Khimin, being young, fumbled a little with his speech, but the audience seemed to find his mistakes endearing. He had been relegated merely to affirming his agreement with all that his brothers had said and then announcing that as soon as the Assembly was well organized in Darakemba, Akma and the sons of Motiak would be traveling to every major city in every province to speak to the people there and organize the Ancient Ways wherever they were invited to do so. Unfortunately, they had no money of their own, and it wouldn't be right to use their fathers' wealth to sustain a religion that they didn't approve of, so Khimin and his brothers and their friend Akma would be dependent upon the hospitality of others in those faraway places.
Shedemei wondered whether they would live long enough to stay a night in every house that would be pathetically eager to take them in. Rich families that would never give a flatcake to a beggar would plead for the chance to show generosity to these boys who had never known a day of want in their lives.
And learned nothing from it, Shedemei said silently.
Among them, the four sons of Motiak had taken only half an hour. It was plain when Akma rose to speak that the people had no idea of what to expect from him. The sons of the king were celebrities; but Akma was the son of Akmaro, and the rumors about him had been mostly negative. Some disliked him because they resented his father's religious reforms. Some disliked him because he had repudiated his father's life's work-which the sons of Motiak had not done, even reaffirming their absolute loyalty to their father's kingship. Others disliked him because he was a scholar and reputed to be one of the most brilliant minds that frequented the library in the king's house-there was a natural suspicion of those with too much book-learning. And others didn't want to like him because they had heard he didn't believe in the Keeper of Earth, which was an absurd position for someone to take when he was about to start a new religion.
Akma surprised them. He surprised Shedemei, for that matter, and she had known from the Oversoul exactly what he planned to say. What Shedemei wasn't prepared for was the vigor in his way of speaking, the excitement in his voice. Yet he used no extravagant gestures, merely looked out into the audience with such piercing intensity that everyone felt, at one time or another, that Akma was looking right at them, talking straight to them, that he knew their heart.
Even Shedemei felt his gaze on her when he said, "Some of you have heard that I don't believe in the Keeper of Earth. I'm glad to tell you that this is not true. I don't believe in the Keeper the way some have talked about him-that primitive idea of an entity who sends dreams to certain people but not to others, playing favorites with the men and women of the world. I don't believe in a being who makes plans for us and gets angry when we don't carry them out, who rejects some people because they don't obey him quickly enough or don't love their enemies better than they love their friends. I don't believe in some all-knowing being who made humans and angels into lovers of light and air, and then demanded that they live nose-to-tail with tunnel-dwelling creatures of grime and muck-surely this Keeper of Earth could do a better job of planning than that!"
They laughed. They loved it. A little abuse of the diggers-that proved his religion was going to be Just Fine.
"No, the Keeper of Earth that I believe in is the great force of life that dwells in all things. When the rain falls, that is the Keeper of Earth. When the wind blows, when the sun shines, when maize and potatoes grow, when water flows clear over the rocks, when fish leap into the net, when babies cry out their first joyful song of life-that is the Keeper of Earth that I believe in! The natural order of things, the laws of nature-you don't have to think about them to obey them! You don't have to have special dreamers who will tell you what the Keeper wants you to do. The Keeper wants you to eat-you know that because you're hungry! The Keeper wants you to laugh-you know that because you enjoy laughing! The Keeper wants you to have babies-you know that because you not only love these little ones, you even love the way you go about getting them! The messages of the Keeper of Earth come to everyone, and except for the sweet and ancient stories and rituals that bind us together as a people, there is nothing for us to teach you that you don't learn just as well by simply being alive!"
Shedemei tried desperately to think of retorts for all the things he said, the way she had done with the sons of Motiak, but she found the spell of his voice so compelling that she couldn't answer. He owned her mind as long as he chose to speak to her. She knew that she didn't believe him; she just couldn't remember, for the moment, why.
He went on and on, but his speech didn't seem long. Every word was fascinating, moving, funny, joyful, wise-you dared not miss any of it. Never mind that Shedemei knew that he was lying, that even he did not believe half of what he said. It was still beautiful; it was still music; the rhapsody of his words swept the people with it like a current in the icy water of Tsidorek, numbing them even as it moved them.
She only won her freedom from the magic of his speech when, near the end, he proposed his ultimate solution to the problem of the diggers. "We have all been sickened by the acts of wanton cruelty over the past months," said Akma. "Every such action was against the laws that already existed, and we are glad that our wise king has made the laws even stronger by forbidding any persecution of people because of their religious beliefs. Nevertheless, there would have been no persecution if there had been no diggers living unnaturally among the men and women of Darakemba."
There it was-the moment when Shedemei recoiled from his words and stopped finding his voice beautiful. But the others around her were not so clear minded, and she had to nudge the other teachers from her school and glare at them to make sure they knew that they should not believe what he was saying now.
"Is it the diggers' fault that they are here? It was .certainly never their intention! Some of them have lived in this area since the ancient days when diggers and angels always lived near each other-so that diggers could steal the children of angels and eat them in their dank warrens. One can hardly list that as a qualification for citizenship! Most diggers that live in Darakemba, however, are here because they or their parents took part in a raiding party on the borders of our land, trying to steal from hardworking men and women the fruits of their labors. Either they were captured in bloody battle or were taken when a retaliatory raid captured a digger village; then they were brought here as slaves. That was a mistake! That was wrong! Not because the diggers are not suited to slavery-by nature they are slaves, and that is how the rulers of the Elemaki treat them all. No, our mistake was that even as slaves, even as trophies of victory, it was wrong to bring diggers into a nation of people, where some would be deceived. Yes, some would think that because the diggers were capable of a kind of speech, they were therefore capable of thinking like, feeling like, acting like people. But we must not be deceived. Our eyes can tell us that these are lies. What human hasn't rejoiced to see an angel in flight or hear the eveningsong of our brothers and sisters! What angel has not delighted in the learning that the humans brought with them, the powerful tools that can be shaped and wielded by strong human arms! We can live together, help each other-though I am not saying that our brothers in Khideo may not continue to deprive themselves of the good company of the sky people if they so choose."