The Memory of Earth (19 page)

“Come back,” said Father. “I don’t care about the crumbs.”

Issib came back.

“There’s talk all over Basilica about the two of you.”

Nafai traded glances with Issib. “We’ve just been doing some library research.”

“The women are saying that the Oversoul is speaking to no one but you.”

“We aren’t exactly getting clear messages from it,” said Nafai.

“Mostly we’ve just been monopolizing it by stimulating its aversive reflexes,” said Issib.

“Mmm,” said Father.

“But we’ve stopped,” said Issib. “That’s why we came home.”

“We didn’t want to interfere,” said Nafai.

“Nafai prayed, though, on the way home,” said Issib. “It was pretty impressive stuff.”

Father sighed. “Oh, Nafai, if you’ve learned anything from me, couldn’t you have learned that jabbing yourself and bleeding all over the place has nothing to do with prayer to the Oversoul?”

“Right,” said Nafai. “This from the man who suddenly comes home with a vision of fire on a rock. I thought all bets were off.”

“I got my vision without bleeding,” said Father. “But never mind. I was hoping that the two of you might have received something from the Oversoul that would help me.”

Nafai shook his head.

“No,” said Issib. “Mostly what we got from the Oversoul was that stupor of thought. It was trying to keep us from thinking forbidden thoughts.”

“Well, that’s it, then,” said Father. “I’m on my own.”

“On your own with what?” asked Issib.

“Gaballufix sent word to me through Elemak today. It seems that Gaballufix is as unhappy as I am about the situation in Basilica today. If he had known diat this war wagon business would cause such controversy he would never have begun it. He said that he wanted me to set up a meeting between him and Roptat. All Gaballufix really wants now is to find a way to back down without losing face—he says that all he needs is for Roptat also to back down, so that we don’t make an alliance with anybody.”

“So have you set up a meeting with Roptat?”

“Yes,” said Father. “At dawn, at the coolhouse east of Market Gate.”

“It sounds to me,” said Nafai, “like Gaballufix has come around to the City Party’s way of thinking.”

“That’s how it
sounds
,” said Father.

“But you don’t believe him,” said Issib.

“I don’t know,” said Father. “His position is the only reasonable, intelligent one. But when has Gaballufix ever been reasonable or intelligent? All the years I’ve known him, even when he was a young man, before he maneuvered himself into the clan leadership, he’s never done anything that wasn’t designed to advance him relative to other people. There are always two ways of doing that—by building yourself up and by tearing your rivals down. In all these years, I’ve seen that Gaballufix has a definite preference for the latter.”

“So you think he’s using you,” said Nafai. “To get at Roptat.”

“Somehow he will betray Roptat and destroy him,” said Father. “And in the end, I’ll look back and see how he used me to help him accomplish that. I’ve seen it before.”

“So why are you helping him?” asked Issib.

“Because there’s a chance, isn’t there? A chance that he means what he’s saying. If I refuse to mediate between
them, then it’ll be
my
fault if things get worse in Basilica than they already are. So I have to take him at face value, don’t I?”

“All you can do is your best,” said Nafai, echoing Father’s own pat phrase from many previous conversations.

“Keep your eyes open,” said Issib, echoing another of Father’s epigrams.

“Yes,” said Father. “I’ll do that.”

Issib nodded wisely.

“Father,” said Nafai. “May I go with you in the morning?”

Father shook his head.

“I want to. And maybe I can see something that you miss. Like while you’re talking or something, I can be looking at other people and seeing their reactions. I could really help.”

“No,” said Father. “I won’t be a credible mediator if I have others with me.”

But Nafai knew that wasn’t true. “I think you’re afraid that something ugly will happen and you don’t want me there.”

Father shrugged. “I have my fears. I
am
a father.”

“But I’m
not
afraid, Father.”

“Then apparently you’re stupider than I feared,” said Father. “Go to bed now, both of you.”

“It’s way too early for that,” said Issib.

“Then
don’t
go to bed.”

Father turned away from them and faced the computer display again.

It was a clear signal of dismissal, but Nafai couldn’t keep himself from questioning him. “If the Oversoul isn’t speaking to you directly, Father, why do you hope to find anything helpful in its ancient, dead words?”

Father sighed and said nothing.

“Nafai,” said Issib, “let Father contemplate in peace.”

Nafai followed Issib out of the library. “Why won’t anybody ever answer my questions?”

“Because you never stop asking them,” said Issib, “and especially because you keep asking them even when it’s clear that nobody knows the answers.”

“Well how do I know that they don’t know the answer unless I ask?”

“Go to your room and think dirty thoughts or something,” said Issib. “Why can’t you just act like a normal fourteen-year-old?”

“Right,” said Nafai. “Like
I’m
supposed to be the one normal person in the family.”

“Somebody’s got to do it.”

“Why do you think Meb was at the temple?”

“To pray for you to get a hemorrhoid every time you ask a question.”

“No, that’s why
you
were at the temple. Can you imagine Meb praying?”

“And marking up his beautiful body?” Issib laughed.

They were in the courtyard, in front of Issib’s room. They heard a footstep and turned to see Mebbekew standing in the kitchen door. The kitchen had been dark; they had assumed that Truzhnisha had gone and that no one was in there. Meb must have overheard all their conversation.

Nafai couldn’t think of anything to say. Of course, that didn’t mean he held his tongue. “I guess you didn’t stay long in the temple, did you, Meb?”

“No,” said Meb. “But I
did
pray, if it’s any of your business.”

Nafai was ashamed. “I’m sorry.”

Issib wasn’t. “Oh, come on,” he said. “Show me a scab, then.”

“I have a question for you first, Issya,” said Meb.

“Sure,” said Issib.

“Do you have a float attached to your private lever to hold it up when you pee? Or do you just let it dribble down like a girl?”

It was too dark for Nafai to see whether Issib was blushing or not. All he was sure of was that Issib said nothing, just glided from the courtyard into his room.

“Bravely done,” said Nafai. “Taunting a cripple.”

“He called me a liar,” said Meb. “Was I supposed to kiss him?”

“He was joking.”

“It wasn’t funny.” Mebbekew went back into the kitchen.

Nafai went into his room, but he didn’t feel like going to bed. He felt sweaty, even though the night was fairly chilly. His skin itched. It had to be the residue of blood and disinfectant from the temple fountain. Nafai didn’t relish the idea of using soap on his wounds, but the slimy itchiness would be unbearable, too. So he stripped and went to the shower. This time he rinsed first, shockingly cold despite the day’s warming of the water. And it stung bitterly to soap himself—perhaps worse now than when the wounds were first inflicted, though he knew that this was probably subjective. The pain of the moment is always the worst, Father had often said.

As he was soaping in miserable dark silence, he saw Elemak come in. He went directly into Father’s rooms, and emerged not long after to lock the gate. And not just the outer gate; the inner one, too. That wasn’t the usual thing; indeed, Nafai couldn’t remember when he had last seen the inner gate locked. Maybe there was a storm once. Or a time when they were training a dog and kept it between the gates at night. But there was neither storm nor dog now.

Elemak went into his room. Nafai pulled the cord and
plunged himself again in icy water, rubbing at his wounds to get the soap out before the water stopped flowing. Curse Father for his absurd insistence on toughening his sons and making men of them! Only the poor had to bathe in a sudden flow of cold water like this!

It took two rinsings this time, with a long wet wait in the chilly breeze for the shower tank to refill. When he finally got back to his room, Nafai was chattering and shaking with the cold, and even when he was dry and dressed again, he couldn’t seem to get warm. He almost closed the door to his room, which would have triggered the heating system—but he and his brothers always competed to see who could be last to start closing the door of his room in the wintertime, and he wasn’t about to surrender that battle tonight, confessing that a little prayer had weakened him so much. Instead he pulled all his clothes out of his chest and piled them on top of himself where he lay on his mat.

There was no comfortable position for sleeping, of course, but lying on his side was least painful. Anger and pain and worry kept him from sleeping easily; he felt as though he hadn’t slept at all, listening to the small sounds of the others getting ready for sleep, and then the endless silence of the courtyard at night. Now and then a birdcall, or a wild dog in the hills, or a soft restless sound from the horses in the stable or the pack animals in the barns.

And then he must have slept, or how else could he have woken up so suddenly, startled. Was it a sound that woke him? Or a dream? What was he dreaming, anyway? Something dark and fearful. He was trembling, but it wasn’t cold—in fact, he was sweating heavily under his pile of clothing.

He got up and tossed the clothes back into his chest. He tried to be quiet about opening and closing the
box—he didn’t want to waken anyone else. Every movement caused him pain. He must be fevered, he realized—he had the stiffness in his muscles, and the hotness under his covers. And yet his thinking seemed remarkably clear, and all his senses. If this was a fever, it was a strange one, for he had never felt so vivid and alive. In spite of the pain—or because of it—he felt as though he would hear it if a mouse ran across a beam in the stable.

He walked out into the courtyard and stood there in silence. The moon wasn’t up yet, but the stars were many and bright on this clear night. The gate was still locked. But why had he wondered? What was he afraid of? What
had
he seen in his dream?

Meb’s and Elya’s doors were closed. What a laugh—here I am, wounded and sore, and I keep my door open, while these two go ahead and close their doors like little children.

Or maybe it’s only little children who care about such meaningless contests of manliness.

It was colder than ever outside, and now he had cooled off the feverishness that had made him get up. But still he didn’t return to his room, though he meant to. In fact, it finally dawned on him that he had already decided several times to return to his room, and each time his mind had wandered and he hadn’t taken a step.

The Oversoul, he thought. The Oversoul wants me to be up. Perhaps wants me to be doing something. But what?

At this point in the month, the fact that the moon had not yet risen meant that it was a good three hours before dawn. Two hours, then, before Father was supposed to arise and go to his rendezvous at the cool house, where the plants from the icy north were nurtured and propagated.

Why was the meeting being held
there
?

Nafai felt an inexplicable desire to go outside and look northeast across the Tsivet Valley toward the high hills on the other side, where the Music Gate marked the southeast limit of Basilica. It was silly, and the noise of opening the gates might waken someone. But by now Nafai knew that the Oversoul was involved with him tonight, trying to keep him from going back to bed; couldn’t this impulse to go outside also come from the Oversoul? Hadn’t Nafai prayed today—couldn’t this be an answer? Wasn’t it possible that this desire to go outside was like the impulse Father had felt, that took him from the Desert Road to the place where he saw the vision of fire?

Wasn’t it possible that Nafai, too, was about to receive a vision from the Oversoul?

He walked smoothly, quietly to the gate and lifted the heavy bar. No noises; his senses and reflexes were so alert and alive that he could move with perfect silence. The gate creaked slightly as he opened it—but he didn’t have to open it widely in order to slip through.

The outer gate was more often used, and so it worked more easily, and quietly, having been better maintained. Nafai stepped outside just as the moon first showed an arc over the top of the Seggidugu Mountains to the east. He headed out to walk around the house to where he could see the cool house, but before he had taken a few steps he realized that he could hear a sound coming from the traveler’s room.

As was the custom in all the households in this part of the world, every house had a room whose door opened to the outside and was never locked—a decent place where a traveler could come and take refuge from storm or cold or weariness. Father took the obligation of hospitality to strangers more seriously than most, providing
not just a room, but also a bed and clean linen, and a cupboard provisioned with traveling food. Nafai wasn’t sure which servant had responsibility for the room, but he knew it was often used and just as often replenished. So he should not be surprised at the idea that someone might be inside.

And yet he knew that he must stop at the door and peer inside.

Scant light fell into the traveler’s room from the crack in the door. He opened it wider, and the light spilled onto the bed, where he found himself looking into the wide eyes of—Luet.

“You,” he whispered.

“You,” she answered. She sounded relieved.

“What are you doing here?” he asked. “Who’s with you?”

“I’m alone,” she said. “I wasn’t sure who I was coming to. Whose house. I’ve never been outside of the city walls before.”

“When did you get here?”

“Just now. The Oversoul led me.”

Of course. “To what purpose?”