Earthborn (Homecoming) (20 page)

“And they’re blessed by having good kings,” Bego reminded him.

“I’m sure you’re even more sincere than dutiful,” said Motiak wryly. “But maybe it’s time for me to learn the same lesson Ilihiak learned.”

“What, let the people vote on who should be king?”

“No. Not have a king at all. Abolish the whole idea of any one person having such power.”

“What, then? Break up the great kingdom that your father and you created? There has never been such peace and prosperity.”

“And what if Aronha should be as vicious as Nuab? As blindly ambitious as Coriantumr? As treacherous as Shiz?”

“If you think so, you don’t know Aronha,” said Bego.

“I’m not saying him
in particular
,” said Motiak. “But did Zenifab know that his boy Nuaha would be as nasty as he became when he ascended to the exalted name of Nuak? From what Ilihiak told me, Nuak began as a good king.”

“Nothing would be gained by letting the kingdom collapse into dozens of squabbling lesser kingdoms. Then the Elemaki would be a terrible threat to us again, as they were in the old days, pouring out of the mountains and down the Tsidorek or out of the high valleys. . . .”

“You don’t have to remind me,” said Motiak. “I’m just trying to think of what the Keeper wants me to do.”

“Are you sure the Keeper has any plan at all in mind?” asked Bego.

Motiak looked at his librarian curiously. “He sends dreams to my daughter. He sends dreams to Ilihiak’s spies. He sets a test for you and Mon—which you passed, I thank you—and then gives us the translation
whole, in a single night. Oh, we must remember to invite Ilihiak to read it, once you have it copied in a more permanent form.”

Bego nodded. “I’ll have that seen to at once.”

“No, no, sleep first.”

“I’ll set the copyists to work before I sleep. I won’t have stayed up all night only to nap now.”

Motiak shrugged. “Whatever. If you feel up to it.
I’m
going to sleep. And ponder, Bego. Ponder what it is the Keeper of Earth wants me to do.”

“I wish you well,” said Bego. “But ponder this, too: What if the Keeper wants you to keep doing just as you’re doing? What if you were given this record to reassure you that you’re doing
perfectly
as king, compared to the kings of the Rasulum?”

Motiak laughed. “Yes, well, I won’t do anything rash. I won’t abdicate
yet.
How’s that for a promise?”

“Very reassuring, Motiak,” said Bego.

“Just remember
this,
my friend. There were good kings among the Rasulum, too. But all it took was a bad king or two, and all their great works became nothing.”

“They were nomads,” said Bego. “They built nothing.”

“Oh, and because we have our edifices of stone, our platforms built to raise our homes above the high waters of flood season, because of that our nations can’t possibly come crashing down around us?”

“I suppose all things are possible,” said Bego.

“All things but the one you’re thinking,” said Motiak.

“And what is
that?”
The librarian seemed a bit testy—at Motiak’s blithe assumption that he could read the old angel’s mind? Or because he feared that Motiak had actually read it?

“You’re thinking that perhaps the Keeper didn’t know what the record said until it was translated.”

“I couldn’t possibly think that,” said Bego, his icy tone confirming to Motiak that his guess was exactly right.

“Perhaps you’re thinking that the Oversoul is, as the oldest records imply, merely a machine that performs such complex operations that it seems like the subtlest of living thought. Perhaps you’re thinking that the Oversoul became curious about what was written on these records, but couldn’t crack the language until Mon’s intuition and your hard work combined to give the Oversoul enough to work with. Perhaps you’re thinking that none of this actually requires us to believe in the Keeper of Earth at all—only in the ancient machinery of the Oversoul.”

Bego smiled grimly. “You didn’t read this in my mind, Motiak. You guessed this because it’s a thought that occurred to you yourself.”

“It did,” said Motiak. “But I remembered something else. The Heroes who knew the Oversoul intimately still believed in the Keeper of Earth. And anyway, Bego, how do you explain Mon’s ability to sense what’s right and what’s not? How do you explain Edhadeya’s dreams?”

“I don’t have to believe in the Keeper of Earth to believe in the great intuitive abilities of your son and daughter.”

Motiak looked at Bego gravely. “Be careful whom you speak to about these thoughts.”

“I’m aware of the laws concerning heresy and treason. But if you think about it, Motiak, such laws would never have been necessary if people hadn’t thought these thoughts before, and said them out loud.”

“Our question should not be, Does the Keeper of Earth exist? Our question should be, What is the Keeper of Earth trying to accomplish by bringing my ancestors to this world and placing us in the midst of your people and the earth people? What is the Keeper trying to build, and how can we help?”

“I would rather think,” said Bego, “of what my king is trying to do, and how I might help
him
.”

Motiak nodded, his eyes heavy-lidded. “If I can’t be your brother in our belief in the Keeper, then I will
have to make do with your loyalty to me as your king.”

“In
that
you can trust perfectly,” said Bego.

“I know I can,” said Motiak.

“I beg you not to stop me from teaching your children,” said Bego.

Motiak closed his eyes entirely. “I’m so tired, Bego. I need to sleep before I can think any more about these things. As you leave, please ask the servants to come and carry my children to their beds.”

“It won’t be necessary,” said Bego. “They’re both awake.”

Motiak looked at Mon and Edhadeya, whose heads still rested on their arms and who had not stirred from their motionless slumber. But now, sheepishly, they both raised their heads. “I didn’t want to interrupt,” said Mon.

“No, I imagine not,” answered Motiak wryly. “Well, then, we can spare the servants the onerous labor of carrying you. Go to bed, both of you. You earned the right to witness the translation, but not to hear my private counsel with my friend.”

“Forgive me,” Edhadeya whispered.

“Forgive you?” echoed Motiak. “Already I’ve forgiven you. Now go to bed.”

They followed Bego wordlessly out the door.

Motiak remained alone in the library for a little while, touching now the gold leaves, now the Index.

In a short while, the head copyist came in to take away Bego’s carefully written waxed barks. While he was there, Motiak wrapped up the Index; and when the copyist was gone, the king carried both the Index and the gold leaves to the inmost chamber of his treasury, down in the belly of the house.

As he walked, he spoke to the Keeper in his mind, asking questions, pleading for answers, but finally asking only this: Give me help. My priests will answer as they always answer, interpreting the old texts in the same ways their predecessors already decided to interpret them. This new history won’t even wake them
from their intellectual slumber—they already think they understand everything, but now I think they understand nothing. Give me help, someone else who can bear this burden with me, someone who can hear my fears and worries, who can help me know what you want of me.

Then, standing in the doorway of the treasury, the ten guards lined up at the entrance, watching him intently, Motiak had a sudden vision. As clearly as if he was standing in front of him, Motiak saw the man that Edhadeya had seen in her dream. Akmaro, the rebel priest of Nuab.

As quickly as it came, the vision was gone.

“Are you all right?” asked the nearest guard.

“Now I am,” said Motiak. He strode away, climbing the stairs up into the living quarters of the house.

He had never seen any vision of Akmaro before, but he knew that the man he had glimpsed for that one moment was him. Surely he had been shown that face because the Keeper meant Akmaro to be the friend that Motiak had pleaded for. And if Akmaro was to be his friend, the Keeper must plan to bring him to Darakemba.

On the way to his bedroom, he passed Dudagu’s room. Normally she would still be asleep at this early hour of the morning, but she came to the door as he walked by. “Where were you all night, Tidaka?”

“Working,” he answered. “Don’t let them waken me until noon.”

“What, am I supposed to look for all your servants and tell them what your schedule is? How have I offended you, that you suddenly treat me like a common . . .”

Her voice faded out as he drew the curtain across the door to his inner chamber. “Send me a friend and counselor, Keeper,” whispered Motiak. “If I am a worthy servant of yours, send Akmaro to me now.”

Motiak slept almost as soon as he lay down, slept and did not dream.

* * *

As they walked to the sleeping quarters of the king’s house, Mon and Edhadeya talked. Or rather, at first Mon talked.

“The Index did the translating, right? Father only spoke whatever appeared before him. Bego only wrote whatever Father said. So who is the machine?”

Sleepily Edhadeya murmured, “The Index is the machine.”

“So we’re told. And before tonight, Bego worked and puzzled and guessed about the language of the twenty-four leaves. Then he tested his answers with me as if against the multiplication table. Is this right, Mon? Yes or no, Mon? One answer or the other was all I could give. I barely even had to understand. Yes. No. Yes. Who is the machine?”

“A machine that talks nonsense instead of letting you sleep,” said Edhadeya. “Everyone will want one.”

But Mon wasn’t listening to her. He was already off in another direction. He knew he was desperately unhappy about something that happened tonight; if he tried enough guesses as to what it was, one of them was bound to be right. “Dedaya, do you really
want
your dreams? The true ones? Don’t you wish they didn’t come to you?”

In spite of herself, Edhadeya awakened to this question; it had never occurred to her to question her gift. “If I hadn’t dreamed, Mon, we wouldn’t know what was in the book.”

“We still don’t know. We slept through most of it.”

Fully alert now, Edhadeya continued. “And I
don’t
wish the dream had come to someone else. I wanted it—I was glad of it. It makes me part of something important.”

“Part
of something? A
piece
of something? I want to be
whole.
Myself. Not part of anything but me.”

“That’s so stupid, Mon. You’ve spent your whole life wanting to be someone else. Now suddenly you want to be you?”

“I wish
I
were better than I am, yes. I wish
I
could fly, yes.”

Edhadeya was used to this. Boys always argued as if they knew they had the forces of logic on their side, even when they were being completely irrational. Even when their “logic” defied the evidence. “You wish you could be part of the games, the air dances of the young angels.
Part
of them. And
part
of the evening song. You can’t very well do any of that by yourself.”

“That’s different,” said Mon.

Oh, yes, let’s redefine our terms to eliminate the contradiction. It drove Edhadeya crazy, because after discussions like this, the boys would turn around and talk about how girls weren’t reasonable, they were emotional, so you couldn’t even have an intelligent discussion with them—but it was the boys who fled from the evidence and constantly shifted their arguments to fit what they wanted to believe. And it was Edhadeya who was ruthlessly realistic, refusing to deny her own feelings or the facts she observed around her. And refusing to deny that she reached her conclusions first, because of her inmost desires, and only afterward constructed the arguments to support them. Only boys were so foolish that they actually believed that their arguments were their reasons.

But there was no use explaining any of this to Mon. Edhadeya was tired. She didn’t need to turn this into a lengthy argument about arguments. So she answered him in the simplest possible way. “No it’s not,” she said.

Mon took this as license to ignore her, of course. “I don’t want to be part of the
Keeper,
that’s what I don’t want to be part of. Who knows or cares what he’s planning? I don’t want to be part of his plans.”

“We all
are
,” said Edhadeya. “So isn’t it better to be an
important
part?”

“His favorite puppet?” asked Mon scornfully.

“Her willing friend.”

“If he’s a friend, let’s see his face once in a while, all right? Let’s see him come for a visit!”

Edhadeya decided it was time to inject a little reality
into the discussion. “I know what you’re really angry about.”

“I should hope so, since I just told you.”

“You’re angry because
you
want to be the one in charge, making all the plans.”

She could see by the momentary startlement in his eyes that she had hit upon a truth that he had never thought of. But of course he resisted the idea. “Half right, maybe,” he said. “I want to be making all the plans for
me
.”

“And you never want to have another person act out just the teensiest little thing
you
plan for them to do?”

“That’s right. I ask nothing of anyone, and I don’t want anyone to make demands on me.
That
would be true happiness.”

Edhadeya was tired, and Mon was being unusually silly. “Mon, you can’t go five minutes without telling me what to do.”

Mon was outraged. “I haven’t told you a single thing to do this whole conversation!”

“You’ve been doing nothing
but
telling me what to think.”

“I’ve been telling you what
I
think.”

“Oh, and you weren’t trying to
make
me agree?”

Of course he was, and he knew it, and his whole claim not to want to control anyone else was in tatters, but Mon could never admit it. Edhadeya was always amused, watching that panic in her brothers’ eyes when they were trapped and desperately searching for a way out of their own illogic. “I was trying,” said Mon, “to get you to
understand
.”