"How can I answer his lies? How can I stop people from believing him?"

"You're already doing it. You teach. You speak wherever you can. You refuse to tolerate it when others echo these vile things in your presence."

"I hate him!" Edhadeya said, her voice rough with emotion. "I will never forgive him, Shedemei. The Keeper tells us to forgive our enemies but I won't. If that makes me evil also, then I'm evil, but I will hate him forever for what he did tonight."

One of the students, confused, said, "But he didn't actually do anything, did he? He only talked."

Shedemei, still holding Edhadeya close to her, said, "If I point to a man walking down the street, and I scream to everyone, ‘There he is, there's the man who molested my little girl! There's the man who raped and tortured and killed my daughter, I know him, that's the man!'-if I say that, and the crowd tears him to pieces, and yet I knew all along that he was not the man, that it was all a lie, was it just talk, or did I do something?"

Letting them think about this lesson, she led Edhadeya into the school to the cubicle, just like all the other cubicles, where she slept. "Don't be troubled, Edhadeya. Don't let this tear you apart."

"I hate him," she muttered again.

"Now that the others can't hear, let me insist that you face the truth of your own heart. The reason you're so angry, the reason you feel so betrayed that you can't control your emotions, they burst your dignity, they make you almost crazy with grief-the reason for that, my dear friend, my fellow teacher, my daughter, my sister, is that you still love him and that is what you can't forgive."

"I don't love him," said Edhadeya. "That's a terrible thing to accuse me of."

"Cry yourself to sleep, Dedaya. You have classes to teach in the morning. And I'll need a lot of other help from you as well. Tonight you can grieve and brood and curse and rage until you wear yourself out. But we all need you to be useful after that."

In the morning, Edhadeya was useful indeed, calm and hardworking, wise and compassionate as always. But Shedemei could see that the turmoil had not subsided in her heart. You were named well, she thought-named for Eiadh, who made the tragic error of loving Ele-mak. But you haven't made all of Eiadh's mistakes. You have been constant of heart, where Eiadh kept deciding she loved Nafai more. And you may have chosen more wisely in the first place, because it's not yet altogether certain whether Akma really is as single-minded in his pride as Elemak was. Elemak had proof after proof of the power of the Oversoul and then of the Keeper of Earth, and still defied them and hated all they were trying to do. But Akma has never knowingly had any experience with the Keeper's power-that's an advantage that Akmaro and Chebeya, Edhadeya and Luet, Didul and even I have over him. So it just may be, poor Edhadeya, that you have not bestowed your heart as tragically and foolishly as Eiadh did. Then again, it may turn out that you did even worse.

ELEVEN - DEFEAT

Dudagu didn't want her husband to go. "I hate it when you're gone for so many days."

"I'm sorry, but no matter how ill you are right now, I'm still the king," said Motiak.

"That's right, so you have people to find out things and report to you and you don't have to go and see for yourself!"

"I'm king of the earth people of Darakemba as surely as I'm king of the sky and middle people. They need to see that I don't want them to leave."

"You issued that decree, didn't you? Forbidding people to organize boycotts of the diggers?"

"Oh, yes. I decreed, and immediately Akma and the royal boys went about declaring that in compliance with the law, they no longer advocated a boycott and urged people not to stop hiring diggers or buying goods made by diggers. Thus I can't arrest them while their boycott message is still being spread by their pretence of discontinuing it."

"I still think you should make them come home and stop letting them speak."

"It wouldn't change the fact that people know what they believe, what they want. Believe it or not, Dudagu, despite your high opinion of my powers, I'm helpless."

"Punish them if they boycott the diggers! Confiscate their property! Cut off a ringer!"

"And how would I prove that they're boycotting? All they have to say is, ‘I was never satisfied with his work and so I hire other people now. It has nothing to do with what species he belongs to-don't I have the freedom to decide whom to hire?' Sometimes it might even be true. Should I punish them then?"

Dudagu thought about this for a few moments. "Well, then, if the diggers are leaving, let them go! If they all leave, then the problem is solved."

Motiak looked at her in silence until she finally realized something was wrong and looked at him and saw the cold rage in his face.

She gasped. "Did I say something wrong?"

"When someone in my kingdom decides that some of my citizens are not welcome, and drives them out against my will, don't you dare to tell me that once they're all gone, the problem is solved. Every earth person who leaves Darakemba makes this nation that much more evil and I'm beginning to hate being their king."

"I don't like the sound of that," she said. "You wouldn't do anything stupid like abdicating, would you?"

"And put Aronha in charge years ahead of schedule? Watch as he re-establishes this Ancient Ways abomination as the official religion of the empire? I wouldn't give him the satisfaction. No, I'll be king until the last breath is dragged out of my body. I only hope that I have the strength never to hope that all my sons die before me."

Dudagu fairly flew off the bed, to stand before him in tiny, majestic rage. "Don't you ever say such a monstrous thing again! Three of them aren't my sons, I know that, and I know they hate me and think I'm useless but they're still your sons, and that's still more sacred than anything else in the world, and no decent man would ever wish his sons to die before him even if he is the king and they are wretched traitorous snots like my Khimin turned out to be." She burst into tears.

He led her back to her bed. "Come on, I didn't mean it, I was just angry."

"So was I, only I was right to be angry.," she said, "That's true, you were, and I apologize. I didn't mean it."

"Please don't go."

"I will go, because it's the right thing to do. And you will stop pestering me about it, because I shouldn't have to feel guilty about doing my duty as king."

"I won't sleep while you're gone. You'll be lucky if I'm not dead of weakness and exhaustion when you return."

"Three days? Try to stay alive for three days."

"You don't take my sickness seriously at all, Tidaka," she said.

"I take it seriously," said Motiak, "but I never have and never will let it stop me from doing my duty. It's one of the tragedies of royal life, Dudagu. If you died while I was away, doing my duty, I would grieve. But if I failed in my duty because you were dying, I would be ashamed. For my kingdom's sake, I would rather have my people grieve with me than have my people ashamed of me."

"You have no heart," she said.

"No, I have a heart," said Motiak. "I just can't always do what it tells me to do."

"I'll hate you forever. I'll never forgive you."

"But I'll love jyow," he answered mildly. And then, when the door was closed behind him and she couldn't hear, he muttered, "I might even forgive you for making my home life so ... unrestful."

He left his house in the company of two captains-as tradition required, one was an angel, the other a human. Outside, spies and soldiers were ready-only a dozen spies and thirty soldiers, but it was best to be prepared. In these tumultuous times, one never knew when a party of Elemaki might penetrate deeply into Darakemba. And before the journey was done, they would be far upriver, much closer to the border.