The Memory of Earth Page 0,17

you compare visions. I saw a city on fire. Well, I saw a scum-covered lake."

Luet stood up and faced him. No, faced him down- which was ridiculous, since he was almost half a meter taller than her.

"You're only arguing against me," she said hotly, "because you don't want to believe what I told you about Eiadh."

That's ridiculous," said Nafai.

"You had a vision about Eiadh?" asked Rasa.

"What does Eiadh have to do with Nyeft" asked Issib.

Nafai hated her for mentioning it again, in front of his family, "You can make up whatever you want about other people, but you'd better leave me out of it."

"Enough," said Father. "We're done,"

Rasa looked at him in surprise. "Are you dismissing me in my own house?"

"I'm dismissing my sons."

"You have authority over your sons, of course." Mother was smiling, but Nafai knew from her soft speech that she was seriously annoyed. "However, I see no one here in my house but my students."

Father nodded, accepting the rebuke, then stood to leave. "Then I'm dismissing myself-I may do that, I hope."

"You may always leave, my adored mate, as long as you promise to come back to me."

His answer was to kiss her cheek.

"What are you going to do?" she asked.

'What the Oversoul told me to do."

"And what is fire?"

"Warn people to return to the laws of the Oversoul or the world will burn."

Issib was appalled. "That's crazy, Father!"

"I'm tired of hearing that word from the lips of my sons."

"But-prophets of the Oversoul don't say things like that. They're like poets, except all their metaphors have some moral lesson or they celebrate the Oversoul or-"

"Issya," said Wetchik, "all my life I've listened to these so-called prophecies-and the psalms and the histories and the temple priests-and I've always thought, if this is all the Oversoul has to say, why should I bother to listen? Why should the Oversoul even bother speaking, if this is all that's on his mind?"

"Then why did you teach us to speak to the Oversoul?" asked Issib.

"Because I believed in the ancient laws. And I did speak to the Oversoul myself, though more as a way of clarifying my own thoughts than because I actually thought that he was listening. Then last night-this morning-I had an experience that I never conceived of. I never wished for it. I didn't even know what it was until now, these last few minutes, talking to Luet. Now I know-what it feels like to have the Oversoul's voice inside you. Nothing like these poets and dreamers and deceivers, who write down whatever pops into their heads and then sell it as prophecy. What was in me was not myself, and Luet has shown me that she's had the same voice inside her. It means that the Oversoul is real and alive."

"So maybe it's real," said Issib. "That doesn't tell us what it w."

"It's the guardian of the world," said Wetchik. "He asked me to help. Told me to help. And I will."

"That's all temple stuff," said Issib. "You don't know anything about it. You grow exotic plants."

Father dismissed Issib's objections with a gesture.

"Anything the Oversoul needs me to know, he'll tell me." Then he headed for the door into the house.

Nafai followed him, only a few steps. "Father," he said.

Father waited.

The trouble was, Nafai didn't know what he was going to say. Only that he had to say it. That there was a very important question whose answer he had to have before Father left. He just didn't know what the question was.

"Father," he said again.

"Yes?"

And because Nafai couldn't think of the real question, the deep one, the important one, he asked the only question that came to mind. "What am I supposed to do?"

"Keep the old ways of the Oversoul," said Father.

"What does that mean?"

"Or the world will burn." And Father was gone.

Nafai looked at the empty door for a while. It didn't do anything, so he turned back to the others. They were all looking at him, as if they expected him to do something.

"What!" he demanded.

"Nothing," said Mother. She arose from her seat in the shade of the kaplya tree. "We'll all return to our work."

"That's all?" said Issib. "Our father-your mate-has just told us that the Oversoul is speaking to him, and we're supposed to go back to our studies?"

"You really don't understand, do you?" said Mother. "You've lived all these years as my sons, as my students, and you are still nothing more than the ordinary boys wandering the streets of Basilica hoping