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that he had to gasp for breath and then choked on the crumbs that got down his windpipe. Pabul let go of his throat and jaw at last, but only because, coughing, Akma was now so helpless that they could do whatever they wanted to him, which involved tearing open his clothing and smearing fruit and crumbs all over his body.

Finally the ordeal was over. Pabul delegated Didul, and Didul in turn assigned his older brother Udad to take the ungrateful, traitorous, and ill-mannered Akma back to his work. Udad seized Akma's wrists and yanked so harshly that Akma couldn't walk, but ended up being dragged stumbling over the grassy ground to the top of the hill. Udad then threw him down the hill, and Akma tumbled head over heels as Udad's laughter echoed behind him.

The taskmaster refused to let any of the humans stop their work to help him. Shamed and hurt and humiliated and furious, Akma rose to his feet and tried to clean off the worst of the food mess, at least from his nostrils and around his eyes.

"Get to work," demanded the taskmaster.

Udad shouted from the top of the hill. "Next time maybe we'll bring your sister along for a meal!"

The threat made Akma's skin crawl, but he showed no sign of having heard. That was the only resistance left to him, stubborn silence, just like the adults.

Akma took his place and worked the rest of the daylight hours. It wasn't until the sky was darkening and the taskmaster finally let them go that he was finally able to go to his mother and father tell them what happened.

They spoke in the darkness, their voices mere whispers, for the diggers patrolled the village at night, listening to hear any kind of meeting or plot-or even prayer to the Keeper of Earth, for Pabulog had declared that it was treason, punishable by death, since any prayer by a follower of the renegade priest Akmaro was an affront to all the gods.

So as Mother scrubbed the dried-on fruit from his body, weeping softly, Akma told Father all that was said and all that was done.

"So that's how Nuak died," said Father. "He was once a good king. But he was never a good man. And when I served him, I wasn't a good man either."

"You were never really one of them," said Mother.

Akma wanted to ask his father if everything else Pabulog's sons said was true, too, but he dared not, for he wouldn't know what to do with the answer. If they were right, then his father was an oathbreaker and so how could Akma trust anything he said?

"You can't leave Akma like this," said Mother softly. "Don't you know how far they've torn him from you?"

"I think Akma is old enough to know you can't believe a liar."

"But they told him you were a liar, Kmaro," she said. "So how can he believe you?"

It amazed Akma how his mother could see things in his mind that even he himself had barely grasped. Yet he also knew it was shameful to doubt your own father, and he shuddered at the look on his father's face.

"So they did steal your heart from me, is that it, Kmadis?" He called him dis, which meant beloved child; not ha-, which meant honored heir, the name he used when he was especially proud of Akma. Kmaha-that was the name he wanted to hear from his father's lips, and it remained unspoken. Ha-Akma. Honor, not pity.

"He stood against them," Mother reminded him. "And suffered for it, and he was brave."

"But they sowed the seed of doubt in your heart, didn't they, Kmadis?"

Akma couldn't help it. It was too much for him. He cried at last.

"Set his mind at rest, Kmaro," said Mother.

"And how will I do that, Chebeya?" asked Father. "I never broke my oath to the king, but when they drove me out and tried to have me killed, then yes, I realized that Binaro was right, the only reason to keep the common people from learning to read and write and speak the ancient language was to preserve the priests' monopoly on power. If everyone could read the calendar, if everyone could read the ancient records and the laws for themselves, then why would they need to submit to the power of the priests? So I broke the covenant and taught reading and writing to everyone who came to me. I revealed the calendar to them. But it isn't evil