Earthborn

NINE - PERSECUTION

At first Didul thought that their fears might have been exaggerated. There was no falling off of attendance at the House of the Keeper in Bodika. In fact, the way the story first circulated through the province was rather favorable. Shedemei had been tried for teaching the sibling-hood of all people in the eyes of the Keeper, and especially for allowing the children of the poor, the daughters of former slaves, to attend school, to eat, to work alongside the daughters of humans and angels. Therefore when the charges were dismissed against her and even worse charges were brought against her accusers, it was encouraging, wasn't it?

Only gradually did the realization seep through the community that in refusing to have the heretics who accused Shedemei put to death, Akmaro had changed the law. The only penalty for offense against the official state religion was now to be turned out of the House of the Keeper. But what kind of penalty was that, for those who didn't believe anyway? Akmaro had been confirmed as the arbiter of doctrine for the state religion; but the law was now protected by such a feeble penalty that it was hardly a crime to disbelieve.

What did that mean, actually? Most people had only known one kind of religion, consisting of the official rituals performed by the king's priests in every city. Those priests had been put out of work thirteen years ago, and replaced by a ragtag group of priests and teachers who, instead of confining themselves to public rituals, insisted on collecting food to help the poor and teaching strange new doctrines about the equality of all people, which was obviously against nature. As most people were quick to say, it's fine to free the captured digger slaves after they've served ten years, it's fine to say that the children of slaves are born free, but everybody knows that diggers are loathsome and stupid and unfit for civilized company. Educating them for anything beyond menial labor is a waste of money. So the fact that the state religion now kept insisting on defiance of the way the world obviously worked was simply incomprehensible.

But no one said anything about it, except a few fanatic digger-haters, who spoke in secret. After all, the law was that you didn't speak against the religion of the king's priests, right?

Only now the only penalty that would come to you for speaking against these priests was to be turned out of the House of the Keeper. So that meant it was all right, didn't it?

There might be hidden penalties, though. After all, for foreigners to become full citizens, they had to pass through the water, and who could do that besides priests? So did foreigners have to join the Kept, and then later leave? And what if the king only did business with tradesmen who attended the House of the Keeper or sent their children to school at one of the little Kept Houses scattered through the villages and administered by one or two teachers? No, there was no need to open your mouth and get turned out. See how the wind blows.

That was the majority. It was the fanatics that began to make life problematic for Didul and his priests. It wasn't enough for them that now their meetings could be open. They had expected that thousands of people would leave the Kept and join them; instead, things were going on pretty much as before. That was intolerable. So they began to do things to help encourage the waverers that it was better for them to stop going to the priests of the Keeper.

At first it was the word "digger hole" written in excrement on the wall of the House of the Keeper in Bodika. The word was a scatological pun: The second word was the coarse term for the anus, while combined with digger it was an exceptionally offensive term for a tunnel in which a community of diggers dwelt. By calling the House of the Keeper by that name, the vandals couldn't have been more explicit.

That had been easy enough to clean off. But that was only the beginning of the harassment. Groups of digger-haters-they preferred to call themselves the Unkept-would gather at outdoor rituals and chant obscenities to drown out the voice of the priest. When someone was being brought through the water, they threw dead animals or manure into the river, even though that was a crime. Someone broke into the House of the Keeper and broke everything that could be broken. A fire was started during an early morning gathering of priests; they put it out, but the intention was clear.

Attendance began to fall off. Several of the teachers in outlying communities got messages-butchered animals on the doorstep, a sack over the head and a beating-and resigned or requested assignment in the city, where there might be safety in numbers. Didul had no choice but to close many of the outlying schools. People began to walk to and from meetings and classes in groups.

Through it all, Didul went from town to town constantly, protesting to the local authorities. "What can I do?" the commander of the civil guard would say. "The penalty for unbelief is in your hands. Find out who they are and turn them out. That's the new law."

"Beating a teacher isn't unbelief," Didul would say. "It's assault."

"But the teacher's head was covered and she can't identify who it was. Besides, it was never a good idea to have a woman doing the teaching. And diggers along with people?"

And Didul would realize that the commander of the civil guard was probably one of the fanatics who hated diggers worst. Most of them were retired soldiers. To them, diggers were all Elemaki-vicious fighters, night-time assassins. Slavery was all they deserved, and now that through some accident they were free, it was abominable to think of these former enemies now having the same rights as citizens.

"They aren't animals," he would say.

"Of course not," the civil guardian would answer. "The law declares them citizens. It's just not a good idea to try to teach them together with people, that's all. Train them for the kind of work they're suited for."

As the Unkept learned that the local authorities usually did little to protect the Kept, they grew bolder. Gangs of brash young men would accost old earth people, or earth children, or priests and teachers going about their business. There would be pushing, shoving, a few well-placed punches or kicks.

"And you tell us not to defend ourselves?" asked the parents gathered in a meeting in one of the outlying towns with a large digger population. Most of them were not the descendants of slaves, but rather original inhabitants who had been there as long as any angel bloodline-and a good deal longer than any humans. "Why are you teaching us this religion, then? To make us weak? We've never been unsafe in this city before. We were known, we were full citizens, but the more you preach that we're supposed to be equal, the less equally we're treated!"

Didul eloquently pointed out that it was a symptom of their helplessness that they were now blaming their friends for provoking their enemies. "The ones who do the beating, the shouting, the breaking, those are the enemy. And if you start to arm yourselves you'll play into their hands. Then they can shout to everyone, Look, the diggers are arming themselves! Elemaki spies in our midst!"

"But we were once full citizens and-"

"You were never full citizens. If you were, where are the digger judges in this town? Where are the digger soldiers in the army? The centuries of war with the Elemaki have robbed you of full citizenship. That's why Akmaro came back from the land of Nafai with the teachings of Binaro that the Keeper wants no more difference to be made among his children. That's why you must have courage-the courage to endure the blow. Stay in groups by all means. But don't arm yourselves-if you do, it will be the army you face soon enough, and not these thugs."

He persuaded them; or at least wore them down enough to end the argument. But it was getting harder and harder to keep control. He sent letters every week, to Akmaro, to Motiak, to Pabul, to anyone that he thought might be able to help. He even wrote to Khideo once, pleading for him to speak out against this violence. "You have great prestige among those who hate the earth people," he said in his letter. "If you openly condemn those who beat up defenseless children, perhaps you will shame some of them into stopping. Perhaps some of the civil guard will begin to enforce the law and protect the Kept from their persecutors." But there was no answer from Khideo. And as for Motiak, his answer was to send messengers to the civil guardians, informing them that it was their responsibility to enforce the laws with perfect equality. The civil guard in every town insisted that they were already doing this. Back came the answers: We're helpless. There are no witnesses. No one sees anything. Are you sure some of these complaints aren't trumped up in an attempt to win sympathy?

As for Akmaro, while he offered comfort, he could do little else. The problem was the same everywhere; and in the land of Khideo, he had to withdraw the priests and teachers entirely. He wrote: "I know you blame me for this, Didul, even though you are too courteous to say so. I blame myself. But I also have to remember, and I hope you will remember, that the alternative was to take upon myself, and to give to you and the other chief priests in the Houses of the Keeper, the power to kill in order to stifle dissent. That is the very opposite of what the Keeper wants from us. Fear will never turn people into the Keeper's children. Only love will do that. And love can only be taught, persuaded, encouraged, earned, won by kindness, by gentleness, even by meekness when enemies harm you. Our enemies may be filled with hate, but there are surely many among them who are sickened when they beat a child, when six of them kick a priest with a bag over her head, when they reduce people to tears in the street. Those will eventually reject these actions and repent of them and when they seek forgiveness, there you will be, no weapons in your hands, no hatred in your heart." And so on and so on. It was all true, Didul knew it. But he also remembered that he had been a willing persecutor himself for many months, beating and humiliating children without feeling anything but pride and hate and rage and amusement. A lot of harm could be done waiting for mercy to come to the hearts of the enemy. And some were like Didul's father. He never learned mercy. The very helplessness of his victims filled him with more lust to inflict pain. He liked the screaming.

Luet arrived in Bodika on the day of the worst incident so far. Three boys, two of them angels and one a digger, were attacked on their way to a Kept school on the outskirts of the city. The wings of the angels were savagely, irreparably torn: not just shredded, an injury which in the young could be healed; instead a huge ragged patch had been ripped out of their wings. It would never heal. These children would never fly again. And the digger child was even worse off. Every bone in his legs and arms was broken, and his head had been kicked so often that he had not regained consciousness. All three children were being cared for in the school. The parents were gathered, and many friends-including many who were not among the Kept, but were outraged by the crime. There were prayers, begging the Keeper to heal the children, to keep them from hating their enemies; and to soften the hearts of their enemies and teach them remorse, compassion, mercy.

The Keeper doesn't work that way, thought Didul. The Keeper doesn't make people nice. The Keeper only teaches them what goodness and decency are, and then rejoices with those who believe and obey. The husbands who are kind to their wives; the children who respect their parents; the spouses who are true to the covenant of marriage; the Keeper is glad of these, but sends no plague to afflict those who beat their wives, who scoff at their parents, who couple whenever and wherever they choose, regardless of the loyal spouse at home, grieving. That is the thing that I can't get them to understand-the Keeper will not change the world. He requires us to change it for him. Instead of prayers, you should be out talking, talking, talking to everyone.

So should I. And here I am dressing wounds and comforting children who by all reasonable standards have no reason to be comforted. Yet still he comforted them, assured them that their suffering would not be in vain, that the sight of their torn wings would cause many outraged people to rally to the defense of the Kept. And instead of telling the people to stop praying, he joined with them, because he knew that it comforted them. Especially the parents of the little earth boy who would probably not live through the night. "At least, being unconscious, his broken bones cause him no pain." Did I really say that? thought Didul. Did I really mouth such stupidity? The boy was in a coma because his brain was damaged, and I actually said it was merciful because he felt no pain?

That was where Didul was and what he was doing when Luet came through the door of the school, with Shedemei right behind her. His first thought was, What an absurd time for a visit! Then, of course, he realized that they weren't here on a social call. They came to help.

"Father is distraught because he can't do anything for you," said Luet, greeting him with a sisterly embrace. "Shedemei has been teaching Edhadeya and me some medicine she learned in her home country_there's a lot of washing and herbs and stinking liquids, but the wounds don't get infected. When I decided to come here and teach it to you and your people, Shedemei insisted on coming with me. You won't believe it, Didul. She left Edhadeya in charge of her school in her absence. ‘Let them dare to attack Rasaro's House with the king's own daughter in charge of it,' that's what she said, and then she packed up her medicines and came along with me."

"It's a terrible time," said Didul. "I doubt that there's any medicine that will help these children."

Luet's face grew grim and angry when she saw the ruined wings of the angel boys. "The Keeper will never send her true child into the world when we still do things like this." She embraced the boys. "We have something that will make the aching go away for a while. And we can wash the wounds so they don't infect. It will sting very badly for a few seconds. Can you bear it?"

Yes, they could; yes, they did. Didul watched with admiration as she went skillfully about her work. This was something real. Better than empty words of comfort. He started trying to say this to her, and she scoffed at him. "Do you think words are nothing? Medicine won't stop these terrible things from happening. Words might."

Didul didn't bother to argue with her. "In the meantime, teach me. Tell me what you're doing and why."

.While they worked on the angels, Shedemei was checking over the earth boy. "Let me have some time alone with him," she said.

"Go ahead," said Didul.

"I mean alone. Alone."

Didul ushered the family, the friends, the neighbors out of the school. Then he came back, only to find Shedemei glaring at him and Luet. "Do words mean nothing to you? What do you think alone means? Two friends? Two injured angel boys?"

"You expect us to take them out?" asked Luet.

Shedemei looked them over. "They can stay. Now get out, both of you."

They left; Didul was angry but tried not to show it. "What is she doing that we can't see?"

Luet shook her head. "She did that once before. A little girl who had been hit in the eye. I thought we were going to have to lose it.

She sent me and Edhadeya out of the room, and when we came back, there was a patch over the eye. She never explained what she did, but when the patch came off, the eye was fine. So ... when she says to go out, I go out."

The others had sorted themselves into knots of conversation. Some were going home. Luet walked to the shade of a tree. "Didul, Father is beside himself. I've never seen the king so angry, either. He's had to be restrained from bringing home the army. Monush came out of retirement to argue with him. What enemy would the army attack? It was an awful scene, both of them yelling. Of course the king knew that Monush was right all along, but... they feel so helpless. No one has ever defied the law like this."

"Was it really the threat of death for heresy that kept public order all these years?"

"No. Father says... but he's written to you, hasn't he?"

"Oh, yes. The removal of the death penalty freed them to do little things. Ugly things like the shouting and the vile words and all that. But when nothing happened to them, they started pushing farther and harder, doing worse things, daring each other."

"It makes sense to me, anyway," she said.

"But what I don't know is-where does it stop? The law against beating and maiming children, that's still in force, with dire enough penalties. And yet these beasts did it anyway. The civil guard is out questioning people-no doubt about it, this sickened even them, especially the damage to the angel boys, you can bet they didn't care much about one less digger, the scum-but the questioning is a joke because they already know who did it, or at least they know who would know, but they don't dare reveal what they know because that would be the same as confessing that they've known all along and could have stopped it at any time and-I'm so angry! I'm supposed to be committed to being a man of peace, Luet, but I want to kill someone, I want to hurt them for what they did to these children, and the most terrible thing is that I know how it feels to hurt people and after all these years I finally want to do it again."And then words failed him and to his own surprise he burst into tears and a moment later found himself sitting on the grass under the tree, Luet's arms around him as he cried out his frustration of the past few weeks.

"Of course you feel like that," she murmured. "There's nothing wrong in feeling it. You're still human. The passion for revenge is built into us. The need to protect our young. But look at you, Didul- you're feeling that desire to protect the little ones, not for members of your own species, but for children of two others. That's good, isn't it? To tame your animal impulses in the service of the Keeper?"

Her argument was so deft and yet so inadequate that he had to laugh; and in laughing he realized that her argument had not been inadequate after all, for he was comforted, or at least he could control himself now, not weep anymore.

Now, of course, the anguish momentarily spent, he was flooded with embarrassment at having let her see him like this. "Oh, Luet, you must think-I don't do this. I've really been pretty strong about it, all these other people doing the weeping, and me being the wise one, but now you know the truth about me, don't you, only we should be used to that, your family has always known the truth about me and-"

She put her fingers over his lips. "Shut up, Didul," she said. "You have a way of babbling when you should just be quiet."

"How do I know when times like that have come?" he said.

In reply, she leaned toward him and kissed him lightly, girlishly on the lips. "When you see my love for you, Didul, you can stop babbling because you know that I am not ashamed of you, I'm proud of you. It's worse here than anywhere, Didul, and you've borne it with so little help, really. That's why I came, because I thought, maybe if I were beside you, it might be bearable."

"Instead I cover you with my tears," he said, thinking all the while, She kissed me, she loves me, she's proud of me, she belongs beside me.

"Why don't you say what you're thinking?" she said.

"What makes you think you want to hear it?" he said, laughing in embarrassment.

"Because the way you looked at me, Didul, I knew that what you were thinking was, I love her, I want her beside me forever, I want her to be my wife, and Didul, I tell you honestly, I'm sick and tired of waiting for you to say it out loud."

"Why should I tell you what you already know?"

"Because I need to hear it."

So he told her. And when Shedemei called them back into the school, Luet had promised to be his wife, as soon as they could both get back to Darakemba, "Because," as Luet said, "Mother would kill us and steal all our children to raise herself if you had one of the priests marry us here." In vain did Didul point out that if Chebeya killed them they wouldn't have produced any grandchildren for her to steal. The wedding would wait. Still, knowing that she wanted him, that she knew him so well and yet wanted to be with him-that was all the comfort that he wanted. Miserable as this day was, he felt himself filled with light.

Shedemei led them to the comatose child. "He's sleeping now," she said. "The bones have been adequately set, except the compound break in the left humerus, which I reset and resplinted. There is no brain damage, though I think he might not remember anything about what happened-which would be nice, not to have those nightmares."

"No brain damage?" asked Didul, incredulous. "Did you see what they did to him? The skull was open, did you see that?"

"Nevertheless," said Shedemei.

"What did you do?" asked Luet. "Teach me."

Grim-faced, Shedemei shook her head. "I did nothing that you could do. I couldn't teach it to you because I can't give you the tools you'd need. That has to be enough. Don't ask me any more."

"Who are you?" asked Didul. And then an answer occurred to him. "Shedemei, are you the true child of the Keeper that Binaro talked about?"

She blushed. Didul had not thought her capable of such a human reaction. "No," she said, and then she laughed. "Definitely not! I'm strange, I know, but I'm not that."

"But you know the Keeper, right?" asked Luet. "You know-you know things that we don't know."

"I told you," said Shedemei. "I came here in search of the Keeper. I came here precisely because you are the ones with the true dreams, and I'm not. Is that clear? Will you believe me? There are things I know, yes, that I can't teach you because you aren't ready to understand them. But the things that matter most, you know better than me."

"Healing that boy's damaged brain," said Didul. "You can't tell me that doesn't matter."

"It matters to him. To you, to me. To his family. But in ten million years, Didul, will it matter then?"

" Nothing will matter then" said Didul, laughing.

"The Keeper will," said Shedemei. "The Keeper and all her works, she will matter. Ten million years from now, Didul, will the Keeper be alone on Earth again, as she was for so many, many years? Or will the Keeper tend an Earth that is covered with joyful people living in peace, doing the Keeper's works? Imagine what such a good people could do-diggers, humans, angels all together-and maybe others, too, brought home from other planets of exile-all together, building star-ships and taking the Keeper's word of peace back out to worlds uncountable. That's what the people who founded Harmony meant to do. But they tried to force it, tried to make people stop destroying each other. By making people stupid whenever they... ." Suddenly she seemed to realize she had said too much. "Never mind," she said. "What does the ancient planet matter to you?"

Luet and Didul both looked at her wordlessly as, to cover her embarrassment, she busied herself in gathering up the unused medicines and returning them to her sack. Then she rushed out of the school, murmuring about needing air.

"Do you know what I was thinking just then, Luet?" said Didul.

"You were wondering if she might not be Shedemei. The real one. The one Voozhum prays to. Maybe her prayers brought the One-Who-Was-Never-Buried to us."

Didul looked at her in shock. "Are you serious?"

"Wasn't that what you were thinking?"

"Do you think I'm crazy? I was thinking-she's you in twenty years. Strong and wise and capable, teaching everyone, helping everyone, loving everyone, but just a little embarrassed when the depth of her passion shows. I was thinking she was what you might turn out to be, with one difference, just one. You won't be lonely, Luet. I swear to you that twenty years from now, you will not be lonely the way Shedemei is. That's what I was thinking."

And now that they were alone in the school, except for one sleeping boy and two young angels who watched in fascination, Didul kissed her as she should have been kissed long before. There was nothing girlish about her as she kissed him back.

It was too big a jump, from helping out secretly at Rasaro's House to running it. The month she had spent learning medicine from Shedemei hadn't helped prepare her for running a school. Edhadeya knew from the start that "running" the school simply meant tending to the details that no one else felt responsible for. Checking that the doors were locked. Buying needed supplies that no one else noticed were running out. She certainly didn't need to tell any of the other teachers how to do their work.

She taught no students herself. Instead she went from class to class, learning what she could from each teacher, not only about the subjects they taught, but also about their methods. She soon learned that while her tutors had been knowledgeable enough, they had had no understanding about how to teach children. If she had started teaching right away, she would have taught as she had been taught; now, she would begin very differently, and whatever students she might someday have would be far happier because of it.

One duty she kept for herself and no others-she answered the door. Whatever the Unkept might try at this school, it would happen first to the daughter of the king. See then whether the civil guard looks the other way! Several times she answered the door to find unaccountable strangers with the lamest sort of excuse for being there; once there were several others gathered nearby. To her it was obvious that they had been hoping for an opportunity-one of the other teachers, perhaps, or, best of all, a little digger girl they could beat up or humiliate or terrify. They had been warned, though, about Edhadeya, and after a while they seemed to have given up.

Then one day she answered the door to find an older man standing there, one whose face she had once known, but couldn't place at once. Nor did he know her.

"I've come to see the master of the school," he said.

"I'm the acting master these days. If it's Shedemei you want, she should be back soon from the provinces."

He looked disappointed, but still he lingered, not looking at her. "I've come a long way."

"In better times, sir, I would invite you in and offer you water at least, a meal if you would have it. But these are hard times and I don't allow strangers in this school."

He nodded, looked down at the ground. As if he was ashamed. Yes. He was ashamed.

"You seem to feel some personal responsibility for the troubles," she said. "Forgive me if I'm presumptuous."

When he looked at her there were tears swimming in his old eyes under the fierce, bushy eyebrows. It did not make him look soft; if anything, it made him seem more dangerous. But not to her. No, she knew that now-he was not dangerous to her or anyone here. "Come in," she said.

"No, you were right to keep me out," he said. "I came here to see ... the master... because I am responsible, partly so, anyway, and I can't think how to make amends."

"Let me give you water, and we can talk. I'm not Shedemei-I don't have her wisdom. But it seems to me that sometimes any interested stranger will do when you need to unburden yourself, as long as you know she'll not use your words to harm you."

"Do I know that?" asked the old man.

"Shedemei trusts me with her school," said Edhadeya. "I have no prouder testimony to my character than that."

He followed her into the school, then into the small room by the door that served Shedemei as an office. "Don't you want to know my name?" he asked.

"I want to know how you think you caused these troubles." He sighed. "Until three days ago I was a high official in one of the provinces. It won't be hard to guess which province when I tell you that there have been no troubles at all there, since no angels live within its borders, and diggers have never been tolerated."

"Khideo," she said, naming the province. He shuddered.

And then she realized that she had also named the man. "Khideo," she said again, and this time he knew from the tone of her voice that she was naming him, and not just the land that had been named after him.

"What do you know of me? A would-be regicide. A bigot who wanted a society of pure humans. Well, there are no pure humans, that's what I'm thinking. We talked of a campaign to drive all diggers from Darakemba. But it came to nothing for many years, a way to pass the time, a way to reassure ourselves that we were the noble ones, we pure humans, if only the others, the ones who lived among the animals, if only they could understand. I see the disgust in your face, but it's the way I was raised, and if you'd seen diggers the way I saw them, murderous, cruel, whips in their hands-"

"The way diggers in Darakemba have been taught to see humans?"

He nodded. "I never saw it that way until these recent troubles. It got out of hand, you see, when word spread-when I helped spread the word-that inside the king's own house, all four of his possible heirs had rejected the vile species-mixing religion of Akmaro. Not to mention Akmaro's own son, though we had known he was one of us for a long time. But all the king's sons-that was like giving these pure humans license to do whatever they wanted. Because they knew they would win in the end. They knew that when Motiak passes into being Motiab and Aronha become Aronak... ."

"And they started beating children."

"They started with vandalism. Shouting. But soon other stories started coming in, and the pure humans that I knew said, What can we do? The young ones are so ardent in their desire for purity. We tell them not to be mean, but who can contain the anger of the young? At first I thought they meant this; I advised them on ways to reign in the ones doing the beatings. But then I realized that... I overheard them when they didn't know that I could hear, laughing about angels with holes in their wings. How does an angel fly with holes in his wings? Much faster, but only in one direction. They laughed at this. And I realized that they weren't trying to stop the violence, they loved it. And I had harbored them. I had provided a haven for the Unkept from other provinces to meet together in the days before Akmaro removed all serious penalties for heresy. Now I have no influence over them at all. I couldn't stop them. All I could do was refuse to pretend I was their leader. I resigned my office as governor and came here to learn... ."

"To learn what, Khideo?"

"To learn how to be human. Not pure human. But a man like my old friend Akmaro."

"Why didn't you go to him?"

Again tears came to Khideo's eyes. "Because I'm ashamed. I don't know Shedemei. I only hear that she is stern and ruthlessly honest. Well, no, I also heard that she favors the mixing of species and all sort of other abominations. That's how word of her came to my city. My former city. But you see, in these last weeks, it occurred to me that if my friends were loathsome, perhaps I needed to learn from my enemies."

"Shedemei is not your enemy," said Edhadeya.

"I have been her enemy, then, until now. I realized that all my loathing for angels had been taught to me from childhood, and I only continued to feel that way because it was the tradition of my people. I actually knew and liked several angels, including one rude old scholar in the king's house."

"Bego," said Edhadeya.

He looked at her in surprise. "But of course he would be better known here in the capital." Then he studied her face and knitted his brow. "Have we met before?"

"Once, long ago. You didn't want to listen to me."

He thought for a moment longer, then looked aghast. "I have been pouring out my heart to the king's daughter," he said.

"Except for Akmaro himself, you couldn't have spoken to anyone gladder to hear these words from you. My father honors you, in spite of his disagreement with you. When you see fit to tell him that those disagreements exist no longer, he will embrace you as a long lost brother. So will Ilihi, and so will Akmaro."

"I didn't want to listen to women," said Khideo. "I didn't want to live with angels. I didn't want diggers to be citizens. Now I have come to a school run by women to learn how to live with angels and diggers. I want to change my heart and I don't know how."

"Wanting to is the whole lesson; all the rest is practice. I will say nothing to my father or anyone else about who you are."

"Why didn't you name yourself to me?"

"Would you have spoken to me then?"

He laughed bitterly. "Of course not."

"And please remember that you also refrained from naming yourself to me."

"You guessed soon enough."

"And so did you."

"But not soon enough."

"And I say that no harm has been done." She rose from her chair. "You may attend any class, but you must do it in silence. Listen. You will learn as many lessons from the students as from the teachers. Even if you think they are hopelessly wrong, be patient, watch, learn. What matters right now is not correctness of opinion, but learning what opinions they might have. Do you understand?"

He nodded. "I'm not used to being deferent."

"Don't be deferent," she said testily-a tone of voice that Shedemei had taught her inadvertently. "Just be silent."

During the days that followed, Edhadeya watched-from a distance, but carefully. Some of the teachers clearly resented the presence of this man, but Khideo was not insensitive, and soon stayed away from their classes. The girls got used to him quickly, ignoring him in class, and gradually, shyly, including him at meals and in the courtyard. He would be asked to reach something on a high shelf. Some of the little girls even started climbing on him whenever he sat leaning against a tree, using him to get to branches that were otherwise out of reach. Lissinits, they called him-"ladder." He seemed to like the name.

Edhadeya came to value him for his own sake. Two things about him, though, weighed heavily on her mind. She kept thinking about how even a man like him, a confirmed bigot, could actually harbor a fundamental decency deep within. The outward pattern of his life didn't necessarily reflect what was inside him. It took terrible events to waken him, to get him to shuck off the man he seemed to be and reveal that inward self. But the decent self was there to be found.

The other thing that preyed upon her mind was what he had said about her brothers. The Unkept had held their meetings for thirteen years and they led to nothing. Then Akma succeeded in persuading all her brothers, all the king's sons, to reject belief in the Keeper and, more specifically, obedience to the religion of Akmaro. And from that time forward, the most evil men felt free to do their dark business.

That can't be what Akma intended. If he understood it the way Khideo does, wouldn't he stop?

I should talk to Mon, not Akma, she told herself-not noticing that she must already have decided to talk to Akma. If I could get him to break ranks with the others... but no, she knew that was impossible. None of the brothers would betray the others; that was how they'd see it. No, it had to be Akma. If he changed his mind, they would change theirs. He would persuade them.

She kept hearing Luet's despairing voice: "There's nothing left in him, Edhadeya. Nothing there but hate." If that was true, then talking to Akma would be a waste of time. But Luet couldn't see into his heart. If Khideo had a spark of decency in him, couldn't Akma also? He was young, still; he had been damaged in childhood far more than Khideo had. The world had been misshapen for him ever since; if once he saw the truth, couldn't he choose to be a different man in a very different world?

These were the thoughts that drove her as one night she locked the school, leaving Khideo-no, Lissinits-as caretaker of it. Then, torch in hand, she walked in the brisk autumn air to her father's house. On the way she thought: What if there were no safety? If I were an earth woman-or man, or child-I wouldn't dare to make this walk in darkness, for fear of being set upon by cruel men who hate me, not because of anything I've done, but because of the shape of my body. For those people these streets are filled with terror, where all my life I've walked without fear, day and night. Can they truly be citizens, when they haven't the freedom to walk the city?

As she expected, Akma was in the king's house, in the library wing, where he slept most nights now. Not that he was asleep. He was up, reading, studying, jotting down notes to himself in the wax on a bark; one of dozens of barks covered with scribbling. "Writing a book?" she asked.

"I'm not a holy man," he said. "I don't write books. I write speeches." He swept the barks to one side. She liked the way he looked at her, as if he had been hoping she would come. She had his full attention, and his eyes didn't wander over her body the way most men's did. He looked into her eyes. She felt as though she ought to say something very clever or very wise, to justify his interest in her.

No, she told herself sternly. That's just one of his tricks. One of the things he does to win people over. And I'm not here to be won over. I came to teach, not to be taught.

No wonder I once loved him, if he always looked at me like that.

To her surprise, what she blurted out now was nothing like what she had come to say. "I used to love you," she said.

A sad smile came over his face. "Used to," he whispered. "Before there was any issue of belief."

"Is it an issue of belief, Akma?" she asked.

"For two people to love each other, they have to meet, don't they? And two people who live in utterly different worlds have no chance of meeting."

She knew what he meant; they had had this conversation before, and he had insisted that while she lived in an imaginary world in which the Keeper of Earth watched over everyone, giving purpose to their lives, he lived in a real world of stone and air and water, where people had to find their own purposes.

"Yet we're meeting here," she said.

"That remains to be seen." His words were cold and distant, but his eyes searched her face. For what? What does he want to see? Some remnant of my love for him? But that is the one thing that I dare not show him because I dare not find it in myself. I can't love him, because only a monstrous, callous woman could love the man who caused so much pointless suffering.

"Have you been hearing the reports from the provinces?"

"There are many reports," said Akma. "Which did you have in mind?"

She refused to play along with his pretense of innocence. She waited.

"Yes, I've heard the reports," he said. "A terrible business. I wonder your father hasn't called in the military."

"To attack what army?" she asked scornfully. "You're smarter than that, Akma. An army is useless against thugs who melt away into the city and hide by wearing the clothing of respectable men of business, trade, or labor during the day."

"I'm a scholar, not a tactician," said Akma.

"Are you?" she asked. "I've thought about this a great deal, Akma, and when I look at you it's not a scholar that I see."

"No? What monster have you decided that I am?"

"Not a monster, either. Just a common thug. Your hands have torn holes in the wings of angel children. Diggers hide in terror during the night because they fear seeing your shadow come between them and the moonlight."

"Are you seriously accusing me of this? I have never raised my hand in violence against anyone."

"You caused it, Akma. You set them in motion, the whole army of them, the whole nasty, cruel, evil army of child-beaters."

He shuddered; his face contorted with some deep emotion. "You can't be saying this to me. You know that it's a lie."

"They're your friends. You're their hero, Akma. You and my brothers."

"I don't control them!" he said. He only barely controlled his voice.

"Oh, you don't?" she answered. "What, do they control you then?"

He rose from the table, knocking over his stool as he did. "If they did control me, Edhadeya, I'd be out preaching against Father's pathetic little religion right now. They beg, they plead. Ominer's all for doing it, Pour the bronze while it still flows, he tells me. But I refuse to lend my name to any of these persecutions. I don't want anybody hurt-not even diggers, despite what you think of me. And those angels, with holes torn in their wings-do you think I didn't hear that with the same rage as any decent person? Do you think I don't want the thugs who did that punished?" His voice trembled with emotion.

"Do you think they would have had the boldness to do it if it weren't for you?"

"I didn't invent this! I didn't create hatred and resentment of the diggers! It was our fathers who did it, when they changed the whole religious structure of the state to include the diggers as if they were people-"

"Thirteen years since they made those changes, and in all those years, nothing happened. Then you announce that you've ‘discovered' that there is no Keeper-in spite of my true dream by which the Keeper saved the Zenifi! In spite of knowing that it was only by the power of the Oversoul that the very records from which you took your ‘proof were translated. You persuade my brothers-even Mon, I don't know how-even Aronha, who always used to see through silliness-and then, the moment that Father's heirs are united in their unbelief, the floodgates open."

"You might as well blame my mother, then. After all, she gave birth to me."

"Oh, I think there is blame before you. I found out, for instance, that Bego has been part of a longtime conspiracy against Akmaro's teachings. If you search your memory honestly, I wonder if you won't find that it was Bego who led you to your ‘discovery' of the nonexistence of the Keeper."

"Bego isn't part of anything. He lives for his books. He lives in the past."

"And your father was inventing a new future, doing away with the past. Yes, Bego would hate that, wouldn't he? And he's never believed in the Keeper, I realize that now-insisting on a natural explanation for everything. No miracles, please-remember him saying that over and over? No miracles. The people of Akmaro escaped because it was in the best interest of the digger guards to let them go. The Keeper didn't make them sleep. Did anybody see them sleeping? No, Akmaro simply dreamed a dream. Go with the simplest explanation every time, that's what he taught us."

"He taught us that because it's true. It's intellectually honest."

"Honest? Akma, the simplest explanation of most of these stories is that the Keeper sends true dreams. The Keeper intervenes sometimes in people's lives. To avoid believing that you have to come up with the most convoluted, twisted, insulting speculations. You dare to tell me that my dream was only significant because it reminded people of the Zenifi, not because I was actually able to tell the difference between a true dream and a normal one. In order to disbelieve in the Keeper, you had to believe that I was and continue to be a self-deceptive fool."

"Not a fool," he said, with real pain in his expression.-"You were a child. It seemed real to you then. So of course you remember it as being real."

"You see? What you call intellectual honesty I call self-deception. You won't believe me, when I stand before you in flesh and blood and declare to you what I saw-"

"What you hallucinated among the dreams of the night."

"Nor will you even believe the simple truth of what the ancient records say-that the Rasulum, just like the Nafari, were brought back to Earth after millions of years of exile on another world. No, you can't stick with the simple explanation that the people who wrote these things actually knew what they were talking about. You have to decide that the books were created by later writers who simply wrote down old legends that accounted for the divinity of the Heroes by claiming that they came from the heavens. Nothing can be read straight. Everything has to be twisted to fit your one, basic article of faith that there is no Keeper. You can't know it! You have no proof of it! And yet faith in that one premise-against which you have a thousand written witnesses and at least a dozen living ones, including me-faith in that one premise leads you to set in motion the chain of events that leads to children being mutilated in the streets of the cities and villages of Darakemba."

"Is this why you came?" asked Akma. "To tell me that my disbelief in your true dream really hurts your feelings? I'm sorry. I had hoped you would be mature enough to understand that reason has to triumph over superstition."

She hadn't touched him. Hadn't reached that spark of decency hidden deep inside. Because there was no such spark, she knew that now. He rejected the Keeper, not because he was hurt so badly as a child, but because he truly hated the world the Keeper wanted to create. He loved evil; that's why he no longer loved her.

Without another word, she turned to go.

"Wait," he said.

She stopped; foolishly, she allowed another spark of hope to brighten.

"It's not in my power to stop these persecutions, but your father can."

"You think he hasn't tried?"

"He's going about it all wrong," said Akma. "The civil guard won't enforce the law. So many of them are actually involved in the Un-kept."

"Why don't you name names?" said Edhadeya. "If you truly meant what you said about wanting to stop the cruelty-"

"The men I know are all old and none of them are going out beating up children. Are you going to listen to me?"

"If you have a plan, I'll take it to Father."

"It's simple enough. The reason the Unkept feel such rage is because they only have two choices, either to join in with a state religion that forces them to associate with lower creatures-don't argue with me, I'm telling you what they think-"

"You think the same-"

"You've never listened to me long enough to know what I think, and it doesn't matter anyway. Listen now. They are rebelling out of a sense of helpless rage. They can't strike at the king, but they can strike at the priests and the diggers. But what if the king decreed that there no longer was a state religion?"

"Abolish the Houses of the Keeper!"

"Not at all. Let the Kept continue to assemble and share their beliefs and rituals-but on a completely voluntary basis. And let others who believe differently form their own assemblies, and without anyone's interference have their rituals and teachings. As many assemblies, as many beliefs as people want. And the government will simply look on and interfere with none of them."

"A nation should be of one heart and mind," said Edhadeya. "My father destroyed all hope of that thirteen years ago," said Akma. "Let the king declare religious belief and assembly a private matter, with no public interest at all, and there will be peace."

"In other words, in order to save the Kept from attack, we should remove the last protections we have?"

"They have no protections, Edhadeya. You know it. The king knows it. He has found the limits of his authority. But once he has abolished all government sponsorship of a religion, he can make a law that no one can be persecuted because of their religious beliefs. That one will have teeth, because it will protect everyone equally. If the Unkept want to form an assembly of fellow believers, they will have protection. It will be in their interest to uphold that law. No more secret meetings. No more hidden societies. Everything out in the open. Suggest it to your father. Even if you don't think my idea has merit, he will. He'll see that it's the only way."

"He won't be fooled any more than I am," said Edhadeya. "This decree you propose is exactly what you've wanted all along."

"I didn't even think of it till yesterday," said Akma. "Oh, pardon, I forgot that it took Bego a certain amount of time to get you to think up his ideas as if they were your own."

"Edhadeya, if my father's religion can't hold its own by the sheer power of its truthfulness, without any help from the government except to protect its members from violence, then it doesn't deserve to survive."

"I'll tell Father what you said."

"Good."

"But I'll also wager you right now, any stakes you say, that within a year you yourself will be the direct cause of more persecution of the Kept."

"You never knew me, if you think that's even possible."

"Oh, you'll have a lot of high-sounding reasons why people's suffering isn't your doing, because you've already proven your ability to deceive yourself without limit. But within a year, Akma, families will be weeping because of you."

"My family, probably, since they mourn for me as if I were dead," said Akma. He laughed, as if this were a joke.

"They aren't the only ones," said Edhadeya.

"I'm not dead," said Akma. "I have compassion, regardless of what you choose to believe about me. I remember my own suffering, I remember the suffering of others. I also remember that I loved you."

"I wish you'd forget it," said Edhadeya. "If it was ever true, you spoiled it long ago."

"I still do," he said. "I love you as much as I can love anyone. I think of you all the time, of the joy it would bring me if just once I could have you stand by my side the way Mother stands beside Father in all he does."

"She can do that, because what he does is good."

Akma nodded. "I know. Just don't pretend it's because of my beliefs that we aren't together. You're as stubborn as I am."

"No, Akma," she said. "I'm not stubborn. I'm just honest. I can't deny what I know."

"But you can hide what you know," said Akma, with a bitter smile.

"What does that mean?"

"In this whole conversation, you never bothered to mention to me that my sister is going to marry the most loathsome human being I ever knew."

"I assumed that your family had told you."

"I had to hear about it from Khimin."

"I'm sorry. That was Luet's choice. I'm sure. Perhaps she wanted not to cause you pain."

"She's dead to me now," said Akma. "She has given herself to the torturers and rejected me. As far as I'm concerned, you're doing the same."

"It's you that have given yourself to the torturers, Akma, and rejected me. Didul is no torturer. He is the man you should have been. What Luet loves in him is what she used to love in you. But it isn't there anymore."

Graciously, he allowed her the last word, staring off into space as she left the room.

A few minutes later, Bego and Mon heard terrible noises of crashing and breaking and rushed into the library, where they found Akma smashing stools against the table, splintering them. He was weeping, wordlessly sobbing, and they watched in horror as he roared like an animal and shattered every stick of small furniture in the room.

Mon noticed, though, that before his tirade began, he had carefully placed on a shelf all the barks he had been working on. Akma might have given himself over to rage, but he hadn't forgotten himself so completely as to waste the day's study.

Later, Akma offered a short and surly explanation. His sister was marrying one of the torturers. He wouldn't utter the name, but Mon knew that Luet had been in Bodika for the past few weeks and it wasn't hard to guess. Didul meant nothing to Mon. What hit him, hard, was the news that Luet was marrying at all. He had thought... he had meant to ... when all this was over. When things were settled. When he wasn't ashamed to face her anymore. That was it, he realized now. That's why he was waiting. Because he couldn't talk to her, couldn't tell her how he felt, not when he had denied his truthsense. Not when every word he uttered was tainted by lies.

Not lies. They aren't lies; the things Akma and I believe are true. This reeling I have is an illusion, I know it is. I just couldn't bring myself to face Luet when I still had this feeling that I was a fraud. I just needed more time, more strength. More courage.

Now it doesn't matter. Now my conscience can be clear as I attack Akmaro's religion. When Father decrees that all religions are equal, that all assemblies have the protection of law, then we will go out in the open and everything will be clear. It's good that I don't have any bonds of affection to complicate matters. It's good that I go into this side by side with my brothers, with my friend, not dragged down by a woman who can't rise above that inner voice she has been trained to think of as the Keeper of Earth. Luet would have been wrong for me. I would have been wrong for her.

I would have been wrong for her. It was when that thought crossed his mind that finally the truthsense within him gave him a sense of calm. He was right, finally, in the eyes of the Keeper.

This was the most devastating realization of all: If the Keeper turned out to exist after all, he had judged Mon and found him unworthy to have the love of the woman he once wanted. But Mon couldn't escape the nagging doubt that if he hadn't been caught up in these plans of Akma's, things might have worked out differently. Would it have been so. terrible to keep believing in the Keeper and to have jAiet as my wife and live on in peace? Why couldn't Akma just leave me alone?

He drove these disloyal thoughts out of his mind, and said nothing of his feelings to anyone.