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rejects some people because they don't obey him quickly enough or don't love their enemies better than they love their friends. I don't believe in some all-knowing being who made humans and angels into lovers of light and air, and then demanded that they live nose-to-tail with tunnel-dwelling creatures of grime and muck-surely this Keeper of Earth could do a better job of planning than that!"

They laughed. They loved it. A little abuse of the diggers-that proved his religion was going to be Just Fine.

"No, the Keeper of Earth that I believe in is the great force of life that dwells in all things. When the rain falls, that is the Keeper of Earth. When the wind blows, when the sun shines, when maize and potatoes grow, when water flows clear over the rocks, when fish leap into the net, when babies cry out their first joyful song of life-that is the Keeper of Earth that I believe in! The natural order of things, the laws of nature-you don't have to think about them to obey them! You don't have to have special dreamers who will tell you what the Keeper wants you to do. The Keeper wants you to eat-you know that because you're hungry! The Keeper wants you to laugh-you know that because you enjoy laughing! The Keeper wants you to have babies-you know that because you not only love these little ones, you even love the way you go about getting them! The messages of the Keeper of Earth come to everyone, and except for the sweet and ancient stories and rituals that bind us together as a people, there is nothing for us to teach you that you don't learn just as well by simply being alive!"

Shedemei tried desperately to think of retorts for all the things he said, the way she had done with the sons of Motiak, but she found the spell of his voice so compelling that she couldn't answer. He owned her mind as long as he chose to speak to her. She knew that she didn't believe him; she just couldn't remember, for the moment, why.

He went on and on, but his speech didn't seem long. Every word was fascinating, moving, funny, joyful, wise-you dared not miss any of it. Never mind that Shedemei knew that he was lying, that even he did not believe half of what he said. It was still beautiful; it was still music; the rhapsody of his words swept the people with it like a current in the icy water of Tsidorek, numbing them even as it moved them.

She only won her freedom from the magic of his speech when, near the end, he proposed his ultimate solution to the problem of the diggers. "We have all been sickened by the acts of wanton cruelty over the past months," said Akma. "Every such action was against the laws that already existed, and we are glad that our wise king has made the laws even stronger by forbidding any persecution of people because of their religious beliefs. Nevertheless, there would have been no persecution if there had been no diggers living unnaturally among the men and women of Darakemba."

There it was-the moment when Shedemei recoiled from his words and stopped finding his voice beautiful. But the others around her were not so clear minded, and she had to nudge the other teachers from her school and glare at them to make sure they knew that they should not believe what he was saying now.

"Is it the diggers' fault that they are here? It was .certainly never their intention! Some of them have lived in this area since the ancient days when diggers and angels always lived near each other-so that diggers could steal the children of angels and eat them in their dank warrens. One can hardly list that as a qualification for citizenship! Most diggers that live in Darakemba, however, are here because they or their parents took part in a raiding party on the borders of our land, trying to steal from hardworking men and women the fruits of their labors. Either they were captured in bloody battle or were taken when a retaliatory raid captured a digger village; then they were brought here as slaves. That was a mistake! That was wrong! Not because the diggers are not suited to slavery-by nature they are slaves, and that is how the rulers of the Elemaki treat them all. No, our mistake was that even as