Earthborn Page 0,122

in a very different world?

These were the thoughts that drove her as one night she locked the school, leaving Khideo-no, Lissinits-as caretaker of it. Then, torch in hand, she walked in the brisk autumn air to her father's house. On the way she thought: What if there were no safety? If I were an earth woman-or man, or child-I wouldn't dare to make this walk in darkness, for fear of being set upon by cruel men who hate me, not because of anything I've done, but because of the shape of my body. For those people these streets are filled with terror, where all my life I've walked without fear, day and night. Can they truly be citizens, when they haven't the freedom to walk the city?

As she expected, Akma was in the king's house, in the library wing, where he slept most nights now. Not that he was asleep. He was up, reading, studying, jotting down notes to himself in the wax on a bark; one of dozens of barks covered with scribbling. "Writing a book?" she asked.

"I'm not a holy man," he said. "I don't write books. I write speeches." He swept the barks to one side. She liked the way he looked at her, as if he had been hoping she would come. She had his full attention, and his eyes didn't wander over her body the way most men's did. He looked into her eyes. She felt as though she ought to say something very clever or very wise, to justify his interest in her.

No, she told herself sternly. That's just one of his tricks. One of the things he does to win people over. And I'm not here to be won over. I came to teach, not to be taught.

No wonder I once loved him, if he always looked at me like that.

To her surprise, what she blurted out now was nothing like what she had come to say. "I used to love you," she said.

A sad smile came over his face. "Used to," he whispered. "Before there was any issue of belief."

"Is it an issue of belief, Akma?" she asked.

"For two people to love each other, they have to meet, don't they? And two people who live in utterly different worlds have no chance of meeting."

She knew what he meant; they had had this conversation before, and he had insisted that while she lived in an imaginary world in which the Keeper of Earth watched over everyone, giving purpose to their lives, he lived in a real world of stone and air and water, where people had to find their own purposes.

"Yet we're meeting here," she said.

"That remains to be seen." His words were cold and distant, but his eyes searched her face. For what? What does he want to see? Some remnant of my love for him? But that is the one thing that I dare not show him because I dare not find it in myself. I can't love him, because only a monstrous, callous woman could love the man who caused so much pointless suffering.

"Have you been hearing the reports from the provinces?"

"There are many reports," said Akma. "Which did you have in mind?"

She refused to play along with his pretense of innocence. She waited.

"Yes, I've heard the reports," he said. "A terrible business. I wonder your father hasn't called in the military."

"To attack what army?" she asked scornfully. "You're smarter than that, Akma. An army is useless against thugs who melt away into the city and hide by wearing the clothing of respectable men of business, trade, or labor during the day."

"I'm a scholar, not a tactician," said Akma.

"Are you?" she asked. "I've thought about this a great deal, Akma, and when I look at you it's not a scholar that I see."

"No? What monster have you decided that I am?"

"Not a monster, either. Just a common thug. Your hands have torn holes in the wings of angel children. Diggers hide in terror during the night because they fear seeing your shadow come between them and the moonlight."

"Are you seriously accusing me of this? I have never raised my hand in violence against anyone."

"You caused it, Akma. You set them in motion, the whole army of them, the whole nasty, cruel, evil army of child-beaters."

He shuddered; his face contorted with some deep emotion. "You can't be saying this to me. You know that it's a lie."

"They're your friends. You're their hero, Akma. You and my brothers."

"I don't control them!" he