For a moment Nafai wondered if she, too, had somehow discovered how the Oversoul had blocked the discovery of war wagons until recently. Then he realized that of course she was thinking of the seventh codicil: “You have no dispute with your neighbor’s neighbor’s neighbor; when she quarrels, stay home and close your window.” This had long been interpreted to be a prohibition of entangling alliances or quarrels with countries so far away that the outcome made no difference to you. Nafai and Issib knew the purpose and origin of such a law, and the way that the Oversoul had enforced it within people’s minds. To Hushidh, though, it was the law itself that had fended off wars of imperial aggression for all these millennia. Never mind that many nations had tried to create empires, and only the lack of efficient means of travel and communication had hindered them.

  “I’m not with you,” said Nafai. “You can’t turn back the clock.”

  “If you can’t,” she said, “then we’re as good as destroyed already.”

  “Maybe so,” said Nafai. “If Roptat wins, then when the Potoku fleet arrives, they come up the mountain and destroy us before the Wetheads can get here. And if Gaballufix wins, then when the Wetheads finally come they destroy the Potoku first and then they come up the mountains and destroy us in retaliation.”

  “So,” said Hushidh. “You see that you are with us.”

  “No,” said Nafai. “Because if the City Party keeps up this stalemate, either Gaballufix or Roptat will get impatient and people will start to die. Then we won’t need outsiders to destroy us. We’ll do it ourselves. How long do you think women will continue to rule in this city, if it comes to civil war between two powerful men?”

  Hushidh looked off into space. “Do you think so?” she said.

  “I may not be a raveler” said Nafai, “but I’ve read history.”

  “So many centuries we’ve kept this a city of women, a place of peace.”

  “You never should have given men the vote.”

  “They’ve had the vote for a million years.”

  Nafai nodded. “I know. What’s happening now—it’s the Oversoul.”

  He could see now that Hushidh was looking off into nothingness because her eyes were so full of tears. “She’s dying, isn’t she?”

  It hadn’t occurred to him that someone could take this so personally. As if the Oversoul were a dear relative. But to someone like Hushidh, perhaps it was so. Besides, she was the daughter of a wilder, a so-called holy woman. Even though everyone knew that wilders’ children were usually the result of rape or casual coupling in the streets of the city, they were still called “children of the Oversoul.” Maybe Hushidh really thought of the Oversoul as her father. But no—the women called the Oversoul she. And Hushidh knew that her mother was a wilder.

  Still, Hushidh was barely containing her tears.

  “What do you want from me?” asked Nafai. “I don’t know what the Oversoul is doing. Your sister—like you said, she’s the seer.”

  “The Oversoul hasn’t spoken to her all week. Or to anyone.”

  Nafai was surprised. “You mean not even at the lake?”

  “I knew that you and Issib were very, very closely tied to the Oversoul all this week. She was wearing you out, the way she does with Lutya and . . . and me, sometimes. The women have been going into the water, more and more of them, and yet they come out with nothing, or with silly sleep-dreams. It’s making them afraid. But I told them, I said: Nafai and Issib, they’re being touched by the Oversoul. So she’s not dead. And they asked me . . . to find out from you.”

  “Find out what?”

  The tears finally spilled out and slid down her cheeks. “I don’t know,” she said miserably. “What to do. What the Oversoul expects of us.”

  He touched her shoulder, to comfort her—Nafai didn’t know what else to do. “I don’t know,” he said. “But you’re right about one thing—the Oversoul is wearing down. Wearing itself out. Still, I’m surprised that it would stop giving visions. Maybe it’s distracted. Maybe it’s . . .”

  “What?”

  He shook his head. “Let me talk to Issib, will you?”

  She nodded, ducking her head at the end to wipe away tears. “Please, yes,” she said. “I couldn’t—talk to him.”

  Why in the world not? But he didn’t ask. He was too confused by all that she’d told him. All this time that he and Issib thought their research was secret, and here was Hushidh telling all the women of Basilica that the two of them were being worn out by the Oversoul! And yet, for all that they knew, the women were also hopelessly ignorant—how could he and Issib know anything about the reason why their visions had stopped?

  Nafai went straight to the library and repeated to Issib all he could remember of his conversation with Hushidh. “So what I’m thinking is this. What if the Oversoul isn’t all that powerful? What if the reason the visions have stopped is that the Oversoul can’t deal with us and give visions all at the same time?”

  Issib laughed. “Come on, Nyef, as if we’re the center of the world or something.”

  “I’m serious. How much capacity would the Oversoul have to have, really? Most people are ignorant or stupid or weak enough that even if they thought of one of these forbidden subjects, they couldn’t do anything about it, so why watch them? That means the Oversoul has to monitor relatively few people. And with them, if it checks in on them every now and then, it has plenty of time to turn them away from dangerous projects. But now, with the Oversoul weakening, you were able to desensitize yourself. That was a contest between you and the Oversoul, and you won, Issib. What if during all those struggles, the Oversoul was completely focused on you, giving no visions to anyone else, monitoring no one else. But you were going slowly enough that it still had time left over.”

  “But the two of us, working together,” said Issib. “It had to concentrate on us, constantly. And it’s losing, too—weakening even more.”

  “So I’m thinking, Issib—we’re not helping here, we’re hurting.”

  Issib laughed again. “It can’t be,” he said. “This is the Oversoul we’re talking about, not a teacher with a couple of unruly students.”

  “The Oversoul has failed before. Or there wouldn’t be any war wagons.”

  “So what should we do?”

  “Stop,” said Nafai. “For a day. Stay away from the forbidden subjects. See if people start getting visions again.”

  “You seriously think that we, the two of us, have taken up so much of the Oversoul’s time that it can’t give visions to people? What about during the time we sleep and eat? There are plenty of breaks.”

  “Maybe we’ve got it confused. Maybe it’s panicking about us because it doesn’t know what to do.”

  “Right,” said Issib. “So let’s not just quit. Let’s give the Oversoul some advice, why not!”

  “Why not?” said Nafai. “It was made by human beings, wasn’t it?”

  “We think. Maybe.”

  “So we tell it to stop worrying about trying to block us. That’s a pointless assignment and it should stop wasting time on it right now, because even if we easily think of every forbidden subject in the world, we’re not going to tell anybody else and we’re not going to try to build any ourselves. Are we?”

  “We’re not.”

  “So take an oath to that, Issib. I’ll take it too. I swear it right now—you listening, Oversoul?—we’re not your enemies, so you don’t need to waste another second worrying about us. Go back and give visions to the women again. And spend your time blocking the dangerous guys. The Wetheads, for instance. Gaballufix. Roptat probably, too. And if you can’t block them, then at least let us know what to do so we can block them.”

  “Who are you talking to?”

  “The Oversoul.”

  “This feels really stupid,” said Issib.

  “It’s been telling us what to think our whole lives,” said Nafai. “What’s so stupid about giving it a suggestion now and then? Take the oath, Issya.”

  “Yes, I promise, I take the most solemn oath. You listening, Oversoul?”

  “It’s listening,” said Nafai. “That much we know.”

  “So,” said Issib. “You think it’s going to do what we say?”

  “I don’t know,” said Nafai. “But I know this—we’re not going to learn anything more by hanging around the library for the rest of the day. Let’s get out of here. Spend the night at Father’s house. Maybe we’ll have a really good idea. Or maybe Father will have a vision. Or something.”

  It was only that afternoon, as he was leaving Mother’s house, that Nafai remembered that Elemak was courting Eiadh. Not that Nafai had a right to hate him for it. Nafai had never said anything to anyone about his feelings toward her, had he? And at fourteen he was far too young to be taken seriously as a possible legal mate. Of course Eiadh would look at Elemak and desire him. It explained everything—why she was so nice to Nafai and yet never seemed to get close to him. She wanted to keep his favor in case he had some influence over Elemak. But it would never have crossed her mind that she might give a contract to Nafai. After all, he was a child.

  Then he remembered how Hushidh had spoken of Issib. I couldn’t talk to him. Because he was a cripple? Not likely. No, Hushidh was shy with Issib because she was looking at him as a possible mate. Even I know enough about women to guess that, thought Nafai.

  Hushidh is my age, and she’s looking at my older brother when she thinks of mating. While I might as well be a tree or a brick for all the sexual interest a girl my age would have in me. And Eiadh is older than me—one of the oldest in my class, while I’m one of the youngest. How could I have ever thought . . .

  He felt the hot blush of embarrassment on his cheeks, even though no one knew of his humiliation except himself.

  Moving through the streets of Basilica, Nafai realized that except for an occasional walk in Rain Street he had not been out of Mother’s house since he began his research with Issib. Perhaps because of what Hushidh had told him, he was aware of a change in the city. Were there fewer people on the streets? Perhaps—but the real difference was more in the way they walked. People in Basilica often moved with purpose, but usually they did not let that purpose close them to what was going on around them. Even people in a hurry could pause for a moment, or at least smile, when they passed a street musician or a juggler or a comic reciting his doggerel. And many people sauntered, taking things in with real pleasure, conversing with their companions, of course, but also freely speaking with strangers on the street, as if all the people of Basilica were neighbors, or even relatives.

  This evening was different. As the sun silhouetted the western rooftops and cast angled slabs of blackness across the streets, the people seemed to dodge the sunlight as if it might burn their skin. They were closed off to each other. The street musicians were ignored, and even their music seemed more timid, as if they were ready to break off their song at the first sign of displeasure in a passerby. The streets were quieter because almost no one was talking.

  Soon enough the reason became obvious. A troop of eight men jogged up the street, pulses in their hands and charged-wire blades at their waists. Soldiers, thought Nafai. Gaballufix’s men. No—officially, they were the militia of the Palwashantu, but Nafai felt no kinship with them.

  They didn’t seem to look to left or right, as if their errand were set. But Nafai and Issib noticed at once that the streets seemed to empty as the soldiers passed. Where had the people gone? They weren’t actually hiding, but still it took several minutes after the soldiers had passed before people began emerging again. They had ducked into shops, pretending to have business. Some had simply taken alternate routes down side streets. And others had never left the street at all, but like Nafai and Issib they had stopped, had frozen in place, so that for a few minutes they were part of the architecture, not part of the life of the place.

  It did not seem at all as though people thought the soldiers were making the city safer. Instead the soldiers had made them afraid.

  “Basilica’s in trouble,” said Nafai.

  “Basilica is dead,” said Issib. “There are still people here, but the city isn’t Basilica anymore.”

  Fortunately, it wasn’t as bad when they got farther along Wing Street—the soldiers had passed where Wing crossed Wheat Street, only a few blocks from Gaballufix’s house. When they got into Old Town there was more life in the streets. But changes were still visible.

  For instance, Spring Street had been cleared. Spring was one of the major thoroughfares of Basilica, running in the most direct route from Funnel Gate through Old Town and right on to the edge of the Rift Valley. But as often happened in Basilica, some enterprising builder had decided that it was a shame to let all that empty space in the middle of the street go to waste, when people could be living there. On a long block between Wing and Temple, the builder had put up six buildings.

  Now, when a Basilican builder started putting up a structure that blocked a street, several things could happen. If the street wasn’t very busy, only a few people would object. They might scream and curse and even throw things at the builders, but since the workers were all such burly men, there would be little serious resistance. The building would go up, and people would find new routes. The people who owned houses or shops that used to front on the now-blocked road were the ones who suffered most. They had to bargain with neighbors to gain hallway rights that would give them street access—or take those rights, if the neighbor was weak. Sometimes they simply had to abandon their property. Either way, the new hallways or the abandoned property soon became thoroughfares in their own right. Eventually some enterprising soul would buy a couple of abandoned or decaying houses whose hallways were being used for traffic, tear out an open streetway, and thus a new road was born. The city council did nothing to interfere with this process—it was how the city evolved and changed over time, and it seemed pointless in a city tens of millions of years old to try to hold back the tide of time and history.

  It was quite another thing when someone started building on a much-used thoroughfare like Spring Street. There, the passersby gained courage from their numbers—and from their outrage at the thought of losing a road they often used. So they would deliberately sabotage the construction as they passed, knocking down masonry, carrying away stones. If the builder was powerful and determined, with many strong workers, a brawl could easily start—but then it might easily come to a court trial, where the builder was always found to be at fault, since building in a street was regarded as ample provocation for legal assault.

  The builder in Spring Street had been clever, though. She had designed her six buildings to stand on arches, so that the road was never actually blocked. The houses instead began on the first floor, above the street—and so, while passersby were annoyed, they weren’t so provoked that they got serious about their sabotage. So the buildings had been finished early that summer, and some very wealthy people had taken up residence.

  Inevitably, however, the archways became crowded with streetsellers and enterprising restaurateurs—which the builder surely knew would happen. Traffic slowed to a crawl, and other builders began to put up permanent shops and stalls, until only a few weeks ago it became physically impossible to get from Temple to Wing on Spring Street—the little buildings now completed blocked the way. Another street in Basilica had been killed, only this time it was a major thoroughfare and caused serious inconvenience to a lot of people. Only the original builder and the enterprising little shopkeepers truly profited; the people who bought the inner buildings now found it harder and harder to get to the stairways leading up to their houses, and people were already preparing to abandon old structures that no longer faced on a street.

  Now, as Nafai and Issib passed Spring Street, they saw that someone had gone through the blocked section and torn down all the small structures. The new buildings were still there, arching over the street, but the passageway remained open underneath them. More significantly, a couple of soldiers stood at each end of the street. The message was clear: No new building would be tolerated.

  “Gaballufix isn’t a fool,” said Issib.

  Nafai knew what he meant. People might not like seeing soldiers trot by in the streets, with the threat of violence and the loss of freedom that they implied. But seeing Spring Street open would go a long way toward making the soldiers seem like a mixed evil, one perhaps worth tolerating.

  Wing Street eventually fed into Temple Street, and Nafai and Issib followed it until it came to the great circle around the Temple itself. This was the one outpost of the men’s religion in this city of women, the one place where the Oversoul was known to be male, and where blood rather than water was the holy fluid. On impulse, though he hadn’t been inside since he was eight and his foreskin was drowned in his own blood, Nafai stopped at the north doors. “Let’s go in,” he said.

  Issib shuddered. “I deeply hate this place,” he said.

  “If they used anesthetic, worship would be more popular with kids,” said Nafai.

  Issib grinned. “Painless worship. Now there’s a thought. Maybe dry worship would catch on among the women, too.”

  They went through the door into the musty, dark, windowless outer chamber.

  Though the temple was perfectly round, the inner chambers were designed to recall the chambers of the heart: the Indrawing Auricle, the Airward Ventricle, the Airdrawing Auricle, and the Outflowing Ventricle. The winding halls and tiny rooms between them were named for various veins and arteries. Before their circumcision boys had to learn all the names of all the rooms, but they did it by memorizing a song that remained meaningless to most who learned it. So there was nothing particularly familiar about the names written on each door lintel or keystone, and Issib and Nafai were immediately lost.

  It didn’t matter. Eventually, all halls and corridors funneled worshipers into the central courtyard, the only bright space in the temple, open to the sky. Since it was so close to sunset, there was no direct sunlight on the stone floor of the courtyard, but after so much darkness even reflected sunlight was painfully dazzling.