The Memory of Earth (6 page)

Only a few things were lacking to make the dream reality. For one thing, Eiadh didn’t have a house yet, and though she was gaining some small reputation as a singer and reciter, it was clear that her career would not be one of the dazzlingly brilliant ones; she was no prodigy, and so her house would no doubt be a modest one for many years. No matter, I will help her buy a finer one than she could afford on her own, even though when a man helps a woman buy property in Basilica the money can only be given as a gift. Eiadh is too loyal a woman ever to lapse my contract and close me out of the house I helped her buy.

The only other thing lacking in the dream was that Nafai had never actually written anything that was particularly good. Of course, that was only because he had not yet chosen his field, and therefore he was still testing himself, still dabbling a little in all of them. He’d
settle on one very soon, there’d be one in which he would show himself to have a flair, and then there’d be myachiks of
his
works in the booths of the inner market.

The Holy Road was having some kind of procession down into the Rift Valley, and so—as men—they had to go all the way around it; even so, they were soon enough at Mother’s house. Issib immediately left him, floating his way around to the outside stairway leading up into the computer room, where he was spending all his time these days. The next younger class was already in session out on the south curve of the pillared porch, catching the sunlight slanting in. They were doing devotions, the boys slapping themselves sharply now and then, the girls humming softly to themselves. His own class would be doing the same thing inside somewhere, and Nafai was in no hurry to join them, since it was considered vaguely impious to make a disturbance during a devotion.

So he walked slowly, skirting the younger class on the porch, pausing to lean on a pillar out of sight as he listened to the comfortable music of small girlish voices humming randomly, yet finding momentary chords that were lost in the moment they were discovered; and the staccato, broken rhythms of boys slapping their trousered legs, their shirted arms and chests, their bare cheeks.

As he stood there, a girl from the class suddenly appeared beside him. He knew her from gymnasium, of course. It was the witchling named Luet, who was rumored to have such remarkable visions that some of the ladies of the Shelf were already calling her a seer. Nafai didn’t put much stock in such magical stories—the Oversoul couldn’t know the future any more than a human being could, and as far as visions were concerned, people only remembered the ones that by sheer luck happened to match reality at some point.

“You’re the one who’s covered with fire,” she said.

What was she talking about? How was he supposed to answer this kind of thing?

“No, I’m Nafai,” he said.

“Not really fire. Little diamond sparks that turn to lightning when you’re angry.”

“I’ve got to go in.”

She touched his sleeve; it held him as surely as if she had gripped his arm. “She’ll never mate with you, you know.”

“Who?”

“Eiadh. She’ll offer, but you’ll refuse her.”

This was humiliating. How did this girl, probably only twelve, and from her size and shape
definitely
not a young woman yet, know anything about his feelings toward Eiadh? Was his love that obvious to everyone? Well, fine, so be it—he had nothing to hide. There was only honor in being known to love such a woman. And as for this girl being a seer, it wasn’t too likely, not if she said that Eiadh would actually
offer
herself to him and he would turn her down! I’m more likely to bite my own finger off than to refuse take the most perfect woman in Basilica as my mate.

“Excuse me,” Nafai said, pulling his arm away. He didn’t like this girl touching him anyway. They said that her mother was a wilder, one of those filthy naked solitary women who came into Basilica from the desert; supposedly they were holy women, but Nafai well knew that they also would sleep with any man who asked, right on the streets of the city, and it was permissible for any man to take one, even when he was in a contract with a mate. Decent and highborn men didn’t do it, of course—even Meb had never bragged about “desert worship” or going on a “dust party,” as couplings with wilders were crudely called. Nafai saw nothing holy in the whole business, and as far as he was concerned, this Luet was a
bastard, conceived by a madwoman and a bestial man in a coupling that was closer to rape than love. There was no chance that the Oversoul really had anything to do with
that.

“
You’re
the bastard,” said the girl. Then she walked away. The others had finished their devotions—or perhaps had stopped them in order to listen to what Luet was saying to him. Which meant that the story would be spread all over the house by dinnertime and all over Basilica before supper and no doubt Issib would tease him about it all the way home and then Elemak and Mebbekew would
never
let him forget it and he wished that the women of Basilica would keep crazy people like Luet under lock and key instead of taking their stupid nonsense seriously all the time.

When he got inside he headed for the fountain room, where his class would be meeting all through the autumn. From the kitchen he could smell the preparations for dinner, and with a pang he remembered that, what with his argument with Elemak, he had completely forgotten to eat. Until this moment he hadn’t felt even the tiniest bit hungry; but now that he realized it, he was completely famished. In fact, he felt just a little lightheaded. He should sit down. The fountain room was only a few steps away; surely they would understand why he was late if he arrived not feeling well. No one could be angry at him. No one could think he was a lazy slackwit if he was
sick.
They didn’t have to know that he was sick with hunger.

He shuffled miserably into the room, playing his faintness to the hilt, leaning against a wall for a moment as he passed. He could feel their eyes on him, but he didn’t look; he had a vague idea that genuinely sick
people didn’t easily meet other people’s gaze. He half-expected the teacher of the day to speak up. What’s wrong, Nafai? Aren’t you well?

Instead there was silence until he had slid down the wall, folding himself into a sitting position on the wooden floor.

“We’ll send out for a burial party, Nafai, in case you suddenly die.”

Oh, no! It wasn’t a teacher at all, one of the easily fooled young women who were so very impressed that Nafai was Rasa’s own son. It was Mother here today. He looked up and met her gaze. She was smiling wickedly at him, not fooled a bit by his sick act.

“I was waiting for you. Issib is already on my portico. He didn’t mention that you were dying, but I’m sure it was an oversight.”

There was nothing left but to take it with good humor. Nafai sighed and got to his feet. “You know, Mother, that your unwillingness to suspend your disbelief will set back my acting career by several years.”

“That’s all right, Nafai, dear. Your acting career would set back Basilican theatre by centuries.”

The other students laughed. Nafai grinned—but he also scanned the group to see who was enjoying it most. There was Eiadh, sitting near the fountain, where a few tiny drops of water had caught in her hair and were now reflecting light like jewels.
She
wasn’t laughing at him. Instead she smiled beautifully, and winked. He grinned back—like a foolish clown, he was sure—and nearly tripped on the step leading up to the doorway to the back corridor. There was more laughter, of course, and so Nafai turned and took a deep bow. Then he walked away with dignity, deliberately running into the doorframe to earn another laugh before he finally made it out of the room.

“What’s this about?” he asked Mother, hurrying to catch up with her.

“Family business,” she said.

Then they passed through the doorway leading to Mother’s private portico. They would stay, as always, in the screened-off area near the door; beyond the screen, out near the balustrade, the portico offered a beautiful view of the Rift Valley, so it was completely forbidden for men to go there. Such proscriptions in private houses were often ignored—Nafai knew several boys who talked about the Rift Valley, asserting that it was nothing special, just a steep craggy slope covered with trees and vines with a bunch of mist or clouds or fog blocking any view of the middle where, presumably, the sacred lake was located. But in Mother’s house, decent respect was always shown, and Nafai was sure that even Father had never passed beyond the screen.

Once he was through with blinking, coming out into bright sunlight, Nafai was able to see who else was on the portico. Issib, of course; but to Nafai’s surprise, Father himself was there, home from his journey. Why had he come to Rasa’s house in the city, instead of going home first?

Father stood to greet him with an embrace.

“Elemak’s at home, Father.”

“So Issya informed me.”

Father seemed very serious, very distant. He had something on his mind. It couldn’t be anything good.

“Now that Nafai is finally here,” said Mother, “we can perhaps make some sense out of all this.”

Only now, as he seated himself in the best shade that wasn’t already taken, did Nafai realize that there were two girls with them. At first glance, in the dazzling sunlight, he had assumed they were his sisters, Rasa’s daughters Sevet and Kokor—in that context, an assembly
of Rasa and her children, Father’s presence was surprising, since he was father only to Issib and Nafai, not to the girls. But instead of Sevet and Kokor, it was two girls from the school—Hushidh, another of mother’s nieces, the same age as Eiadh; and that witchling girl from the front porch, Luet. He looked at her in consternation—how had she got here so quickly? Not that he’d been hurrying. Mother must have sent for her even before she knew that Nafai had arrived.

What were Luet and Hushidh doing in a conference about family business?

“My dear mate Wetchik has something to tell us. We’re hoping that you can—well, at least that Luet or Hushidh might—”

“Why don’t I simply begin?” said Father.

Mother smiled and raised her hands in a graceful, elegant shrug.

“I saw something disturbing this morning,” Father began. “Just before morning, actually. I was on my way home on the Desert Road—I was out on the desert, yesterday, to ponder and consult with myself and the Oversoul—when suddenly there came upon me a strong desire—a need, really—to leave the trail, even though that’s a foolish thing to do in that dark time between moonset and sunrise. I didn’t go far. I only had to move around a large rock, and it became quite clear to me why I had been led to that spot. For there in front of me I saw Basilica. But not the Basilica I would have expected, dotted with the lights of celebration in Dolltown or the inner market. What I saw was Basilica ablaze.”

“On
fire
?” asked Issib.

“A vision, of course. I didn’t know that at first, mind you—I lunged forward; I was intending to rush to the city—to rush here and see if you were all right, my dear—”

“As I would certainly expect you to do,” said Mother.

“When the city disappeared as suddenly as it had appeared. Only the fire remained, rising up to form a pillar on the rock in front of me. It stood there for the longest time, a column of flame. And it was hot—as hot as if it had been real. I felt it singeing me, though of course there’s not a mark on my clothing. And then the pillar of flame rose up into the sky, slowly at first, then faster and faster until it became a star moving across the sky, and then disappeared entirely.”

“You were tired, Father,” said Issib.

“I’ve been tired many times,” said Father, “but I have never seen pillars of flame before. Or burning cities.”

Mother spoke up again. “Your father came to me, Issya, because he hoped that I might help him understand the meaning of this. If it came from the Oversoul, or if it was just a mad sort of waking dream.”

“I vote for the dream,” said Issib.

“Even madness can come from the Oversoul,” said Hushidh.

Everyone looked at her. She was a rather plainish girl, always quiet in class. Now that Nafai saw her and Luet side by side, he realized that they resembled each other closely. Were they sisters? More to the point, what was Hushidh doing here, and by what right did she speak out about family matters?

“It
can
come from the Oversoul,” said Father. “But did it? And if it did, what does it mean?”

Nafai could see that Father was directing those questions, not at Rasa or even at Hushidh, but at Luet! He couldn’t possibly believe what the women said about her, could he? Did a single vision turn a rational man of business into a superstitious pilgrim trying to find meanings in everything he saw?

“I can’t tell you what your dream means,” said Luet.

“Oh,” said Father. “Not that I actually thought—”

“If the Oversoul sent the dream, and if she meant you to understand it, then she also sent the interpretation.”

“There
was
no interpretation.”

“Wasn’t there?” asked Luet. “This is the first time you’ve had a dream like this, isn’t it?”