great office narrowly. You were never in the running, because you rejected the Oversoul from the start."
"Perhaps you had better leave now," said Elemak softly.
"But this doesn't mean that you can't have a valued, important role in the community," she went on, seeming not to hear him, seeming not to notice that he boiled with rage. "Don't force the issue, don't force Nafai to humiliate you in front of the others. Instead work with him, and he will gladly let you take as much of the leadership as the Oversoul will let him surrender to you. I don't think you've ever realized how Nafai worships you. How he has always wished he could be like you. How he has longed for your love and respect more than that of any other person."
"Get out of my house," said Elemak.
"Very well," said Shedemei. "I see that you are a person who refuses to revise his view of the world. You can only bear to live in a world where all the bad things that happen to you are someone else's fault, where everyone must have conspired against you to deprive you of what is your due." She rose and walked to the door. "Unfortunately, that world happens not to be the real world. And so you four will sit here and conspire to take over the rule of Dostatok, and it will come to nothing, and you will be humiliated, and it will have been nobody's fault but your own. Yet even then, Elemak, you have our deep respect and honor for your considerable abilities. Good night."
She closed the door behind her.
Elemak could hardly control himself. He longed to leap after her, hit her again and again, beat the unbearable condescension out of her. But that would be a show of weakness; to maintain control of these others, he had to make it clear that he was unaffected by such nonsense. So he smiled wanly at them. "You see how they want to make us stupid by making us angry," said Elemak.
"Don't tell me you're not angry," said Meb.
"Of course I am," said Elemak. "But I refuse to let my anger make me stupid. And she also gave us some valuable information. Apparently Nafai's going to be coming back with some kind of magic cloak or something. Maybe it's nothing more than an illusion, like those masks that Gaballufix dredged up to have his soldiers wear back in Basilica, so they all looked alike. Or maybe there's some real power in it. But far from making us back down, that will simply force us to act all the more quickly and cleanly - and permanently."
"Meaning?" asked Vas.
"Meaning that we will not permit anyone to leave here and go join Nafai, wherever he is. We will make him come to us. And when he does, unless he immediately backs down and accepts our decisions, we'll eliminate his ability to make further problems."
"Meaning?" insisted Vas.
"Meaning kill him, you dolt," said Obring. "How stupid do you have to be?"
"I knew he meant that," said Vas quietly. "I just wanted to hear him say it with his own mouth, so that he can't claim later that he never meant any such thing."
"Oh, I see," said Elemak. "You're worried about responsibility." Elemak couldn't help but compare Vas with Nafai - for all his other faults, Nyef had never shrunk from his responsibility for the death of Gaballufix. "Well, the responsibility is mine. Mine alone, if you insist on it. But that also means that after we've won, the authority is mine."
"I'm with you," said Meb. "To the hilt. Does that mean that when it's done, I share authority with you?"
"Yes, it does," said Elemak. If you even know what authority is, you poor simpering baboon. "It's as simple as that. But if you haven't got the heart to put in the knife along with us, that doesn't mean you're our enemy. Only keep silence about our plan, join with us in preventing others from joining Nafai, and stay out of the way when we kill him - if it comes to that."
"I'll agree to that," said Obring.
Vas also nodded.
"Then it's done."
Nafai awoke on the floor of the room. Above him hung the block of water. He didn't feel any different.
That is, until he started trying to think of things. Like when he tried to feel, from the inside, whether anything was different about his own body. All of a sudden a great gush of information flowed into