The Call of Earth: 2 (Homecoming) (39 page)

A woman. A woman dressed in the simple garb of a farmer of Potokgavan—a strange costume indeed for this time and place. She was standing at the foot of the central flight of steps leading up into the amphitheatre; she made no move to come forward, so neither the Gorayni archers nor the two Basilican guards had made any move to stop her till now.

Because the general said nothing, the soldiers did not know what to do—should they seize the woman and hustle her away?

“You,” said Moozh. So he knew her.

“What are you doing?” she asked. Her voice was not loud, and yet Luet heard it clearly. How could she hear so clearly?

Because I am speaking her words again in the mind of every person here, said the Oversoul.

“I am marrying,” said Moozh.

“There has been no marriage,” she said—again softly, again heard perfectly by all.

Moozh gestured at the assembled multitude. “All these have seen it.”

“I don’t know what they have seen,” said the woman. “But what
I
see is a man holding his daughter by the hand.”

A murmur arose in the congregation.

“God, what have you done,” whispered Moozh. But now the Oversoul also carried
his
softest voice into their ears.

Now the woman stepped forward, and the soldiers made no effort to stop her, for they saw that what was happening was far larger than a mere assassination.

“The Oversoul brought me to you,” she said. “Twice she brought me, and both times I conceived and bore daughters. But I was not your wife. Rather I was the body that the Oversoul chose to use, to bear
her
daughters. I took the daughters of the Oversoul to the Lady Rasa, whom the Oversoul had chosen to raise them and teach them, until the day when she chose to name them as her own.”

The woman turned to Rasa, pointed at her. “Lady Rasa, do you know me? When I came to you I was naked and filthy. Do you know me now?”

Luet watched as Aunt Rasa shakily rose to her feet. “You are the one who brought them to me. Hushidh first, and then Luet. You told me to raise them as if they were my daughters, and I did.”

“They were not your daughters. They were not my daughters. They are the daughters of the Oversoul, and this man—the one called Vozmuzhalnoy Vozmozhno by the Gorayni—he is the man that the Oversoul chose to be her Moozh.”

Moozh. Moozh. The whisper ran through the crowd.

“The marriage you saw today was not between this man and this girl. She only stood as proxy for the Mother. He has become the husband of the Oversoul! And insofar as this is the city of the Mother, he has become the husband of Basilica. I say it because the Oversoul has put the words into my mouth! Now
you
must say it! All of Basilica must say it! Husband! Husband!”

They took up the chant. Husband! Husband! Husband! And then, gradually, it changed, to another word with the same meaning. Moozh! Moozh! Moozh!

As they chanted, the woman came forward to the front of the low platform. Hushidh let go of Moozh’s hand and came forward, knelt before the woman; Luet followed her, too stunned to weep, too filled with joy at
what the Oversoul had done to save Hushidh from this marriage, too filled with grief at having never known this woman who was her mother, too filled with wonder at discovering that her father had been this northern stranger, this terrifying general all along.

“Mother,” Hushidh was saying—and
she
could weep, spilling her tears on the woman’s hand.

“I bore you, yes,” said the woman. “But I am not your mother. The woman who raised you,
she
is your mother. And the Oversoul who caused you to be born,
she
is your mother. I’m just a farmer’s wife in the wetlands of Potokgavan. That is where the children live who call
me
mother, and I must return to them.”

“No,” whispered Luet. “Can we only see you once?”

“I will remember you forever,” said the woman. “And you will remember me. The Oversoul will keep these memories fresh in our hearts.” She reached out one hand and touched Hushidh’s cheek, and another to touch Luet, to stroke her hair. “So lovely. So worthy. How she loves you. How your mother loves you now.”

Then she turned from them and left—walked from the platform, walked down into the ramp leading to the dressing rooms under the amphitheatre, and she was gone. No one saw her leave the city, though stories of strange miracles and odd visions quickly sprang up, of things she supposedly did but could not possibly have done on her way out of Basilica that day.

Moozh watched her turn and leave, and with her she took all his hopes and plans and dreams; with her she took his life. He remembered so clearly the time he had spent with her—she was the reason he had never married, for what woman could make him feel what he had felt for her. At the time he had been sure that he loved her in defiance of God’s will, for hadn’t he felt that
strong forbidding? When she was with him, hadn’t he woken again and again with no memory of her, and yet he had overcome God’s barriers in his mind, and kept her, and loved her? It was as Nafai said—even his rebellion was orchestrated by the Oversoul.

I am God’s fool, God’s tool, like everyone else, and when I thought to have my own dreams, to make my own destiny, God exposed my weakness and broke me to pieces before the people of the city.
This
city of all cities—Basilica. Basilica.

Hushidh and Luet arose from their knees at the front of the stage; Nafai joined them as they came to face Moozh. They had to come very close to him to be heard above the chanting of the crowd.

“Father,” said Hushidh.

“Our father,” echoed Luet.

“I never knew that I had children,” said Moozh. “I should have known. I should have seen my own face when I looked at you.” And it was true—now that the truth was known, the resemblance was obvious. Their faces had not followed the normal pattern of Basilican beauty because their Father was of the Sotchitsiya, and only God could guess where their mother might be from. Yet they
were
beautiful, in a strange exotic way. They were beautiful and wise, and strong women as well. He could be proud of them. In the ruins of his career, he could be proud of them. As he fled from the Imperator, who would certainly know what he had meant to attempt with this aborted marriage, he could be proud of them. For they were the only thing he had created that would last.

“We must go into the desert,” said Nafai.

“I won’t resist it now.”

“We need your help,” said Nafai. “We must go at once.”

Moozh cast his eyes across the party he had assembled on his side of the platform. Bitanke. It was Bitanke who must help him now. He beckoned, and Bitanke arose and bounded onto the platform.

“Bitanke,” said Moozh, “I need you to prepare for a desert journey.” He turned to Nafai. “How many of you will there be?”

“Thirteen,” said Nafai, “unless you decide to come with us.”

“Come with us, Father,” said Hushidh.

“He can’t come with us,” said Luet. “His place is here.”

“She’s right,” said Moozh. “I could never go on a journey for God.”

“Anyway,” said Luet, “he’ll be with us because his seed is part of us.” She touched Nafai’s arm. “He will be the grandfather of all our children, and of Hushidh’s children, too.”

Moozh turned back to Bitanke. “Thirteen of them. Camels and tents, for a desert journey.”

“I will have it ready,” said Bitanke. But Moozh understood, in the tone of his voice, in the confident way he held himself, and from the fact that he asked no questions, that Bitanke was not surprised or worried by this assignment.

“You already knew,” said Moozh. He looked around at the others. “You all planned this from the start.”

“No sir,” said Nafai. “We knew only that the Oversoul was going to try to stop the marriage.”

“Do you think that we would have been silent,” asked Luet, “if we had known we were your daughters?”

“Sir,” said Bitanke, “you must remember that you and Lady Rasa told me to prepare the camels and the tents and the supplies.”

“When did I tell you such a thing?”

“In my dream last night,” Bitanke said.

It was the crowning blow. God had destroyed him, and even went so far as to impersonate him in another man’s prophetic dream. He felt his defeat like a heavy burden thrown over his shoulders; it bent him down.

“Sir,” said Nafai, “why do you imagine that you’ve been destroyed? Don’t you hear what they’re chanting?”

Moozh listened.

Moozh, they said. Moozh. Moozh. Moozh.

“Don’t you see that even as you let us go, you’re stronger than you were before? The city is yours. The Oversoul has given it to you. Didn’t you hear what their mother said? You are the husband of the Oversoul, and of Basilica.”

Moozh had heard her, yes, but for the first time in his life—no, for the first time since he had loved her so many years before—he had not immediately thought of what advantage or disadvantage her words might bring to him. He had only thought: My one love was manipulated by God; my future has been destroyed by God; he has owned me and ruined me, past and future.

Now he realized that Nafai was right. Hadn’t Moozh felt for the past few days that perhaps God had changed his mind and was now working
for
him? That feeling had been right. God meant to take his newfound daughters out into the desert on his impossible errand, but apart from that Moozh’s plans were still intact. Basilica was his.

Moozh raised his hands, and the crowd—whose chanting had already been fading, from weariness if nothing else—fell silent.

“How great is the Oversoul!” Moozh shouted.

They cheered.

“My city!” he shouted. “Ah, my bride!”

They cheered again.

He turned to the girls and said, softly, “Any idea how I can get you out of the city without looking like I’m exiling my own daughters, or that you’re running away from me?”

Hushidh looked at Luet. “The waterseer can do it.”

“Oh, thanks,” said Luet. “Suddenly it’s up to me?”

“Pretty much, yes,” said Nafai. “You can do it.”

Luet set her shoulders, turned, and walked to the front of the platform. The crowd was silent again, waiting. She was still hooked up to the amplification system of the Orchestra, but it hardly mattered—the crowed was so united, so attuned to the Oversoul that whatever she wanted them to hear, they would hear.

“My sister and I are as astonished as any of you have been. We never guessed our parentage, for even as the Oversoul has spoken to us all our lives, she never told us we were hers, not in this way, not as you have seen today. Now we hear her voice, calling us into the wilderness. We must go to her, and serve her. In our place she leaves her husband, our father. Be a true bride to him, Basilica!”

There was no cheering, only a loud hum of murmuring. She looked back over her shoulder, clearly afraid that she was handling it badly. But that was only because she was unaccustomed to manipulating crowds— Moozh knew that she was doing well. So he nodded, indicated with a gesture that she must go on.

“The city council was prepared to ask our father to be consul of Basilica. If it was wise before, it is doubly wise now. For when the deeds of the Oversoul are known, all nations of the world will be jealous of Basilica, and it will be good to have such a man as this to be our voice
before the world, and our protector from the wolves that will come against us!”

Now the cheering came, but it faded quickly.

“Basilica, in the name of the Oversoul, will you have Vozmuzhalnoy Vozmozhno to be your consul?”

That was it, Moozh knew. She had finally given them a clear moment to answer her, and the answer came as he knew it would, a loud shout of approbation from a hundred thousand throats. Far better than to have a councilor propose it, it was the waterseer who asked them to accept his rule, and in the name of God. Who could oppose him now?

“Father,” she said, when the shouting died away. “Father, will you accept a blessing from your daughters’ hands?”

What was this? What was she doing now? Moozh was confused for a moment. Until he realized that she wasn’t doing this for a crowd now. She wasn’t doing this to manipulate and control events. She was speaking from her heart; she had gained a father today, and would lose him today, and so she wanted to give him some parting gift. So he took Hushidh by the hand and they stepped forward; he knelt between them, and they laid their hands upon his head.

“Vozmuzhalnoy Vozmozhno,” she began. And then: “Our father, our dear father, the Oversoul has brought you here to lead this city to its destiny. The women of Basilica have their husbands year to year, but the city of women has stayed unmarried all this time. Now the Oversoul has chosen, Basilica has found a worthy man at last, and you will be her only husband as long as these walls stand. But through all the great events that you will see, through all the people who will love and follow you through years to come, you will remember us. We bless you that you will remember us, and in the
hour of your death you will see our faces in your memory, and you will feel your daughters’ love for you within your heart. It is done.”

They passed through Funnel Gate, and Moozh stood beside Bitanke and Rashgallivak to salute them as they left. Moozh had already decided to make Bitanke commander of the city guard, and Rash would be the city’s governor when Moozh was away with his army. They passed in single file before him, before the waving, weeping, cheering crowd that gathered there—three dozen camels in their caravan, loaded with tents and supplies, passengers and drycases.

The cheering died away in the distance. The hot desert air stung them as they descended onto the rocky plain where the black chars of Moozh’s deceiving fires were still visible like pockmarks of some dread disease. Still they all kept their silence, for Moozh’s armed escort rode beside them, to protect them on their way— and to be certain that none of the reluctant travelers turned back.

So they rode until near nightfall, when Elemak determined where they would pitch the tents. The soldiers did the labor for them, though at Elemak’s command they carefully showed those who had never pitched a tent how the job was done. Obring and Vas and the women looked terrified at the thought of having to do such a labor themselves, but Elemak encouraged them, and all went smoothly.