot with anger at the sound of Didul's name.

"It doesn't matter who your father's successor would really be," said Bego. "Don't you see that if his own son publicly preaches against his policies, he would be hopelessly undermined? Even among his own priests and teachers there's dissension, a lack of confidence. Some of them will listen to you. Some of them won't. But the Kept will be weakened."

"Ho, Akma, I can imagine you preaching," said Mon scornfully.

"I think I'd be good at it," said Akma. "If it weren't so likely that I'd be arrested for treason."

Bego nodded. "That is the problem, isn't it?" he said. "That's why you need to bide your time. Work with your brothers, Mon. Help him, Akma. Don't push them too hard, just suggest things, raise questions. Eventually you'll win them over."

"The way you did with us?" asked Akma.

Bego shrugged again. "I never suggested treason to you. I don't suggest it now. I want you to discover truth for yourself. I don't ram it down your throats like some do."

"But what guarantee do we have that anything will change?"

"I think that by getting rid of priests appointed by the king, Akmaro and Motiak started down a road from which there's no retreat," said Bego. "Eventually it will lead them to a point where religion is completely separate from government. And when that day comes, my young friends, the law will no longer stand between you and any preaching that you want to do."

Mon hooted. "If I still believed in my own gift, I'd say that it was certain that Bego is right! Someday soon it will happen. It has to."

"And now that you have planned how to save the kingdom from Akmaro's excessively inclusive beliefs, may I go inside and find a perch where I can dangle myself to stretch out my aching muscles?"

"We can carry you in, if you want," offered Mon mischievously. "Save me even more trouble by cutting off my head and carrying it inside. The rest of my body isn't much use to me these days anyway."

They laughed and got up from the grass. They walked more slowly returning to the king's house, but there was a dance, a spring in the way the boys walked-no, bounced-along the path through the king's park. And when they passed Khimin, who was trying to memorize a long poem and having a miserable time of it, they shocked him utterly by actually inviting him to walk along with them. "Why!" Khimin demanded suspiciously.

"Because even though your mother is a certified idiot," said Mon, "you're still my brother and I've treated you shamefully for too many years. Give me a chance to make it up to you."

As Khimin slowly and guardedly made his way toward them, Akma whispered to Mon, "You're committed now, you know."

"Who knows?" asked Mon. "He may be decent company after all. Edhadeya always says he's all right, if we only give him a chance."

"Then Edhadeya will be very happy," said Akma. Mon winked at him. "If you like, I'll tell her that including Dudagu Dermo's spawn was your idea."

Akma rolled his eyes. "I'm not casting covetous eyes on your sister, Mon. She's three years older than me."

"My gift may not come from the Keeper," said Mon, "but I still know a lie when I hear one."

With that, Khimin was near enough to overhear them, and the conversation changed to include him. By the time they reached the king's house, Akma and Mon had both used so much charm on the poor eighteen-year-old that he was utterly besotted with them and would have believed them if they told him his own feet were tree stumps and his nose a turnip.

Bego left them as soon as they were inside, and on his way through the corridors he did use his wings a bit, skittering along the floor and singing snatches of happy songs to himself. Clever boys, he said to himself. They'll do it, if we give them half a chance. They will do it.

Luet loved it when Mother went to call on Dudagu in the king's house, because after a few moments of being polite to the queen, who was not aging well and spent her days complaining of ill health, she was always excused and allowed to go off in search of Edhadeya. She had begun the custom when she was only five, and Edhadeya was a lofty ten-year-old; she marveled now, thinking back, that the king's daughter had been so kind to a child half her age who had so recently been a slave to diggers. Or perhaps that was the reason-Edhadeya had taken pity on her, having heard the story of her suffering. Well, however it began, the friendship was in full bloom now, with Edhadeya twenty-three years old and Luet eighteen and a woman.

She found her friend working with the musicians, teaching them some new composition. The drummers seemed not to be able to get the rhythm right. "It isn't hard," Edhadeya was saying. "It's only hard when you put it together. But if you can hear how it goes with the melody... ." Whereupon Edhadeya began to sing, a high sweet voice, and now the one drummer, now the other, began to feel how the beat she had been teaching fit with the tune she sang, and without even thinking what she was doing, Luet began to spin and raise her arms and hop in the steps of an impromptu dance.

"You shame my poor tune!" cried Edhadeya.

"Don't stop, it was beautiful!"

But Edhadeya stopped at once, leaving the musicians to work on the song while she walked with Luet out into the vegetable garden. "Worms everywhere. In the old days we used to have slaves whose whole job was picking them off the leaves. Now we can't pay anyone enough to do it, so all our greens have holes in them and every now and then a salad moves of its own accord. We all pretend it's a miracle and go on eating."

"I have to tell you that Akma is in one of his vile moods lately," said Luet.

"I don't care," said Edhadeya. "He's too young for me. He's always been too young for me. It was a form of madness that I ever thought I was in love with him."

Luet looked up at the sky. "What? All those clouds? I thought you loved my brother whenever it rained."

"At the moment it's not raining," said Edhadeya. "And is today one of the days you're in love with Mon?"

"Nobody," said Luet. "I don't think I'd make a good wife."

"Why not?" asked Edhadeya.

"I don't want to stay in a house and order work all day. I want to go out like Father does and teach and talk and-"

"He works."

"In the fields, I know! But I'd do that! Just don't make me stay indoors. Maybe it was my childhood labor in the fields. Maybe in my heart I'm always afraid that if I'm not working, some digger twice my height will-"

"Oh, Luet, I get nightmares whenever you talk like that."

"Found one," said Luet, holding up a worm.

"How attractive," said Edhadeya.

Luet crushed the worm between her fingers, balled up the remnants of its body, and dropped it into the soil. "One more salad that will not move," she said.

"Luet," said Edhadeya, and in the moment the whole tone of the conversation changed. No longer were they playful girls. Now they were women, and the business was serious. "What has your brother come up with lately? What's going on between him and my brothers?"

"He's always over here with Mon," said Luet. "I think they're studying something with Bego. Or something."

"So he doesn't talk to you?" said Edhadeya. "He talks to them."

"Them?"

"Not just Mon now. He talks to Aronha and Ominer and Khimin."

"Well, it's nice that he's including Khimin. I don't really think the boy is as awful as-"

"Oh, he's awful, all right. But potentially salvageable, and if I thought it was salvage that Akma and Mon had in mind, I'd be glad," said Edhadeya. "But it's not."

"Not?"

"Yesterday someone mentioned true dreams and looked at me. It was nothing, just a chance comment. I can't even remember-one of the councilors, coming to meet with Father, and he looked at me. But I happened to turn away just at that moment and saw Ominer rolling his eyes in ridicule. So I followed him and once we were alone in the courtyard I threw him up against the wall and demanded to know why he was making fun of me."

"You're always so gentle," murmured Luet.

"Ominer doesn't hear you unless he's in physical pain," said Edhadeya. "And I'm still stronger than he is." ffi

"Well, what did he say?"

"He denied he was making fun of me. So I said, Whom were you making fun of? And he said, Him."

"Who?" asked Luet.

"You know, the councilor who looked at me. And I said, you can't blame people for thinking about my dream of the Zenifi when they see me. Not everybody has true dreams. And then he said-listen, Luet-he said, Nobody does."

"Nobody?" Luet laughed, then realized that Edhadeya didn't think it was funny. "Dedaya, I've had true dreams, you've had true dreams. Mother's a raveler. Mon has his truthsense. Father dreams true, and- this is absurd."

"I know that. So I asked him why he said it, and he wouldn't tell. I pinched him, I tickled him-Luet, Ominer can't keep a secret from me. I've always been able to torture it out of him in five minutes. But this time he pretended he didn't know what I was talking about."

"And you think it has something to do with Akma and Mon?"

"I know it does. Luet, the only way Ominer could possibly keep a secret from me is if he was more frightened of someone else. And the only two people he fears more than me in the whole world are-"

"Your father?"

"Don't be silly, Father's as sweet as they come when he notices Ominer at all-which isn't often, he blends in with the walls. No, it's Mon and Aronha. I think it's both of them. I watched this morning, and all four of my brothers ended up with your brother and whatever they're talking about or planning or doing-"

"It has to do with the idea that there are no true dreams." Edhadeya nodded. "I can't go to Father with this, they'd just deny it."

"Lie to your father?"

"Something's different. It made me feel dark and unpleasant and I think they're plotting something."

"Don't say that," said Luet. "It's our families we're talking about."

"They're not just boys anymore. Because we're still studying, we sometimes forget that we're not really in school, none of us but Khimin, when you come down to it. We're men and women. If Akma weren't your father's son, he'd be earning his own living. Aronha plays at soldier, but he has too much leisure, and so do my other brothers- they make priests work, but not the sons of the king."

Luet nodded. "Father tried to make Akma start earning his way when he was only fifteen. The age when laborers' children-"

"I know the age," said Edhadeya.

"Akma just said, ‘What, are you going to stand over me with a whip if I don't?' It was really vicious."

"Your father wasn't his taskmaster in those terrible days," said Edhadeya.

"But Father forgave the taskmasters. The Pabulogi. Akma hasn't, and he is still angry."

"Thirteen years!" cried Edhadeya.

"Akma feeds on it the way an unborn chick feeds on the yolk of its egg. Even when he's thinking about something else, even when he doesn't realize it, he's seething inside. He was my teacher for a while. We became very close. I loved him for a while more than I loved anybody. But if I came too close, if I touched his affection in just the wrong way, he lashed out. Sometimes it shocked me the way Elemak and Mebbekew must have felt when Nafai knocked them down with lightning from his finger."

"Melancholy. I thought he was just a moody sort of person," said Edhadeya.

"Oh, I'm sure that's it," said Luet, "it's just that when he gets into that mood, it's my father that he rages at."

"And the Pabulogi."

"They don't come around often. When the priests come in for their meetings with Father, Akma makes sure he's somewhere else. I don't think he's seen any of them for years."

"But you've seen them."

Luet smiled wanly. "As little as possible."

"Even from her deathbed, as she calls it, Mother gets all the gossip, and she says that Didul looks at you like... like. ..."

"Like my worst nightmare."

"You can't mean that," said Edhadeya.

"Not him personally. But what if he did decide he loved me? What if I loved him? It would be quicker and kinder if I just slit Akma's throat in his sleep."

"You mean this childish melancholy of Akma's would keep you from the man you love?"

"I don't love Didul. It was just a hypothetical situation."

"Lutya, my friend, isn't life complicated here in the king's house?"

"It's probably just as complicated for the poorest peasants. Down in their holes in the ground the most powerless ex-slaves probably have exactly the same problems. Grudges, loves, anger, fear, hate-"

"But when they quarrel in their tunnels, the whole kingdom doesn't quake," said Edhadeya.

"Well, that's your family. Not mine."

Edhadeya picked another worm off another leaf. "There are people eating holes in the kingdom, Lutya. What if our brothers turn out to be among the worms?"

"That's what you're afraid of, isn't it? Deny the Keeper. Then we don't have to associate with diggers and angels and-"

"Mon loves the angels. It would kill him not to be with them."

"But does he love the sky people more than Akma hates the earth people?"

"When it comes down to it, Mon won't give up his love for the angels."

"Still. It would be a terrible thing if they started-"

"Don't even think about it," said Edhadeya. "Our brothers would not commit treason."

"Then you're not afraid," said Luet.

Edhadeya sat on a bench and sighed. "I am afraid."

A new voice came from behind them. "Of what?"

They turned. It was Chebeya, Luet's mother. "Done already?" Luet asked.

"Poor Dudagu is exhausted," said Chebeya.

Edhadeya snorted.

"Don't make that sound in the woods," said Chebeya, "or a jaguar will find you."

"I don't see why you think it's so unnatural for me to despise my stepmother," said Edhadeya.

"Your father loves her," said Chebeya.

"A sign of his infinite capacity for love," said Edhadeya.

"What were you talking about when I came out here?" asked Chebeya. "And don't deny it was important, I could see how you were bound together."

Luet and Edhadeya looked at each other.

"Trying to decide how much to tell me?" asked Chebeya. "Let me make it easy for you. Start with everything."

So they told her.

"Let me watch them a little," said Chebeya, when they were done. "If I see them together, I can learn a lot."

"How can Mon not believe in true dreams?" asked Edhadeya. "He knows when things are true-he knew my dream about your family was a true one."

"Don't underestimate my son's powers of persuasion," said Chebeya.

"Mon isn't any man's puppet," said Edhadeya. "I know him."

"No, not a puppet," said Chebeya. "But I know Akma's gift."

"He has one?" asked Luet.

"The little sister is the last to see," said Edhadeya.

"He has the same gift as me," said Chebeya.

"He's never said so!" cried Luet.

"No, because he doesn't realize it. It's different with men, I think. Men don't form communities as easily as women do. Human men, I'm speaking of-angels aren't like this. Or maybe they are, it's not as if I've had much experience. I just know that when a man has the raveling gift, he doesn't see the connections between people the same way. What he does is he starts unconsciously finding ways to gather up all those scattered threads in his own hands."

"So he can't see the web of people," said Luet. "He just becomes the spider?"

Chebeya shuddered. "I haven't explained to him what it is he does. I'm afraid that if he ever becomes conscious of it, it'll be much worse. He'll become more powerful and... ."

"Dangerous," said Edhadeya.

Chebeya turned away from her. "He gathers people up and they want to please him."

"Enough that Mon would give up his love for the sky people?" asked Edhadeya.

"I'll have to see them together, with that in mind. But if Akma really cared about something and needed Mon's help, then I think Mon would help him."

"But that's horrible," said Edhadeya. "Does that mean that the times I thought I loved him-"

"I don't know," said Chebeya. "Or I mean-I do know-as much as he is capable of love, he has loved you, from time to time."

"Not now."

"Not lately."

Tears rolled out of Edhadeya's eyes. "This is so stupid," said Edhadeya. "I'm not even pining for him, I go whole days without thinking of him-but it's just this gift of his, isn't it?"

Chebeya shook her head. "When he ravels people up, it only lasts for a little while. A day or two. Unless he stays with you, it fades. You haven't seen him in a week."

"I see him every day," said Edhadeya.

"You haven't been close to him, though," said Luet helpfully.

"He has to be talking to you, looking at you, interacting with you," said Chebeya. "You can trust your feelings with him. They're real enough."

"More's the pity," murmured Edhadeya.

"Mother," said Luet, "I think something very dangerous is happening. I think Akma and the sons of Motiak are plotting something."

"As I said, I'll look and see if it seems that way."

"And if it does?"

"I'll talk to your father about it," said Chebeya. "And perhaps then we'll talk to the king. And he may want to talk to you."

"And when everyone has talked to everybody," said Edhadeya, "there still won't be a thing we can do."

Chebeya smiled. "Ever hopeful, aren't you? Dedaya, have some trust. Your father and my husband and I may be old, but we still have some power within our reach. We can change things."

"I notice you didn't include my stepmother in that group," said Edhadeya nastily.

Chebeya smiled with benign innocence. "Poor Dudagu. She's too frail to be mentioned in the same breath with power."

Edhadeya laughed.

"Come home with me now, Luet. There's work to do."

Edhadeya hugged them both and watched them leave the courtyard. Then she lay back on the bench and looked up at the sky. She thought, when the angle of the sun was right, that she could see the star Basilica even in bright sunlight. Today, though, the clouds were blocking everything. It was going to rain.

"One-Who-Was-Never-Buried," murmured Edhadeya. "Are you going to do anything about this?"

Shedemei loaded her supplies into the ship's launch as the Oversoul murmured one more time inside her mind:

"Do you think you can't protect me?" asked Shedemei.