“The Oversoul knows,” she said.

  “Not everything,” he said.

  “Everything that can be known,” she said. She walked to the door of the traveler’s room. “Tell no one that I came,” she said.

  “Except Father,” he said.

  “Can’t you say that it was your dream?”

  “Why?” asked Nafai. “Your dream he would believe. Mine would be—nothing to him.”

  “You underestimate your father. And the Oversoul, too, I think. And yourself.” She stepped out into the moonlit yard in front of the house. She started to turn right, heading for Ridge Road.

  “No,” he whispered, catching her arm—small and frail indeed, she was a girl so young and little-boned. “Don’t pass in front of the gate.”

  She gave him a questioning look, eyes wide, reflecting the moon, which was half-risen now over his shoulder.

  “Perhaps I woke someone when I opened it,” he explained.

  She nodded. “I’ll go around the house on the other side.”

  “Luet,” he said.

  “Yes?”

  “Will you be safe, going home now?”

  “The moon is up,” she said. “And the guard at the Funnel Gate will give me no trouble. The Oversoul made him sleep when I passed before.”

  “Luet,” he said, calling her back again.

  Again she stopped, waited for his words.

  “Thank you,” he said. The words were nothing compared to what he felt in his heart. She had saved his father’s life—and it was a brave thing for a girl who had never left the city to come all this way in the starlight, guided only by a dream.

  She shrugged. “The Oversoul sent me. Thank her.” Then she was gone.

  Nafai returned to the gate, and this time deliberately made some noise coming in and latching it. If one of his brothers was listening or watching, he didn’t want his return to surprise him. Let him hear and go back to his room before I come through the inner gate.

  As he had hoped, the courtyard was empty when he returned. He went straight to Father’s room, through the public room and the library to the private place where he slept alone. There he lay on the bare floor, without a mat of any kind, his white beard spilling onto the stone. Nafai stood there a moment, imagining the throat cut open and the beard stained brownish red with the gush of blood.

  Then he noticed that Father’s eyes were shining. He was awake.

  “Are you the one?” whispered Father.

  “What do you mean?” asked Nafai.

  Father sat up, slowly, wearily. “I had a dream. It was nothing—just my fear.”

  “Someone else had a dream tonight,” said Nafai. “I talked to her just now in the traveler’s room. But it’s better if you tell no one that she was here.”

  “Who?”

  “Luet,” he said. “And her dream was to warn you of the meeting tonight. There’s murder waiting for you if you go.”

  Father sprang to his feet and turned on the light. Nafai blinked in the brightness of it. “Then it wasn’t just a dream I had.”

  “I’m beginning to think there are no meaningless dreams,” said Nafai. “I also dreamed, and it woke me, and the Oversoul brought me outside to talk to her.”

  “Murder waiting for me. I can guess the rest. He’ll murder Roptat also, and make it look like one of us killed the other, and then someone else killed the murderer, and only then will Gaballufix arrive, probably with several believable witnesses who can swear that the murders took place before Gabya arrived. They’ll tell of how shocked he was by the bloody scene. Why didn’t I see it myself? How else could he get me and Roptat to the same place at the same time, with no followers or witnesses about?”

  “So you won’t go,” said Nafai.

  “Yes,” said Father. “I’ll go, yes.”

  “No!”

  “But not to the coolhouse,” said Father. “Because my dream showed me something else.”

  “What?”

  “Tents,” he said. “My tents, spread wide in the desert sun. If we stay, Gaballufix will only try again, in some other way. And—there are other reasons for leaving. For getting my sons out of this city before it destroys them.”

  Nafai knew that Father’s dream must have been terrible indeed. Did it show him that one of his sons would kill him? That would explain Father’s first words—Are you the one?

  “So we’re going into the desert?”

  “Yes,” said Father.

  “When?”

  “Now, of course.”

  “Now? Today?”

  “Now, tonight. Before dawn. So we’re over the ridge before his men can see us.”

  “But won’t we pass right by Gaballufix’s household, where Twisting Trail crosses Desert Road?”

  “There’s a back way,” said Father. “Not the best for camels, but we’ll have to do it. It puts us on Desert Road well past Gabya’s place. Now come, help me waken your brothers.”

  “No,” said Nafai.

  Father turned to him, puzzlement making him hesitate to express his anger at being disobeyed.

  “Luet asked—that no one be told it was her. And she was right. They shouldn’t know about me, either. It should be your dream.”

  “Why?” asked Father. “To have three be touched tonight by the Oversoul—”

  “Because if it’s your dream, then they’ll wonder what you know, what you saw. But if there are others, then to them it will seem that we’re fooling and manipulating you. They’ll argue. They’ll resist you. And you have to bring them with you, Father.”

  Father nodded. “You’re very wise,” he said. “For a boy of fourteen.”

  But Nafai knew he was not wise. He simply had the benefit of knowing the rest of Luet’s dream. If Meb and Elya stayed behind, they would be wholly swallowed up in Gaballufix’s machinations. They would lose what decency remained in them. And there must be goodness in them. Perhaps they even planned to warn Father. Maybe that’s why Elya closed the inner gate, so that he’d be wakened by the noise Father made as he left—then he could come out and warn Father not to go!

  Or perhaps he meant only to follow Father, so he could be right behind him when he came upon Roptat’s murdered body in the ice house.

  No! cried Nafai inside himself. Not Elemak. It’s monstrous of me even to think that he could do that. My brothers are not murderers, not one of them.

  “Go to your room,” said Father. “Or better still, to the toilet. And then come out and set an example of silent obedience. Not to me—to Elya. He knows how to pack for this kind of trip.”

  “Yes, Father,” said Nafai.

  At once he moved briskly from Father’s room, through the library and public room, and out into the courtyard. Elemak’s and Mebbekew’s doors were still closed. Nafai headed for the latrine, with its two walls leaving it open to the courtyard. He was only just there when he heard Father knocking on Mebbekew’s door. “Wake up, but quietly,” said Father. Then again, on Elemak’s. “Come out into the courtyard.”

  He heard them all come out—Issib, too, though no one called him directly.

  “Where’s Nyef?” asked Issib.

  “Using the latrine,” said Father.

  “Now that’s an idea,” said Meb.

  “You can wait a moment,” said Father.

  Nafai came out of the stall, letting the toilet wash itself automatically behind him. At least Father hadn’t made them live in a completely primitive way.

  “Sorry,” said Nafai. “Didn’t mean to keep you waiting.” Meb glowered at him, but too sleepily for Nafai to take it as a threat of a fight to come.

  “We’re leaving,” Father said. “Out into the desert.”

  “All of us?” asked Issib.

  “I’m sorry, yes,” said Father. “You’ll be in your chair. It’s not the same as your floats, I know, but it’s something.”

  “Why?” asked Elemak.

  “I was warned by the Oversoul in a dream,” said Father.

  Meb made a contemptuous noise and started back for his room.

  “You will stand and listen,” said Father, “because if you stay, it will not be as my son.”

  Meb stood and listened, though his back was still toward Father.

  “There’s a plot to kill me,” said Father. “This morning. I was to go to a meeting with Gaballufix and Roptat, and there I was going to die.”

  “Gabya gave me his word,” said Elemak. “No harm to anyone.”

  So Elemak called Gaballufix by his boy-name now, did he?

  “The Oversoul knows his heart better than his own mouth does,” said Father. “If I go, I’ll die. And even if I don’t, it will be only a matter of time. Now that Gaballufix has determined to kill me, my life is worthless here. I would stay in the city if I thought some purpose would be served by my dying here—I’m not afraid of it. But the Oversoul has told me to leave.”

  “In a dream,” said Elemak.

  “I don’t need a dream to tell me that Gaballufix is dangerous when he’s crossed,” said Father, “and neither do you. When I don’t show up at the coolhouse this morning, there’s no telling what Gaballufix will do. I must already be out on the desert when he discovers it. We’ll take Redstone Path.”

  “The camels can’t do it,” said Elemak.

  “They can because they must,” said Father. “We’ll take enough to live for a year.”

  “This is monstrous,” said Mebbekew. “I won’t do it.”

  “What do we do after a year?” asked Elemak.

  “The Oversoul will show me something by then,” said Father.

  “Maybe things will have calmed down in Basilica enough to return,” suggested Issib.

  “If we go now,” said Elemak, “Gabya will think you betrayed him, Father.”

  “Will he?” said Father. “And if I stay, he’ll betray me.”

  “Said a dream.”

  “Said my dream,” said Father. “I need you. Stay if you want, but not as my son.”

  “I did fine not as your son,” said Mebbekew.

  “No,” said Elemak. “You did fine pretending not to be his son. But everyone knew.”

  “I lived from my talent.”

  “You lived from theatre people’s hope of getting your father to invest in their shows—or you, in the future, out of your inheritance.”

  Mebbekew looked like he had been slapped. “You too, is that it, Elya?”

  “I’ll talk to you later,” said Elemak. “If Father says we’re going then we’re going—and we have no time to lose.” He turned to Father. “Not because you threatened to disinherit me, old man. But because you’re my father, and I won’t have you going out into the desert with nothing but these to help you stay alive.”

  “I taught you everything you know, Elya,” said Father.

  “When you were younger,” said Elemak. “And we always had servants. I assume we’re leaving them all behind.”

  “Dismissing the household servants,” said Father. “While you ready the animals and the supplies, Elya, I’ll leave instructions for Rashgallivak.”

  For the next hour Nafai worked with more hurry than he had ever thought possible. Everyone, even Issib, had tasks to perform, and Nafai admired Elemak all over again for his great skill at this sort of thing. He always knew exactly what needed to be done, and who should do it, and how long it should take; he also knew how to make Nafai feel like an idiot for not learning his tasks more quickly, even though he was sure that he was doing at least as well as anyone could expect, considering that it was his first time.

  At last they were ready—a true desert caravan, with nothing but camels, though they were the most temperamental of the pack animals, and the least comfortable to ride. Issib’s chair was strapped to one side of a camel, bundles of powdered water on the other. The water would be for emergencies later; on the first part of their journey Father and Elemak knew all the watering places, and besides, an autumn occasional rain fell on the desert, and there would be ample water. Next summer, though, it would be drier, and then it would be too late to come back to Basilica for the precious powder. And what if they were followed, chased into untracked sections of the desert? Then they might need to pour some of the powder into a pan, light it, and watch it burn itself into water, taking oxygen from the air to accomplish it. Nafai had tasted it once—foul stuff, tinny and nasty with the chemicals used to bind the hydrogen into powdered form. But they’d be glad of it if they ever needed it.

  It was Issib’s chair that would bring the least gladness. Nafai knew that this journey would be hardest on Issya, deprived of his floats, and bound into the chair. The floats made him feel as though his own body were light and strong; in the kchair, he felt gravity pressing him down, and it took all his strength to operate the controls. At the end of a day in the chair Issya was always wan and exhausted. How would it be for day after day, week after week, month after month? Maybe he would grow stronger. Maybe he would grow weaker. Maybe he would die. Maybe the Oversoul would sustain him.

  Maybe angels would come and carry them to the moon.

  It was still a good hour before dawn when they set out. They had been quiet enough that none of the servants had been wakened—or perhaps they had, but since nobody asked them to help and they weren’t interested in volunteering for whatever mad task was going on at this hour of the night, they discreetly rolled over and went back to sleep.

  Redstone Path was murderously treacherous, but the moonlight and Elemak’s instructions made it possible. Nafai was again filled with admiration for his eldest brother. Was there nothing Elya couldn’t do? Was there any hope of Nafai ever becoming so strong and competent?

  At last they crossed Twisting Path, right at the crest of the highest ridge; below them stretched the desert. The first light of dawn was already strong in the east, but they had made good enough time. It was downhill now, still difficult, but not long until they reached the great plateau of the western desert. No one would follow them easily here—no one from the city, anyway. Elemak passed out pulses to all of them and made them practice aiming the tightbeam light at rocks he pointed out. Issib was pretty useless—he couldn’t hold the pulse steady enough—but Nafai was proud of the fact that he held his aim better than Father.

  Whether he could actually kill a robber with it was another matter. Surely he wouldn’t have to. They were on the Oversoul’s errand here in the desert, weren’t they? The Oversoul would steer the robbers away from them. Just as the Oversoul would lead them to water and food, when they ran out of their traveling supplies.

  Then Nafai remembered that this whole business began because the Oversoul wasn’t as competent as it used to be. How did he know the Oversoul could do any of those things? Or that it even had a plan? Yes, it had sent Luet to warn them, and had wakened Nafai to go hear the warning, and had sent Father his own dream. But that didn’t mean that the Oversoul actually had any intention of protecting them or even of leading them anywhere except away from the city. Who knew what the Oversoul’s plans were? Maybe all it needed was to get rid of Wetchik and his family.

  With that grim thought, Nafai sat high above the desert, his leg hooked around the pommel of his saddle, as he searched in all directions for robbers, for pursuers from the city, for any strange thing on the road, for signs from the Oversoul. The only music was Mebbekew’s complaints and Elemak’s orders and the occasional splatting as the camels voided their bowels. Nafai’s beast, oblivious to any worries except where to put its feet, continued its rolling gait onward into the heat of day.

  NINE

  LIES AND

  DISGUISES

  With the moon up, it was much easier for Luet to find her way back into the city than it had been for her to get to Wetchik’s house. Besides, now she knew her destination; it’s always easier to return home than to find a strange place.

  Oddly, though, she didn’t feel a sense of danger until she got back into the city itself. The guard at the Funnel Gate was away from his post—perhaps he had been caught sleeping, or perhaps the Oversoul made him think of some sudden errand. Luet had to smile to herself at the thought of the Oversoul troubling herself to make a man feel an urgent need to void his bladder, just for Luet’s safe passage.

  Within the city, though, the moon was less help. In fact, since it hadn’t yet risen very high, it cast deep shadows, and the north-south streets were still in utter blackness at street level. Anyone might be abroad at this hour. Tolchocks were known to be abroad much earlier in the night, when there were still many women abroad in the streets. Now, though, in the loneliest hours before dawn, there might be much worse than tolchocks about.

  “Isn’t she the pretty one?”

  The voice startled her. It was a woman, though, a husky-voiced woman. It took a moment for Luet to find her in the shadows. “I’m not pretty,” she said. “In the darkness your eyes deceived you.”

  It had to be a holy woman, to be on the street at this hour. As she stepped from the dark corner where she had taken shelter from the night breeze, the woman’s dirty skin showed a bit paler than the surrounding shadow. She was naked from face to foot. Seeing her, Luet felt the cold of the autumn night. As long as Luet had been moving, she had kept warm from the exercise. Now, though, she wondered how this woman could live like this, with no barrier between her skin and the chilling air except for the dirt on her body.

  Mother was a wilder, thought Luet. I was born to such a one as this. She slept in the desert when I was in her womb, and carried me, as naked as she was, into the city to leave me with Aunt Rasa. Not this one, though. My mother, wherever she is, is not a holy woman anymore. Only a year after I was born she left the Oversoul to follow a man, a farmer, to a hardscrabble life in the rocky soil of the Chalvasankhra Valley. Or so Aunt Rasa said.

  “Beautiful are the eyes of the holy child,” intoned the woman, “who sees in the darkness and burns with bright fire in the frozen night.”

  Luet permitted the woman to touch her face, but when the cold hands started to pull at her clothing, Luet covered them with her own. “Please,” she said. “I am not holy, and the Oversoul doesn’t shield me from the cold.”