that you don't really have to fear anything from him.
"I know you're hungry," said Volemak. "But it's early yet for supper, and the time will be well spent. Let me tell you the dream that came to me last night."
They had already gathered, of course, and now they sat on the flat stones that Zdorab and Volya had dragged into place days ago for just this purpose, so all would have a place to sit off the ground, for meals, for meetings.
"I don't know what it means," said Volemak, "and I don't know what it's for, but I know that it matters."
"If it matters so much," said Obring, "why doesn't the Oversoul just tell you what it means and have done?"
"Because, son-in-law of my wife," said Volemak, "the dream didn't come from the Oversoul, and he is just as puzzled by it as I am."
Rasa noted with interest that Volya still spoke of the Oversoul as he; so Nafai's and Issib's custom of calling her it had not yet overtaken him. She liked that. Perhaps it was just because he was getting old and unimaginative, but she liked it that Volemak still thought of the Oversoul in the old manly way, instead of thinking and speaking of her as a mere computer - even one with fractal-like memory that could hold the lives of every human who ever lived and still have room for more.
"So I'll begin, and tell the dream straight through," said Volemak. "And I'll warn you now, that because the dream didn't come from the Oversoul, it gives me more reason to rejoice - for Nafai and Issib, anyway - and yet also more reason to fear for my first sons, Elemak and Mebbekew, for you see, I thought I saw in my dream a dark and dreary wilderness."
"You can see that wide awake," murmured Mebbekew. Rasa could see that Meb's jest was nothing but a thin mask for anger - he didn't like having been singled out like that before the dream began. Elemak didn't like it either, of course - but Elemak knew how to hold his tongue.
Volemak gazed at Mebbekew placidly for a moment or two, to silence him, to let him know that he would brook no more interruption. Then he began again.
FOUR - THE TREE OF LIFE
"I thought I saw in my dream a dark and dreary wilderness," said Volemak, but he knew as he said it that they would not understand what his words meant to him. Not the hot desert that they knew so well by now, dreary as that wilderness was. Where he walked in his dream was dank, chill and dirty, with little light, barely enough to see each step he took. There might have been trees not far off, or he might have been underground for all he knew. He walked on and on, with no hope and yet unable to stop hoping that by moving he would eventually escape this desolate place.
"And then I saw a man, dressed in a white gown." Like a priest of Seggidugu, only those are ordinary men, sweating as they perform their rites. This man seemed so at ease with himself that I thought at once that he must be dead. I was in a place where dead men waited, and I thought perhaps that I was dead. "He up came to me, and stood there in front of me, and then he spoke to me. Told me to follow him."
Volemak could tell that the others were getting bored - or at least the most childish of them. It was so frustrating, to have only words to tell them what the dream was like. If they could know how that voice sounded when the man spoke, how warm and kind he seemed, as if the very sound of him was the first light in this dark place, then they'd know why I followed him, and why it mattered that I followed him. Instead, to them, it's only a dream, and this is clearly the dull part. Yet to me it was not dull.
"I followed him for many hours in the darkness," said Volemak. "I spoke to him but he didn't answer. So, since by now I was convinced that this man was sent by the Oversoul, I began to speak to the Oversoul in my mind. I asked him how long this had to go on, and where I was going, and what it was all about. I got no answer.