"Maybe," said Akmaro, "our teachers would be less afraid if they believed their teaching was as valuable a service as the herbs of the physician."
"Well, there we are," said Didul. "If the believers weren't so torn by doubt, they might do a better job of persuading the unbelievers."
"Oh, I don't even mind their doubt," said Akmaro. "If they could just act as if they believed, they'd be more persuasive."
"If I didn't know you better," said Didul, "I'd think you were praising hypocrisy."
"I would rather live among people who behave correctly than among people with correct opinions," said Akmaro. "I've noticed no higher incidence of hypocrisy among the former than among the latter, and at least the ones who behave well don't take up so much of your time with arguing."
Bego puffed along behind Akma and Mon, complaining the whole time. "I don't see why we couldn't have this discussion, whatever it's about, in my study. I'm too old for this, and you may have noticed that my legs are less than half the length of yours!" To which Akma heartlessly replied, "So fly then." From behind, Mon gave Akma a shove in the shoulder, sending him stumbling into some brush beside the path. Akma turned, ready to be angry, ready to laugh, depending on the intention he read in Mon's eyes.
"Have respect for a friend of mine," said Mon softly, "if not for his age and office."
Akma smiled at once, his most winning and charming smile, and it worked as it always worked, suggesting as it did a sort of self-effacing humility, a believable protest of innocence, and a promise of friendship-whatever good thing the other person wished to read into it. Mon always wondered at that smile even as it triumphed over his own anger or envy. Where could such power over others come from?
"Ah, Bego, you knew I was teasing, I hope," said Akma. "Forgive me, old friend?"
"I forgive you everything, every time," said Bego wearily. "Everyone does, so why do you bother to ask anymore?"
"And do I offend so often that forgiving me should be a habit?" asked Akma, with more than a little pain in his smile this time. It made Mon want to clap an arm around his shoulders, grip him hard, assure him that no one took offense. How does he do that!
"You offend no more often than any other brilliant and undisciplined and leisured and lazy young man of twenty years," said Bego. "Now, here, in the middle of this grassy field. If you look not to be overheard, here we are."
"Ah," said Mon, pointing overhead. "Have you- overlooked the prying eyes from above?"
"The fixed star," said Bego. "Yes, yes, well, they say the Oversoul sees through roofs and leaves and solid earth, so what does it matter."
Akma threw himself to the ground and landed immediately in the grass in an elegant sprawl that would have looked practiced in anyone less lithe and natural. "Who knows how many hundreds of digger tunnels intersect under this meadow?" he asked.
"It's not a meadow," said Mon. "It's my father's park, and no one is allowed to dig under it."
"Oh, then we know that even the earthworms shy away from the boundaries," said Akma.
Mon laughed in spite of himself. "So, Father's authority isn't universal."
"Why are we here?" asked Bego. "Sitting isn't my most comfortable perch."
"But Bego," said Akma, "humans and angels and diggers are all alike now, didn't you know? The Keeper has spoken."
"Well, the Keeper had better give me a new bottom if he wants me to set it on chairs or other miserably uncomfortable places," said Bego.
"Mon and I have been thinking," said Akma.
"The two of you together?" asked Bego. "Then perhaps you have woven a thought, if you've done it long and often enough."
"We've been studying the histories of the Heroes. And the history that the Zenifi found thirteen years ago."
"The Rasulum," said Bego.
"And we wanted to try out an idea on you," said Mon.
"Which you couldn't do in my study? Perhaps immediately after I gave school to the youngest of the king's boys?"
"Our question is possibly treasonable," said Akma.
Bego immediately fell silent.
"We know that you have respect for scientific inquiry, and would never report us. But who knows what might get said by someone else, overhearing us? Perhaps exaggerating what was said?"
"What possible treason can there be in the ancient records?" asked Bego.
"If we're right," said Akma, "then we think you've been trying to hint about this for about ten years."
"I don't hint," said Bego. "And if you want to know whether you're right, it's Mon who has the gift of certitude."
"Well, that's the problem," said Mon. "If we're right, then there's no reason to trust in that supposed gift of mine. And if we're wrong, well, we get the same answer-no certainty from me."
"So we ask you," said Akma.
"You think that your own gift from the Keeper might be imaginary?" asked Bego, incredulous.
"I think that many things can come to someone's mind out of hysteria," said Mon.
"Or even some keen natural insight," said Akma. "For instance, that famous, unforgettable time when Mon helped you translate the Rasulum leaves. Who's to say that he didn't reach his certainties of right and wrong by unconsciously interpreting your own gestures, movements, vocal intonation, facial expressions."
"What good would that do him?" said Bego. "I didn't know."
"Perhaps you knew, but didn't know that you knew," said Akma.
Bego riffled his wings in a shrug.
"What we've been doing, Akma and I, is trying to see if there's anything in the ancient records that constitutes actual proof that there even is a Keeper of Earth."
"No one doubts that there's a Keeper," said Bego. "Look at the histories," said Akma. "All the records from the early Heroes say that all human life had been dispersed from Earth-that until the Keeper brought the Heroes here from the place called Harmony or Basilica-the record is ambiguous-"
"Basilica is the name of the fixed star," said Bego, "and Harmony is the name of the planet orbiting that star."
"Say the scholars," said Akma. "Who know nothing more than we do, since they reach all their conclusions from the same records. And I say the record of the Heroes is obviously wrong. There were people here, the Rasulum."
Bego shrugged. "That has caused a little consternation among the scholars."
"Come on," said Mon. "That's the very fact you keep throwing in our faces every time we discuss history. You want us to discover something from it so don't play innocent now."
Akma went on. "What if humans never left this world at all? What if humans were simply forced to stay away from the gornaya during the era when it was being lifted up by volcanos and earthquakes? The Heroes talk of how there was once a time when the land masses were getting folded into each other and raised high, the tallest mountains in the world. So what if that was what gave rise to the legend of the dispersal? No humans in the gornaya, therefore no humans in the world-but actually humans to the north, in the prairie lands. Then there's a terrible war, and as many humans as can, flee from the Rasulum. Some of them brave the old tabus and come into the gornaya. Perhaps they even come by boat, but they're afraid the gods they worship-the Oversoul and the Keeper of Earth-will be angry at them for doing it, so they talk of having come from the stars instead of from Opustoshen."
"Then why is the language of the leaves so different from our language?" asked Bego.
"Because it hasn't been a mere four hundred or five hundred years since the time of the Heroes. In fact they split off from the Rasulum a thousand years ago, perhaps more. And the languages grew more and more different, until nothing was alike."
"And what does that have to do with angels and diggers?" asked Bego.
"Nothing at all!" cried Mon. "Don't you see? The humans came and dominated everybody, and forced their gods on everybody. But didn't the diggers worship gods that the angels made for them? And didn't the angels have their own gods to worship? None of this Keeper nonsense. The angels and diggers
evolved separately here in the gornaya while the humans stayed away in the land northward."
"What about the stories of Shedemei discovering some strange organ in all the sky people and all the earth people that forced us to remain together?" asked Bego.
"The story says that she caused you all to get sick and it made those organs disappear from your children," said Akma. "So now, conveniently enough, there's not a lick of evidence left that those organs ever existed."
"All the stories use for evidence things that can't be checked now," said Mon. "That's a standard rhetorical trick-one that any fool can expose in a public debate or trial. The new star in the sky is Basilica- but how do we know that star wasn't there all along?"
"The records are ambiguous about that," said Bego. "The only evidence we do have," said Akma, "is a flat contradiction of the records of the Heroes. They said there were no other humans on Earth when they arrived. But we have the bones of Opustoshen and the leaves of the Rasulum to prove otherwise. Don't you see? The only evidence denies everything."
Bego looked at them placidly. "Well, this certainly is treasonous," he finally said.
"But it doesn't have to be," said Akma. "That's what I've been explaining to Mon. His father's authority comes from being a direct descendant of the first Nafai. That part of the record isn't being questioned. The kingdom is not challenged."
"No," said Bego. "Only your father is challenged." Akma smiled. "If my father is teaching people to behave in uncomfortable ways, solely because the Keeper says they must, and then it turns out there is no Keeper, then whose will is it that my father is trying to foist onto the people?"
"I think your father is a sincere man," said Bego. "Sincere but wrong," said Akma. "And the people hate what he's teaching."
"The former slaves love it," said Bego.
"The people," said Akma.
"I gather, then, that you don't consider diggers to be people," said Bego.
"I consider them to be the natural enemies of humans and angels.
And I also think that there's no reason why humans should rule over angels."
"Now we're definitely back to treason," said Bego.
"Why not an alliance?" said Mon. "A king of the humans and a king of the angels, both ruling over peoples spread through the same territory?"
"Not possible," said Bego. "One king for one territory. Otherwise there would be war and hatred between humans and angels. The Ele-maki would seize the opportunity and destroy us all."
"But we shouldn't be required to live together, anyway," said Akma.
Bego looked at Mon. "Is that what you want?" he asked. "You, who as a child dreamed of being-"
"My childish dreams are done with!" Mon cried. "In fact if I hadn't been living among angels I wouldn't have had those wishes, would I!"
"I thought they were rather sweet. And perhaps a bit flattering," said Bego. "Considering how many angels grow up wishing they were human."
"None!" cried Mon. "Not one!"
"Many."
"They're all mad, then," Mon replied.
"Quite likely," said Bego. "So let's see if I understand you. There is no Keeper and there never was. Humans never left Earth, just the gornaya. Diggers and angels never needed each other and there was no tiny organ that Shedemei removed from our bodies with a disease. And therefore there is no reason to change our whole way of life, all our customs, just because Akmaro tells us that it's the will of the Keeper that the three species become one people, the Keeper's Children, the People of Earth."
"Exactly," said Akma.
"So what?" asked Bego.
Akma and Mon looked at each other. "What do you mean, so what?" asked Mon.
"So why are you telling me?" asked Bego.
"Because maybe you can talk to Father about this," said Mon. "Get him to stop pushing these laws."
"Take my father away from his position of authority," said Akma.
Bego blinked once at Akma's words. "If I said these things to your father, my dear friends, I would simply be removed immediately from any position of responsibility. That's the only change that would be made."
"Does my father completely control the king, then?" asked Akma.
"Careful," said Mon. "Nobody controls my father."
"You know what I mean," Akma said impatiently.
"And I know Motiak," said Bego. "He's not going to change his mind, because as far as he's concerned, you have no evidence at all. For him, the very fact that true dreams led the soldiers of Ilihiak to find the Rasulum leaves is proof that the Keeper wanted them found. Therefore it is the Keeper who corrects the mistakes of the Heroes- more proof that the Keeper lived then, and the Keeper lives now. You aren't going to dissuade someone who wants so desperately to believe in the Keeper."
Angrily, Akma pound his fist down into the sod. "My father must be stopped from spreading his lies!"
"His mistakes," said Bego. "Remember? You would never be so disloyal a son as to accuse your father of lying. Who would believe you then?"
"Just because he believes them doesn't mean they're not lies," said Akma.
"Ah, but they're not his lies, are they?" said Bego. "So you must call them mistakes, when you say they are your father's."
Mon chuckled. "Do you hear him, Akma? He's with us. This is what he wanted us to realize all along."
"Why do you think so?" asked Bego.
"Because you're advising us on strategy," said Mon.
Akma sat up, grinning. "Yes, you are, aren't you, Bego!"
Bego shrugged again. "You can't possibly have any strategy right now. Akmaro is too closely linked to the king's policy, and vice versa. But perhaps there'll come a time when the Houses of the Kept are much more clearly separated from the house of the king."
"What do you mean?" asked Akma.
"I mean only this. There are those who want to tear your father from his throne, they're so angry about these policies."
"That's not what we want!" cried Mon.
"Of course not. No one in their right mind wants that. The only reason we don't have invasions from the Elemaki every year is because the entire empire of Darakemba is united, with armies and spies constantly patrolling and protecting our borders. It's only a tiny minority of bigots and madmen who want to throw down the throne. However, that tiny treasonous minority will gain more and more support, the farther your father pushes these reforms of Akmaro's. It will mean civil war, sooner or later, and no matter who wins, we'll be weakened. There are people who don't want that. Who want us to go back to the way we were before."
"The old priests, you mean," said Mon scornfully.
"Some of them, yes," said Bego.
"And you," said Akma. "You want things to go back the way they were."
"I don't have opinions on public policy," said Bego. "I'm a scholar, and I'm reporting to you in a scholarly way the current condition of the kingdom. There are those who want to fend off civil war, protect the throne, and stop Akmaro from pushing these insane, offensive, impossible laws breaking down all distinctions between men and women, humans and diggers and angels. All this talk of forgiveness and understanding."
Akma interrupted, full of bitterness. "It's only a mask for those who want to turn this into a land where diggers strut around with weapons in their hands, tormenting their betters and-"
"You almost make me fear that you are one of those who wants to destroy this kingdom," said Bego. "If that is the case, Akma, then you'll be of no use to those who are trying to preserve the throne."
Akma fell silent, pulling at the grass. A clump came free, spraying his face with dirt. Angrily he brushed it away.
"But what if those who are trying to preserve the throne could assure the people, Just wait. The children of Motiak don't believe in this nonsense of all the species being equal children of the Keeper. The children of Akma have no intention of pursuing their father's mad policies. Be patient. When the time comes, things will go back to the old way."
"I'm not the heir," said
Mon.
"Then perhaps you should work to persuade Aronha," said Bego.
"Even if I did, Father would only pass the kingdom on to Ominer, skipping us both."
"Then perhaps you should also persuade Ominer and even Khimin." At Mon's sound of disgust Bego laughed. "He's bright enough. He may be his mother's son, but he's your father's son, too. What can your father do if all his children reject this policy?"
"My father wouldn't care," said Akma. "He'd just pick one of his favorites to be high priest after him. I don't imagine he even considers me for the position."
"Dee-dool!" cried Mon derisively.
Akma's face went hot with anger at the sound of Didul's name.
"It doesn't matter who your father's successor would really be," said Bego. "Don't you see that if his own son publicly preaches against his policies, he would be hopelessly undermined? Even among his own priests and teachers there's dissension, a lack of confidence. Some of them will listen to you. Some of them won't. But the Kept will be weakened."
"Ho, Akma, I can imagine you preaching," said Mon scornfully.
"I think I'd be good at it," said Akma. "If it weren't so likely that I'd be arrested for treason."
Bego nodded. "That is the problem, isn't it?" he said. "That's why you need to bide your time. Work with your brothers, Mon. Help him, Akma. Don't push them too hard, just suggest things, raise questions. Eventually you'll win them over."
"The way you did with us?" asked Akma.
Bego shrugged again. "I never suggested treason to you. I don't suggest it now. I want you to discover truth for yourself. I don't ram it down your throats like some do."
"But what guarantee do we have that anything will change?"
"I think that by getting rid of priests appointed by the king, Akmaro and Motiak started down a road from which there's no retreat," said Bego. "Eventually it will lead them to a point where religion is completely separate from government. And when that day comes, my young friends, the law will no longer stand between you and any preaching that you want to do."
Mon hooted. "If I still believed in my own gift, I'd say that it was certain that Bego is right! Someday soon it will happen. It has to."
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