"I think that the fathers are all too clever," said Ilihi. "So clever that when the day comes when they want to tell everything to their sons, their sons won't believe them, because they're still looking for the trick."

"When I want to tell you all my wisdom," said Khideo, "you'll know it, and you'll believe it."

"I have a secret for you, Khideo," said Ilihi. "You already taught me your wisdom, and I've already seen what you've got planned for poor Akmaro."

"Did you think you could trick me into telling you by pretending that you already know?" said Khideo. "Give up on that, won't you? It didn't work when you were fifteen and it doesn't work now."

"Let me tell you something that you may not know," said Ilihi. "Even though Akmaro was your friend-"

"Is my friend-"

"He is stronger than you. He is stronger than me. He is stronger than Motiak. He is stronger than anyone."

Khideo laughed. "Akmaro? He's all talk."

"He's stronger than all of us, because, my friend, he really is doing the will of the Keeper of Earth, and the Keeper of Earth will have his way-he will have his way with us, or he will sweep us aside and make way for yet another group of his children. This time perhaps descended from jaguars and condors, or perhaps he'll dip into the sea and choose the sons and daughters of the squids or the sharks. But the Keeper of Earth will prevail."

"If the Keeper is so powerful, Ilihi, why doesn't he just change us all into peaceful, happy, contented little diggers and angels and humans living together in a perverse menagerie?"

"Maybe because he doesn't want us to be a menagerie. Maybe because he wants us to understand his plan and to love it for its own sake, and follow it because we believe that it's good."

"What kind of feather-brained religion is that? How long would Motiak last as king if he waited for people to obey him until they loved the law and wanted to obey."

"But in fact that's why they do obey, Khideo."

"They obey because of all those men with swords, Ilihi."

"But why do the men with swords obey?" asked Ilihi. "They don't have to, you know. At any point, one of them could become so outraged that he-"

"Don't throw this in my face just for a jest," said Khideo. "Not after all these years."

"Not for a jest," said Ilihi. "I'm just pointing out that a good king like Motiak is obeyed, ultimately, because the best and strongest people know that his continuing rule is good for them. His kingdom brings them peace. Even if they don't like all his rules, they can find some way to be happy in the empire of Darakemba. That's why you obey him, isn't it?" Khideo nodded.

"I've thought about this a long time. Why didn't the Keeper of Earth just stop Father from doing the things he did? Why didn't the Keeper just lead us to freedom instead of making us serve so many years in bondage before Monush came? Why why why, what was the plan? It troubled me until one day I realized-"

"I'm relieved. I thought you were going to tell me that your wife gave you the answer."

Ilihi gave him a pained look and went on. "I realized that it wouldn't do the Keeper any good to have a bunch of puppets just doing his will. What he wants is companions. Do you see? He wants us to become like him, to want the same things he wants, to work toward the same goals, freely and willingly, because we want to. That's when the words of Binaro will be fulfilled, and the Keeper will come and dwell among the people of Earth."

Khideo shuddered. "If that is true, Ilihi, then I'm the enemy of the Keeper of Earth."

"No, my friend. Only your ideas are his enemy. Fortunately, you are more loyal to your friends than to your ideas-that's part of what the Keeper wants from us. In fact, I daresay that in some future time, despite all your loathing of the mixture of the species, you'll be remembered as one of the great defenders of the Keeper's friends."

"Ha."

"Look at you, Khideo. All these people who have the same ideas as you, but who are your friends? Who are the people you love? Me. Akmaro."

"I love a lot of people, not just you."

"Me, Akmaro, my wife-"

"I detest your wife!"

"You'd die for her."

Khideo had no answer.

"And now even this angel informant of yours. You'd die for him, too, wouldn't you?"

"With all these people you think I'd die for, it's amazing I'm still alive," said Khideo.

"Don't you hate it when somebody knows you better than you know yourself?"

"Yes," said Khideo.

"I know you hate it," said Ilihi. "But there was once a man who knew me better than I knew myself. Who saw strength in me that I didn't know was there. And do you know what?"

"You hated it."

"I thanked the Keeper for that man. And I still beg the Keeper to keep him safe. I still tell the Keeper, He's not your enemy. He thinks he is but he's not. Keep him safe, I say."

"You talk to the Keeper?"

"All the time, these days."

"And does he answer?"

"No," said Ilihi. "But then, I haven't asked him any questions. So the only answer that I need from him is this: I look around, and I still see his hand guiding the world around me."

Khideo turned away from him, hiding his face. He didn't even know why he was hiding; it wasn't that he felt any strong emotion. He just couldn't bear to look Ilihi in the eye at this moment. "Go to Motiak," he whispered. "Tell him what you need to tell him. We won't be stopped."

"Maybe not," said Ilihi. "But if you aren't stopped, it will be because, without realizing it, you were serving the Keeper's purpose all along."

Ilihi kissed him-on the shoulder, because his head was averted- and left the garden of the governor of the land of Khideo. The governor remained in that garden for another hour, till the evening rain. He came inside the house soaking wet. He had no servant to remonstrate with him. Ever since he learned that Akmaro and his wife really did all their own cooking and washing, Khideo had done the same. Khideo would match Akmaro virtue for virtue, pretension for pretension, sacrifice for sacrifice. No one would ever be able to say that Khideo may have been right, but Akmaro was still the better man. No, they would have to say, Khideo was every bit as good a man, and he was right.

As good a man, and right, but it was Akmaro who had won the free obedience of Ilihi. Akmaro had stolen even that prize, after all these years.

Darakemba might be the capital of a great empire, but in some ways it was still a small town. Gossip on some subjects spread quickly to the greatest households. Thus it took only a few weeks for Chebeya to get word of the opening of a new school. "She calls the place ‘Rasaro's House,' if you can believe the effrontery." "I asked who the schoolmaster was, and she actually said it was herself!" "She claims to be teaching exactly as the wife of the Hero Volemak taught, as if anyone could know that." "None of the children are of what you could call good families, but the appalling thing is that she mixes even those children right in with... the children of... former... ."

"Slaves," said Chebeya. It was only by the most heroic effort that she refrained from reminding these friends of hers that her husband and she had spent the last decade teaching that, in the eyes of the Keeper, the children of the earth are no less valued than middle children or children of the sky.

"And they say that she would gladly teach boys right among the girls, if any parents had such a lapse of judgment and decency as to allow it."

After some consideration, Chebeya wrote a note and had one of the teachers who lived near the new school drop it off for her. It was an invitation for the new teacher to come and call on her.