Earthborn (Homecoming) (21 page)

“So you
were
trying to get me to do something!”

“No I wasn’t! I don’t care what you do or think or understand or anything!”

“Then why are you talking to me at all?” she asked with her sweetest smile.

“I was saying it to
myself
! You just happened to be here!”

Getting even calmer and quieter as he got more upset,
Edhadeya gently answered, “If you don’t want to control what I think, why did you raise your voice? Why did you argue with me at all?”

At last Mon had nowhere left to retreat. He
was
honest; when he couldn’t hide from the truth any longer, he faced it. That’s why he was Edhadeya’s favorite brother. That and the fact that Aronha was always too busy and the others were way too young.

“I hate you!” Mon cried. “You’re just trying to rule over me and make me crazy!”

She couldn’t resist teasing him, though. “How could I rule over a free boy like you?”

“Go away and leave me alone!”

“Oh, the puppetmaster has spoken.” She began to walk away from him, walking stiffly, not moving her arms. “Now the puppet moves, obeying. What is Mon’s plan for his puppet? He wants her to go away.”

“I really hate you,” said Mon. But she could tell he was having a hard time keeping himself from laughing.

She turned and faced him, not teasing him now. “Only because I insist on being my own woman and not thinking all the thoughts you plan for me. The Keeper sends me better dreams than you do. Good night, dear brother!”

But Mon was angry and hurt, and didn’t want to let her go. “You don’t care about any of this! You only like to make fun of me.”

“I do like to make fun of you—but I also care about this very much. I want to be part of the Keeper’s plans because I think the Keeper wants us to be happy.”

“Oh, a fine job he’s doing, then! I’m
ecstatic.”
There were tears in his eyes. Edhadeya knew how he hated it when tears came to his eyes. She would do nothing to provoke him further, nothing to embarrass him.

“Not make us
each
happy, not all the time,” she said. “But us, all of us, she wants us to be at peace, getting along, helping each other to be as happy as we want to be, as we
can
be.” She thought of what Uss-Uss had said she wanted in order to be happy. “The
Keeper is sick of us having slaves and masters, fighting wars against everybody, hating each other. She doesn’t want us to destroy ourselves the way the Rasulum did.”

She could tell from his noncomprehension that he must not have been awake for any part of the end of the translation. “I’ll believe the Keeper wants me happy the day I sprout wings!” he said sullenly.

She couldn’t resist one last jab of truth. “It’s not the Keeper’s fault that you haven’t yet found anything useful to do with your hands.”

Without waiting for an answer, she fled to her room. As soon as she was alone, she felt guilty for having said to him something as brutal as her last remark. For even though in an argument he denied and excused and scrambled to defend himself, she knew that in the silence of his own mind he would recognize truth. He would know what was right.

Yet with his marvelous gift of knowing right from wrong, why couldn’t he realize that his yearning to be something other than himself was hopelessly wrong, was wasting his life and poisoning his heart?

Or was that longing to be an angel something the Keeper actually wanted him to have?

She lay down on her mat; then, as usual, got up immediately and removed the three soft pads that Dudagu always had the servants put there “because a lady shouldn’t sleep on a hard mat like a soldier.” Edhadeya never bothered to get angry with Uss-Uss for not removing the padding—if the king’s wife ordered something, no servant would dare disobey her, and it would be cruel to rebuke Uss-Uss for doing what she must to survive.

No, not Uss-Uss. Voozhum.

Was that part of the Keeper’s plan? To free the diggers from slavery? The words had come so easily to Edhadeya’s lips when she was arguing with Mon. But now she had to imagine the real possibility of it. What
was
the Keeper planning? And how much turmoil would there be before the plans were done?

* * *

Akmaro looked out over the fields of potatoes that were growing between the rows of cornstalks, already harvested. Now in the last of the season, it was time to dig them up, sorting them into seed potatoes and eating potatoes. Who would have thought that maize and potatoes planted in slavery would be harvested—well, not in freedom, but not in fear, either. The guards kept well back most of the time, and no one plagued them, not the adults, not the children. They worked hard, and there would be plenty of tribute for Pabulog to take away from them. But there was more food here than they needed anyway. Enough and to spare.

That is the gift the Keeper gave to us: Instead of remaining in fear and loathing as we were, my wife’s courage and wisdom turned our worst enemies, the children of Pabulog, into friends. They will not rebel against their father, of course—they’re too young and Pabulog too cruel and unpredictable for that. But they’ve given us peace. And surely even Pabulog will be able to see that it’s better to have Akmaro’s people as productive serfs than as bitter, resentful tormented slaves.

The only dark place in the scene that Akmaro surveyed was his son, Akma. Akmadis, Kmadadis, beloved of my heart, my hopes are in you as your mother’s hopes are in her sweet daughter. Why have you come to hate me so much? You’re clever and wise in your heart, Akma, you can see that it’s better to forgive and make friends out of enemies. What is the cause of all this bitterness that makes you so blind? I speak to you and you hear nothing. Or worse—you act is if my voice were the warcry of an enemy in your ears.

Chebeya had comforted him, of course, assuring him that even though the hostility was real enough, the ties between father and son were, if anything, stronger than ever. “You’re the center of his life, Kmadaro,” she told him. “He’s angry now, he thinks he hates you, but in
fact he’s in orbit around you like the Moon around the Earth.”

Small comfort, to face his son’s hatred when he wanted—when he deserved!—only love, and had given only love.

But . . . that was Akmaro’s personal tragedy, his personal burden, to have lost the love of his son. In time that would get better, or it would not get better; as long as Akmaro did his best, it was out of his hands. Most important was the work he was doing in the cause of the Keeper. He had thought, when he first fled from the knives of Nuak’s assassins, that the Keeper had a great work in mind for him. That Binaro’s words had been entrusted to him, and he must teach them far and wide. Teach that the Keeper of Earth meant for the people of sky, earth, and all between to live as sisters and brothers, family and friends, with no one master over another, with no rich or poor, but all equal partakers of the land the Keeper had given them, with all people keeping the covenants they made with each other, raising their families in safety and peace, and neither hunger nor pride to shame the happiness of anyone. Oh, yes, Akmaro had visions of whole kingdoms awakening to the simplicity of the message the Keeper had given to Binaro, and through him to Akmaro, and through him to all the world.

Instead, his message had been given to these nearly five hundred souls, humans every one of them. And the four sons of Pabulog.

But it was enough, wasn’t it? They had proven their courage, these five hundred. They had proven their loyalty and strength. They had borne all things, and they would yet be able to bear many things. That was a good thing that they had created together—this community was a good thing. And when it came to a battle with their most evil enemy, Pabulog, a man even richer in hatred than he was in money and power, Pabulog had won the part with swords and whips, but Akmaro—no, Akmaro’s community—no,
the Keeper’s people—had won the battle of hearts and minds, and won the friendship of Pabulog’s sons.

They were good boys, once they learned, once they were taught. They would have the courage to remain good men, despite their father. If I have lost one son—I don’t know how—then at least I have gained these four ur-sons, who should have been the inheritance of another man if he hadn’t lost them by trying to use them for evil ends.

Perhaps this is the price I pay for winning the Pabulogi: I take away Pabulog’s boys, and in return I must give up my own.

A voice of anguish inside him cried out: No, it isn’t worth the price, I would trade all the Pabulogi, all the boys in the world, for one more day in which Akmadis looks in my face with the pride and love that he once had for me!

But he didn’t mean that. It wasn’t a plea, he didn’t want the Keeper to think he was ungrateful. Yes, Keeper, I want my son back. But not at the price of anyone else’s goodness. Better to lose my son than for you to lose this people.

If only he could believe that he meant that with his whole heart.

“Akmaro.”

Akmaro turned and saw Didul standing there. “I didn’t hear you come up.”

“I ran, but in the breeze perhaps you didn’t hear my footfalls.”

“What can I do for you?”

Didul looked upset. “It was a dream I had last night.”

“What was the dream?” asked Akmaro.

“It was . . . perhaps nothing. That’s why I said nothing until now. But . . . I couldn’t get it off my mind. It kept coming back and back and back and so I came to tell you.”

“Tell me.”

“I saw Father arrive. With five hundred Elemaki
warriors, some middle people, most of them earth people. He meant to . . . he meant to come upon you at dawn, to take you in your sleep, slaughter you all. Now that the fields are ready to harvest. He had a season of labor from you, and then he was going to slaughter your people before your eyes, and then your wife in front of your children, and then your children in front of you, and you last of all.”

“And you waited to tell me this until now?”

“Because even though I saw that this was his plan, even though I saw the scene as he imagined it, when he arrived here he found the place empty. All the potatoes still in the ground, and all of you gone. Not a trace. The guards were asleep, and he couldn’t waken them, so he killed them in their sleep and then raced off trying to find you in the forest but you were gone.”

Akmaro thought about this for a moment. “And where were you?”

“Me? What do you mean?”

“In your dream. Where were you and your brothers?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t see us.”

“Then . . . don’t you think that makes it obvious where you were?”

Didul looked away. “I’m not ashamed to face Father after what we’ve done here. This was the right way to use the authority he gave us.”

“Why didn’t he find you here in your dream?”

“Does a son betray his father?” asked Didul.

“If a father commands a son to commit a crime so terrible that the son can’t do it and live with himself, then is it betrayal for the son to disobey the father?”

“You always do that,” said Didul. “Make all the questions harder.”

“I make them truer,” said Akmaro.

“Is it a true dream?” asked Didul.

“I think so,” said Akmaro.

“How will you get away? The guards are still loyal
to Father. They obey us, but they won’t let you escape.”

“You saw it in the dream. The Keeper did it once before. When the Nafari escaped from the Elemaki, back at the beginning of our time on Earth, the Keeper caused a deep sleep to come upon all the enemies of the Nafari. They slept until the Nafari were safely away.”

“You can’t be sure that will happen, not from my dream.”

“Why not?” asked Akmaro. “We can learn from the dream that your father is coming, but we can’t learn from it how the Keeper means to save us?”

Didul laughed nervously. “What if it isn’t a true dream?”

“Then the guards will catch us as we leave,” said Akmaro. “How will that be worse than waiting for your father to arrive?”

Didul grimaced. “I’m not Binaro. I’m not
you.
I’m not Chebeya. People don’t risk their lives because of a dream of mine.”

“Don’t worry. They’ll be risking their lives because they believe in the Keeper.”

Didul shook his head. “It’s too much. Too much to decide just on the basis of my dream.”

Akmaro laughed. “If your dream came out of nowhere, Didul, then no one would care what you dreamed.” He touched Didul’s shoulder. “Go tell your brothers that I tell them to think about the fact that in your dream, your father doesn’t find you here. It’s your choice. But I tell you this: If the Keeper thinks you are the enemy of my people, then in the dark hours of morning you’ll be asleep when we leave. So if you awaken as we’re leaving, the Keeper is inviting you to come. The Keeper is telling you that you are trusted and you belong with us.”

“Or else I have a full bladder and have to get up early to relieve myself.”

Akmaro laughed again, then turned away from him.
The boy would tell his brothers. They would decide. It was between them and the Keeper.

Almost at once, Akmaro saw his son Akma standing in the field, sweaty from harvesting the potatoes. The boy was looking at him. Looking at Didul as he walked away. What did it look like in Akma’s eyes? My touching Didul’s shoulder. My laughter. What did that look like? And when I tell the people tonight of Didul’s dream, tell them to prepare because the voice of the Keeper has come to us, telling us that tomorrow we will be delivered out of bondage—when I tell them that, the others will rejoice because the Keeper has not forsaken us. But my son will rage in his heart because the dream came to Didul, and not to him.

The afternoon passed; the sun, long since hidden behind the mountains, now at last withdrew its light from the sky. Akmaro gathered the people and told them to prepare, for in the hours before dawn they would depart. He told them of the dream. He told them who dreamed it. And no one raised a doubt or a question. No one said, “Is it a trap? Is it a trick?” Because they all knew the Pabulogi, knew how they had changed.

In the early morning, Akmaro and Chebeya awoke their children. Then Akmaro went out to make sure all the others were awake and preparing to go. They would send no one to spy on the guards. They knew they were either asleep—or not. There was no reason to check, nothing they could do if they had interpreted the dream wrongly.