"In other words, in order to save the Kept from attack, we should remove the last protections we have?"

"They have no protections, Edhadeya. You know it. The king knows it. He has found the limits of his authority. But once he has abolished all government sponsorship of a religion, he can make a law that no one can be persecuted because of their religious beliefs. That one will have teeth, because it will protect everyone equally. If the Unkept want to form an assembly of fellow believers, they will have protection. It will be in their interest to uphold that law. No more secret meetings. No more hidden societies. Everything out in the open. Suggest it to your father. Even if you don't think my idea has merit, he will. He'll see that it's the only way."

"He won't be fooled any more than I am," said Edhadeya. "This decree you propose is exactly what you've wanted all along."

"I didn't even think of it till yesterday," said Akma. "Oh, pardon, I forgot that it took Bego a certain amount of time to get you to think up his ideas as if they were your own."

"Edhadeya, if my father's religion can't hold its own by the sheer power of its truthfulness, without any help from the government except to protect its members from violence, then it doesn't deserve to survive."

"I'll tell Father what you said."

"Good."

"But I'll also wager you right now, any stakes you say, that within a year you yourself will be the direct cause of more persecution of the Kept."

"You never knew me, if you think that's even possible."

"Oh, you'll have a lot of high-sounding reasons why people's suffering isn't your doing, because you've already proven your ability to deceive yourself without limit. But within a year, Akma, families will be weeping because of you."

"My family, probably, since they mourn for me as if I were dead," said Akma. He laughed, as if this were a joke.

"They aren't the only ones," said Edhadeya.

"I'm not dead," said Akma. "I have compassion, regardless of what you choose to believe about me. I remember my own suffering, I remember the suffering of others. I also remember that I loved you."

"I wish you'd forget it," said Edhadeya. "If it was ever true, you spoiled it long ago."

"I still do," he said. "I love you as much as I can love anyone. I think of you all the time, of the joy it would bring me if just once I could have you stand by my side the way Mother stands beside Father in all he does."

"She can do that, because what he does is good."

Akma nodded. "I know. Just don't pretend it's because of my beliefs that we aren't together. You're as stubborn as I am."

"No, Akma," she said. "I'm not stubborn. I'm just honest. I can't deny what I know."

"But you can hide what you know," said Akma, with a bitter smile.

"What does that mean?"

"In this whole conversation, you never bothered to mention to me that my sister is going to marry the most loathsome human being I ever knew."

"I assumed that your family had told you."

"I had to hear about it from Khimin."

"I'm sorry. That was Luet's choice. I'm sure. Perhaps she wanted not to cause you pain."

"She's dead to me now," said Akma. "She has given herself to the torturers and rejected me. As far as I'm concerned, you're doing the same."

"It's you that have given yourself to the torturers, Akma, and rejected me. Didul is no torturer. He is the man you should have been. What Luet loves in him is what she used to love in you. But it isn't there anymore."

Graciously, he allowed her the last word, staring off into space as she left the room.

A few minutes later, Bego and Mon heard terrible noises of crashing and breaking and rushed into the library, where they found Akma smashing stools against the table, splintering them. He was weeping, wordlessly sobbing, and they watched in horror as he roared like an animal and shattered every stick of small furniture in the room.

Mon noticed, though, that before his tirade began, he had carefully placed on a shelf all the barks he had been working on. Akma might have given himself over to rage, but he hadn't forgotten himself so completely as to waste the day's study.

Later, Akma offered a short and surly explanation. His sister was marrying one of the torturers. He wouldn't utter the name, but Mon knew that Luet had been in Bodika for the past few weeks and it wasn't hard to guess. Didul meant nothing to Mon. What hit him, hard, was the news that Luet was marrying at all. He had thought... he had meant to ... when all this was over. When things were settled. When he wasn't ashamed to face her anymore. That was it, he realized now. That's why he was waiting. Because he couldn't talk to her, couldn't tell her how he felt, not when he had denied his truthsense. Not when every word he uttered was tainted by lies.

Not lies. They aren't lies; the things Akma and I believe are true. This reeling I have is an illusion, I know it is. I just couldn't bring myself to face Luet when I still had this feeling that I was a fraud. I just needed more time, more strength. More courage.

Now it doesn't matter. Now my conscience can be clear as I attack Akmaro's religion. When Father decrees that all religions are equal, that all assemblies have the protection of law, then we will go out in the open and everything will be clear. It's good that I don't have any bonds of affection to complicate matters. It's good that I go into this side by side with my brothers, with my friend, not dragged down by a woman who can't rise above that inner voice she has been trained to think of as the Keeper of Earth. Luet would have been wrong for me. I would have been wrong for her.

I would have been wrong for her. It was when that thought crossed his mind that finally the truthsense within him gave him a sense of calm. He was right, finally, in the eyes of the Keeper.

This was the most devastating realization of all: If the Keeper turned out to exist after all, he had judged Mon and found him unworthy to have the love of the woman he once wanted. But Mon couldn't escape the nagging doubt that if he hadn't been caught up in these plans of Akma's, things might have worked out differently. Would it have been so. terrible to keep believing in the Keeper and to have jAiet as my wife and live on in peace? Why couldn't Akma just leave me alone?

He drove these disloyal thoughts out of his mind, and said nothing of his feelings to anyone.

TEN - ANCIENT WAYS

Akma looked for Bego all morning, but couldn't find him. He needed Bego's advice; the king had summoned him, and Akma had no idea what he might face. If he were to be charged with a crime, would Motiak call him into his private chamber like this? Akma needed counsel, and the only ones who could give it knew less than he did. Well, Aronha actually knew more about the running of the kingdom- knew more than anybody, since he had been training his whole life for it. But all Aronha could tell him was that he didn't think Akma was in any danger. "Father isn't the kind to bring you into chambers to charge you with a crime. He does things like that in the open, using normal process. It's got to be about the decree you suggested to Edhadeya last night."

"I didn't need you to tell me that" said Akma. "I hoped I wouldn't have to go in cold and deal with something."

"Oh, just admit it that you're scared," said Khimin. "You know you've been bad, and the king has got to be angry enough to tear you to bits if he weren't such a kind benevolent despot." In recent weeks, Khimin had discovered in the ancient records that the city of Basilica had been governed by an elected council, and now he was constantly suggesting that the monarchy be abolished. No one paid any attention to him.