Earthborn Page 0,9

how it had to be back then, when the Nafai lived in constant warfare. For their survival they couldn't afford to let there be any disputed successions, any civil wars. So new kings more than once put their siblings to death, along with nieces and nephews and, once, one of them killed his own mother because... well, it was impossible to guess why those ancient people did all those terrible things. But old Bego loved telling those stories, and he always ended them with some reference to the fact that the sky people never did such things when they ruled themselves. "The coming of humans was the beginning of evil among the sky people," he said once.

To which Aronha had replied, "Ah, so you called the earth people devils as a little jest? Teasing them, I suppose?"

Bego, as always, took Aronha's impertinence calmly. "We didn't let the earth people dwell among us, and set them up as our kings. So their evil could never infect us. It remained outside us, because sky people and devils never dwelt together."

If we had never dwelt together, thought Mon, perhaps I wouldn't spend my days wishing I could fly. Perhaps I would be content to walk along the surface of the earth like a lizard or a snake.

"Don't get so serious about it," said Edhadeya. "Aronha won't cut anybody's throat."

"I know," said Mon. "I know you were just teasing."

Edhadeya sat beside him. "Mon, do you believe those old stories about our ancestors? About Nafai and Luet? How they could talk to the Oversoul? How Hushidh could look at people and see how they connected together?"

Mon shrugged. "Maybe it's true."

"Issib and his flying chair, and how he could sometimes fly, too, as long as he was in the land of Pristan."

"I wish it were true."

"And the magic ball, that you could hold in your hands and ask it questions and it would answer you."

Edhadeya was clearly caught up in her own reverie. Mon didn't look at her, just watched the last of the sun disappear above the distant river. The sparkling of the river also ended when the sun was gone.

"Mon, do you think Father has that ball? The Index?"

"I don't know," said Mon.

"Do you think when Aronha turns thirteen and he gets brought into the secrets, Father will show him the Index? And maybe Issib's chair?"

"Where would he hide something like that?"

Edhadeya shook her head. "I don't know. I'm just wondering why, if they had those wonderful things, we don't have them, anymore."

"Maybe we do."

"Do you think?" Edhadeya suddenly grew animated. "Mon, do you think that sometimes dreams are true? Because I keep dreaming the same dream. Every night, sometimes twice a night, three times. It feels so real, not like my other dreams. But I'm not a priest or anything. They don't talk to women anyway. If Mother were alive I could ask her, but I'm not going to Dudagu Dermo."

"I know less than anybody," said Mon.

"I know," said Edhadeya.

"Thanks."

"You know less, so you listen more."

Mon blushed.

"Can I tell you my dream?"

He nodded.

"I saw a little boy. Ominer's age. And he had a sister the same age as Khimin."

"You find out people's ages in your dreams?" asked Mon.

"Hush, woodenhead. They were working in the fields. And they were being beaten. Their parents and all the other people. Starved and beaten. They were so hungry. And the people who were whipping them were diggers. Earth people, I mean."

Mon thought about this. "Father would never let diggers rule over us."

"But it wasn't us, don't you see? They were so real. I saw the boy getting beaten once. But not by diggers, it was by human boys who ruled over the diggers."

"Elemaki," murmured Mon. The evil humans who had joined with the diggers and lived in their dank caves and ate the sky people they kidnapped and murdered.

"The boys were bigger than him. He was hungry and so they tormented him by shoving more food than he could swallow into his mouth until he choked and gagged, and then they rubbed fruit and crumbs all over him and rolled him in the mud and grass so nobody could eat it. It was horrible, and he was so brave and never cried out against them, he just took it with such dignity and I cried for him."

"In the dream?"

"No, when I woke up. I wake up crying. I wake up saying, 'We've got to help them. We've got to find them and bring them home.' "

"We?"

"Father, I