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Nafai stopped across a fairly wide street from what might be the largest house in Basilica. He knew it well enough, since the head of the Palwashantu clan was mated with the woman who lived there. Nafai couldn't remember her name-she was nobody, everyone knew she had bought the ancient house with her mate's money, and if she didn't renew his contract then even with the house she'd be nobody-but he was Gaballufix. There was a family co
As he stood there, stupidly watching the front of that landmark building, he suddenly came alert, for without meaning to he had recognized someone moving along the street. Elemak should have been home sleeping-he had traveled all night, hadn't he? Yet here he was, in mid-afternoon. For a panicked moment Nafai wondered if Elya was looking for him- was it possible that Mother had missed him and worried and now the whole family, perhaps even Father's employees as well, were combing the city looking for him?
But no. Elemak wasn't looking for anybody. He was moving too casually, too easily. Looking in no particular direction at all.
And then he was gone.
No, he had turned down into the gap between Cabal-Infix's house and the building next door. So he did have a destination.
Nafai had to know what Elemak was doiog. He trotted along the street to where he had a clear view down the narrow road. He got there in time to see Elemak ducking into a low alky doorway into Gaballufix's house.
Nafai couldn't imagine what business Elya might have with Gaballufix-especially something so urgent that he had to go to his house the same day he got back from a long trip. True, Gaballufix was technically Elya's half-brother, but there were sixteen years between them and Gaballufix had never openly recognized Elya as his brother. That didn't mean, though, that they couldn't start behaving more like close kinsmen now. Still, it bothered Nafai that Elemak had never mentioned it and seemed to be concealing it now.
Whether the question bothered him or not, Nafai knew that it would be a very bad idea to ask Elemak about it directly. When Elya wanted anybody to know what he was doing with Gaballufix, he'd tell them. In the meantime, the secret would be safe inside Elya's head.
A secret inside somebody's head.
Luet had known that Nafai was in love with Eiadh.
Well, it wasn't all that secret-Luet might have guessed it from the way that he looked at her. But there on the front porch of Mother's house, Luet had said, "Tou're the bastard," as if she were answering him for calling her a bastard. Only he hadn't said anything. He had only thought of her as a bastard. It wasn't an opinion he had expressed before. He had only thought of it at that moment, because he was a
Was that the Oversoul, too? Not just putting ideas into people's heads, but also taking them out and telling them to other people? The Oversoul wasn't just a provider of strange dreams-it was a spy and a gossip as well.
It made Nafai afraid, to think that not only was the Oversoul real, but also that it had the power to read his most secret, transitory thoughts and tell them to someone else. And to someone as repulsive as the little bastard witchgirl, no less.
It frightened him like the first time he went out into the sea by himself. Father had taken them all on a holiday, down to the beach. The first afternoon there, they had all gone out into the sea together, and surrounded by his father and brothers-except Issib, of course, who watched them from his chair on the beach-he had felt the sea play with him, the waves shoving him toward shore, then trying to draw him out again. It was fun, exhilarating. He even dared to swim out to where his feet couldn't quite touch the bottom, all the while playing with Meb and Elya and Father. A good day, a great day, when his older brothers still liked him. But the next morning he got up-early, left the tent and went out to the water alone. He could swim like a fish; he was in no danger. And yet as he walked out into the water he felt an inexplicable unease. The water tugging at him, pushing him; he was only a few meters from shore, and yet with no one else in the water, all by himself, he felt as if he had lost his place, as if he had already been washed out to sea, as if he were caught in the grasp of something so huge that any part of it could swallow him up. He panicked then. He ran to shore, struggling against the water, convinced that it would never let him go, dragging at him, sucking him down. And then he was on the sand, on the dry sand above the tide line, and he fell to his knees and wept because he was safe.
But for those few moments out in the water he had felt the terror of knowing how small and helpless he was, how much power there was in the world, and how easily it could do to him whatever it wanted and there was nothing he could do to resist it.
That was the fear he felt now. Not so strong, not so specific as it had been that day on the beach-but then, he wasn't a five-year-old anymore, either, and he was better at dealing with fear. The Oversoul wasn't an old legend, it was alive, and it could force visions into his own parents' minds and it could search out secrets inside Nafai's head and tell them to other people, to people that Nafai didn't like and who didn't like him.
The worst thing was knowing that the reason why Luet didn't like him was probably became of what the Oversoul had told her about his thoughts. His most private thoughts exposed to this unsympathetic little monster. What next? Would Father's next vision be Nafai's fantasies about Eiadh? Worse yet, would Mother be shown?
On the beach, he had been able to run for shore. Where did you run to get away from the Oversoul?
You didn't. You couldn't hide, either-how could you disguise your own thoughts so even you didn't know what you were thinking?
The only choice he had was to try to find out what the Oversoul was, to try to understand what it wanted, what it was trying to do to his family, to him. He had to understand the Oversoul and, if possible, get it to leave him alone.
FOUR - MASKS
There would be no point in going back to Mother's house so late in the school day. Explaining himself would probably take up what little time was left. Making excuses could wait until tomorrow.
Or maybe Nafai would never go back. There was a thought. After all, Mebbekew didn't go to school. In fact he didn't do anything, didn't even come home if he decided not to.
When had that started? Was Meb already doing that sort of thing at fourteen? Well, whether he was or not, Nafai could start now and who was going to stop him? He was as tall as any man, and he was old enough for a man's trade. Not Father's trade, though-never the plant business. If you followed that trade long enough, you started seeing visions in the dark beside desert roads.
But there were other trades. Maybe Nafai could apprentice himself to some artist. A poet, or a singer- Nafai's voice was young, but he could follow a tune, and with training maybe he could actually become good. Or maybe he was really a dancer, or an actor, in spite of Mother's joke this morning. Those arts had nothing to do with going to school-if he was supposed to pursue one, then staying on with Mother was a waste of time.