The Memory of Earth Page 7

  "Oh, don't pretend you didn't know, my boy."

  "How would I know? I was asleep till rehearsal started. You put me on stage darting my father and it's just coincidence that you didn't happen to mention the fact, yes, I'm sure I believe that"

  "Hey, it brings an audience."

  "What were you going to do, tell people who I am, after all your promises about keeping me anonymous? What are these masks supposed to mean anyway?" Meb turned to the others, who were clearly baffled by the whole thing. "Listen, people, do you know what this old pimple was going to do? He was going to dart my father and then tell people that it was me playing the Oversoul. He was going to unmask me!"

  The satirist was obviously worried by this turn of events. Though most of the maskers' faces were still hidden, they must be angry at the idea of a satirist exposing his maskers' identities. So the satirist had to get things back under control. "Don't waste a thought on this nonsense," he said to the others. "I just fired the boy because he had the audacity to rewrite my lines, and now he wants to wreck the entire show."

  The maskers visibly relaxed.

  Meb must have realized that he had lost the argument-the maskers wanted to believe the satirist because if they didn't, they'd lose a paying job. "My father isn't the liar," said Meb, "you are."

  "Satire is wonderful, isn't it," said Drotik, "until the dart strikes at home."

  Meb raised the white-maned apothecary mask over his head, as if he was going to strike the satirist with it. Drotik flung up an arm and shied away. But Meb never meant to hit him. Instead he brought the mask down over his knee, breaking it in half. Then he tossed both pieces into the satirist's lap.

  The satirist lowered his arm and met Mebbekew's gaze again. "It'll take ten minutes for my maskmaker to put the beard onto another mask. Or were you trying to make a metaphorical threat?"

  "I don't know," said Meb. "Were you trying to get me to metaphorically murder my father?"

  The satirist shook his head in disbelief. "It's a dart, boy. Just words. A few laughs."

  "A few extra tickets."

  "It paid your wages."

  "It made you rich." Meb turned his back and walked away. Nafai followed him. Behind them he could hear Drotik sending the script boy to the wall to ask for maskers who thought they could learn a part in three hours.

  Mebbekew wouldn't let Nafai catch up with him. He walked faster and faster, until finally they were running full tilt along the streets, up and down the hills. But Mebbekew hadn't the endurance to outlast Nafai, and finally he fetched up against the corner of a house, bowed over, panting, gasping for breath.

  Nafai didn't know what to say. He hadn't meant to chase Meb down, only to tell him what he thought-that he'd been terrific, the way he put the satirist in his place, the way he called him a liar to his face and blasted every argument Drotik raised in his own defense. When you broke the mask in half, I wanted to cheer-that's what Nafai meant to tell him.

  But when he got close enough to speak, he realized that Meb wasn't just panting for breath. He was crying, not in grief, but in rage, and when Nafai got there Meb started beating a fist against the wall. "How could he do it!" Meb was saying, over and over. "The selfish stupid old son-of-a-bitch!"

  "Don't .worry about it," said Nafai, meaning to comfort him. "Drotik isn't worth it."

  "Not Drotik, you idiot," Meb answered. "Drotik's exactly what I always thought he was except that now I've lost my job and I'll never get another one, Drotik will spread the word on me that I walked out on a show three hours before lights."

  "Then who are you mad at?"

  "Father! Who do you think? A vision-I can't believe it, I thought Drotik would tell me that it wasn't Father he was darting, it was somebody else, and what ever gave me the idea it was Wetchik, what kind of cheese-brained fool would come up with the idea that the honorable Wetchik was off getting visions from the amazing unbelievable Oversoul.

  "Mother believes him," said Nafai.

  "Mother has renewed his contract every year since the year you were conceived, obviously she's got a lot of judgment where he's concerned! Do you believe him? Does anybody who hasn't slept with him?"

  "I don't know. I don't even know who knows about it."

  "Let me tell you something. Six hours from now the entire city of Basilica will know about it, that's who knows about it. I want to kill him, the flatulent old pincushion!"

  "Calm down, you don't mean that-"

  "Don't I? Do you think I wouldn't love to push this fist right through his face?" Meb turned around and screamed his next sentence at the passersby on the street. I'll show you some visions, you pebble-headed weed-hauler!"

  People were stopped on the street, staring.

  "Right," said Nafai, "Father's embarrassing you"

  "I didn't ask you to follow me. You're the one who chased after me, so if you don't like being with me you can choke to death on your own snot, that's perfectly all right."

  "Let's go home," said Nafai, mostly because he couldn't think of anything else to say.

  FIVE - WHEELS

  Home certainly wasn't where Nafai wanted to be, not tonight. He had been hoping Father would be somewhere else, so Meb would have a chance to calm down before they talked. But no, of course not, Father wanted to talk to Meb. He had already spent an hour talking with Elemak-Nafai wasn't too broken up about missing that scene-and now he seemed to have the fantasy that he might possibly persuade Meb to believe in his vision.

  The yelling started as soon as Mebbekew located Father in the study. Nafai had seen what these arguments were like, and so he quickly retreated to his room. On his way through the courtyard, he caught a glimpse of Issib peering out of his doorway. Another refugee, thought Nafai.

  For the first hour or so, all that could be heard was the low murmur of Father's voice, presumably trying to explain about his vision, interrupted every few minutes by Mebbekew's clear, piercing shout making comments that ranged from accusation to derision. Then it finally came out, amid all of Mebbekew's complaints about how Father was humiliating the family, that Meb had been doing a fair job of bringing the family into disrepute by working as a masker. Then it was Father's turn to shout and Mebbekew's to try to explain, which was good for another hour of quarreling before Meb left the house in a rage and Father went out to the stables to tend to the animals until he calmed down.

  Only then did Nafai venture to the kitchen, absolutely starving by now, for his first serious meal of the day. To his surprise, Elemak was there, sitting with Issib at the table.

  "Elya, I didn't know you were here," said Nafai.

  Elemak looked up at him, blankly, and then remembered. "Forget it," he said. "J was angry this morning but it's nothing, forget it."

  Nafai had forgotten, with all that had happened since, that Elemak had warned him not to come home. "I guess I already did," he said.

  Elemak gave him a disgusted look and then went back to his food.

  "What did I say?"

  "Never mind," said Issib. "We're trying to think what we should do."

  Nafai headed for the freezer and started scanning the food that Truzhnisha had stocked there for occasions like this. He was dying of hunger and yet nothing looked good. "Is this all that's left?"

  "No, I have the rest hidden in my pants," said Issib.

  Nafai picked something that he remembered liking before, even though it didn't sound particularly good tonight. While it was heating he turned around and faced the others. "So, what have we decided?"

  Elemak didn't look up.

  "‘We haven't decided anything," said Issib.

  "Oh, what, am I suddenly the only child in the house, while the men are making all the decisions?"

  "Pretty much, yes," said Issib.

  "And what decisions do you have to make? Who has any decisions to make at a //, besides Father? It's his house, his business, his money, and his name that's getting laughed at all through Basilica."

  Elemak shook his head. "Not all throu
gh Basilica."

  "You mean somebody hasn't heard about this yet?"

  "I mean," said Elemak, "that not everybody is laughing."

  "They will if that satire runs long. I saw a rehearsal. Meb was really pretty good. Of course he quit since it was about Father, but I think he really has talent. Did you know he sings?"

  Elemak looked at him with contempt. "Are you really this shallow, Nyef?"

  "Yes," said Nafai. "I'm so shallow that I actually think our embarrassment isn't all that important, if Father really saw a vision."

  "We know Father saw it," said Elemak. "The problem is what he's doing about it."

  "What, he gets a vision from the Oversold- warning about the destruction of the world, and he should keep it a secret?"

  "Just eat your food," said Elemak.

  "He's going around telling people that the Oversold wants us to go back to the old laws," said Issib.

  "Which ones?"

  "All of them."

  "I mean which ones aren't we already following?"

  Elemak apparently decided to go straight to the heart of things. "He went to the clan council and spoke against our decision to cooperate with Potokgavan in their war with the Wetheads."

  "Who?"

  "The Gorayni. The Wetheads."

  They had got the nickname because of their habit of wearing their hair long, in ringlets, dripping with a perfumed oil. They were also known as vicious warriors with a habit of slaughtering prisoners who hadn't proved their valor by sustaining a serious wound before surrendering. "But they're hundreds of kilometers north of here," said Nafai, "and the Potoku are way to the southeast, and what do they have to fight about?"

  "What do they teach you in your little school?" said Elemak. "The Potoku have extended their protection over all the coastal plain up to the Mochai River."

  "Sure, right. Protection from what?"

  "From the Gorayni, Nafai. We're between them. It's called geography."

  "I know geography," said Nafai. "I just don't see why there should ever be a war between the Gorayni and the Potoku, and if there was, how they'd go about fighting it. I mean, Potokgavan has a fleet-all their homes are boats, for heaven's sake-but since Goraynivat has no seacoast-"

  " Hadno seacoast. They've conquered Usluvat."

  "I guess I knew that."

  "Oh, I'm sure you did," said Elemak. "They have horsewagons. Have you heard of those?"

  "Wheels," said Nafai. "Horses pulling men in boxes into battle."

  "And carrying supplies to feed an army on a long march. A very long march. Horsewagons are changing everything." Suddenly Elemak sounded enthusiastic. It had been a lot of years since Nafai had seen Elya excited about anything. "I can envision a day when we'll widen the Ridge Road and the Plains Road and Market Street so that the farmers can haul their produce up here in horsewagons. The same number of horses can haul ten times as much. One man, two horses, and a wagon can bring what it takes a dozen men and twenty horses to haul up here now. The price of food drops. The cost of transporting our products downhill drops even lower- there's money there. I can envision roads going hundreds of kilometers, right across the desert-fewer animals in our caravans, less feed to haul and no need to find as much water on the journey. The world is getting smaller, and Father's trying to block it."

  "AH this has something to do with his vision?"

  "The old laws of the Oversold. Wheels for anything other than gears or toys are forbidden. Sacrilege. Abomination. Do you realize that horsewagons have been known about for thousands and thousands of years and nobody has ever built any?"

  "Till now," said Issib.

  "Maybe there was a good reason," said Nafai.

  "The reason was superstition, that was the reason," said Elemak, "but now .we have a chance to build two hundred horsewagons with Potokgavan paying for it and providing us with the designs, and the price Gaballufix has negotiated is high enough that we can build two hundred more for ourselves."

  "Why don't the Potoku build their own wagons?"

  "They're coming here on boats," said Elemak. "Instead of building the wagons in Potokgavan and then floating them all the way, they'll simply send their soldiers and have the wagons waiting for them here."

  "Why here ?"

  "Because here is where they're going to draw the line. The Gorayni go no farther, or they face the wrath of the Potoku. Don't try to understand it, Nafai, it's men's business."

  "It sounds to me like Father would be right to try to block this just on general principles," said Nafai. "I mean, if they find out we're building horsewagons for the Potoku, won't that just make the Gorayni send an army here to stop us?"

  "They won't know until it's too late."

  "Why won't they know? Is Basilica so good at keeping secrets?"

  "Even if they know, Nyef, the Potoku will be here to stop them from trying to punish us."

  "But if the Potoku weren't coming, and therefore we weren't making wagons for them, there'd be nothing for the Gorayni to punish us for ."

  Elemak lowered his head to the table, making a show of his despair at trying to explain anything to Nafai.

  "The world is changing," said Issib. "We're used to wars being local quarrels. But the Gorayni have changed it. They're conquering other countries that never did them any harm."

  Elemak picked up the explanation. "Someday they'd reach us, with or without the Potoku here to protect us. Personally, I prefer letting the Potoku do the fighting."

  "I can't believe all this has been going on and nobody's even talking about it in the city," said Nafai. "I really don't have my ears plugged with mud, and I haven't heard anything about us building wagons for Potokgavan."

  Elemak shook his head. "It's a secret. Or it was, till Father brought it up before the entire clan council."

  "You mean somebody was doing this and the clan council didn't even know?"

  "It was a secret? said Elemak. "How many times do I have to say it?"

  "So somebody was going to do this thing in the name of Basilica and the Palwashantu clan, and nobody in the clan council or the city council was going to be consulted about it?"

  Issib laughed ruefully. "When you put it that way, it sounds pretty strange, doesn't it."

  "It doesn't sound strange at all," said Elemak. "I can see that you're already with Roptat's party."

  "Who's Roptat?"

  Issib answered, "He's a Palwashantu, Elya's age is all, who's been using this war talk to build up his reputation as a prophet. Not like Father, he doesn't have visions from the Oversoul, he just writes prophecies that read like a shark tearing your leg off. And he keeps saying the same things that you just said."

  "You mean this secret plan is so well known that there's already a party led by this Roptat trying to block it?"

  "It wasn't that secret," said Ekmak. "There's no plot. There's no conspiracy. There's just some good people trying to do something that's in Basilica's vital interest, and some traitors doing everything they can to stop it."

  Clearly Elemak had a one-sided view of things. Nafai had to offer another point of view. "Or maybe it's some greedy profiteers putting our city in a terribly dangerous situation so they can get rich, and some good people are trying to save the city by stopping them. I'm just suggesting this as a possibility."

  Elemak was furious. "The people working on this project are already so rich that they hardly need any more money," he said. "And what I don't get is how a fourteen-year-old scholar who's never had to do a man's work in his life suddenly has opinions about political issues that he didn't even know existed until ten minutes ago."

  "I was just asking a question," said Nafai. "I wasn't accusing you of anything."

  "Well of course you weren't accusing me? said Elemak. "I'm not part of the project anyway."

  "Of course not," said Nafai. "It's a secret project."

  "I should have beaten the teeth out of your mouth this morning," said Elemak.

  Why did it always come down to threats? "Do
you beat the teeth out of the mouth of everybody who asks you questions you don't have any good answers for?"

  "Never before," said Elemak, getting up. "But now I'm going to make up for all those missed opportunities."

  "Stop it!" shouted Issib. "Don't we have enough problems?"

  Elemak hesitated, then sat back down. "I shouldn't let him get to me."

  Nafai breathed again. He hadn't noticed that he wasn't breathing.

  "He's a child, what does he know?" said Elemak. "Father's the one who should know better. He's making a lot of people very angry. Some very dangerous people."

  "You mean they're threatening him?" asked Nafai.

  "Nobody threatens," said Elemak. "That would be crude. They're just... concerned about Father."

  "But if everybody's laughing at Father, why should they care what he says? It sounds like it's this Roptat they ought to be worried about."

  "It's the vision thing," said Elemak. "The Oversoul. Most men don't take it all that seriously, but the women... the city council... your mother isn't helping things."

  "Or she is helping things, depending on which side you're on."

  "Right," said Elemak. He got up from the table, but this time he wasn't threatening. "I can see which side you're on, Nyef, and I can only warn you that if Father has his way, we'll end up in Gorayni chains."

  "Why are you so sure?" asked Nafai. "The Oversoul give you a vision or something?"

  "I'm sure, my little half friend, because I understand things. When you grow up, you might actually come to know what that means. But I doubt it." Elemak walked out of the kitchen.

  Issib sighed. "Does anybody actually like anybody else in this family?"

  Nafai's food was overcooked, but he didn't care. He was trembling so violently that he could hardly carry his tray to the table.

  "Why are you shaking?"

  "I don't know," said Nafai. "Maybe I'm afraid."

  "Of Elemak?"

  "Why should I be afraid of him?" said Nafai. "Just because he could break my neck with his elbow."

  "Then why do you keep provoking him?"

  "Maybe I'm also afraid for him."