Ebneh pushed me away from the student. "Do you know what you will suffer because of your words?"
Shizumaat smiled. "Yes, Ebneh. I know the rules."
"You know them, yet you scorn them?"
"I question them; I question their source; I question their validity. I know the servants will beat me for what I have said; but I ask you this: will beating me prove the existence of Aakva and the truth of its laws?"
Ebneh did not answer.
In the morning, with the Parent of All illuminating the eastern columns of the temple, I climbed the steps and found Shizumaat kneeling between the columns, facing Aakva.
Shizumaat’s face rested against the paving stones. The the stones were stained with the deep yellow of the student’s blood. Shizumaat’s eyes were closed, its chest heaving. Behind Shizumaat were two servants holding whipping rods. Ebneh stood to Shizumaat’s side and spoke: "Look up, Shizumaat. Look up!"
Shizumaat placed its hands upon the blood-stained stones and pushed until it sat back upon its heels, the morning light of Aakva showing the grey of Shizumaat’s face.
"I am looking."
"What do you see?"
Shizumaat teetered for a moment, its eyes squinted, then it took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. "I see the great morning light we call Aakva."
Ebneh bent over and hissed into the student’s ear. "And is that light a god?"
"I do not know. When you say god… what do you mean?"
"God! God is god!" Ebneh grabbed Shizumaat’s shoulder with one hand and pointed at Aakva with the other. "Is that the Parent of All?"
Shizumaat’s shoulders slumped and it slowly shook its head. "I do not know."
"What does your back tell you, Shizumaat?"
"My back tells me many things, Ebneh. It tells me that you are displeased with me; it tells me that live meat whipped with sufficient enthusiasm will split and bleed; it tells me that the process is painful." Shizumaat looked up at Ebneh. "It does not tell me that Aakva is a god; it does not tell me that the laws of the servants are sacred truths."
Ebneh pointed at the two rod-carrying servants. "Lay into this one until its back does speak truth to it!"
One of the servants turned and walked into the temple. The other studied Shizumaat for a moment and then handed its rod to Ebneh. "Shizumaat’s back has learned all that a rod can teach it. Perhaps you can think of a more persuasive argument." Then the second servant turned and went into the temple.
Ebneh stared after the departing servant, then threw away the rod and looked down at Shizumaat. "Why do you defy Aakva?"
"I do not. I only tell the truth that I see. Would you prefer that I lie to you? Would that serve your truth?"
Ebneh shook its head. "You will shame your parent."
"My parent’s ignorance is not evidence of a god, Ebneh."
Shizumaat bowed its head until Ebneh turned and walked into the temple. Then Shizumaat looked up at me. "Namndas, help me to your room. I cannot make it by myself."
I pulled the student to its feet. "Do you not want me to take you to your own home?"
Shizumaat laughed. "A beating in defense of my understanding of truth is one thing, Namndas. I am not up to my parent beating me because I was beaten. That seems somehow to be taking the gesture past integrity into foolishness."
Shizumaat closed its eyes and slumped into my arms. I lifted it and carried the student from the temple to my room off the square-
Nicole turned off the player.
…taking the gesture past integrity into foolishness.
She thought to herself: Will I serve my purpose by not accepting Tora Soam’s offer? Will I shorten the war? Will I do anything more than inflict an additional burden on vemadah such as Tokyo Rose? Am I being stubborn for the sake of some abstract-
"Well?"
Nicole jumped at the sound of the voice. It was Tora Soam’s. "I thought… you had gone."
"Obviously you were in error. What is your decision?"
Nicole thought for a moment, then nodded. "I will come to stay at your estate, Tora Soam."
"Emmmm. There is a saying-no one knows the author’s name. But it observes that telling a human that his clothing is on fire takes a sharp stick, a large mirror, and a loud voice." Tora Soam paused for a moment. "It is just possible that the stick is unnecessary. Until you are well, then, Joanne Nicole."
Its footsteps left the doorway and faded down the corridor. Nicole sat silently for a moment, then punched at the player, continuing with a random portion of the Koda Nuvida.
That night, first I noticed that the temple lights had not all been raised to the proper height. Then I saw young Shizumaat, its face upraised, dancing in slow whorls upon Uhe’s Tomb!
I rushed to the center of the temple and came to a stop with my hands upon the stone cover of the vault. "Shizumaat! Shizumaat, come down! Come down or I will execute you before the servants can get at you with their rods!"
Shizumaat stopped its dance and looked down at me. "Namndas, come up here and join me. I have the most wonderful thing to show you."
"You would have me dance upon Uhe’s grave?"
"Come up here, Namndas."
Shizumaat returned to its whirling, and I grabbed the edge of the cover and pulled myself up, swearing to break Shizumaat into three hundred pieces. Once I stood, Shizumaat pointed toward the ceiling.
"Look up, Namndas."
The force in its words compelled me to look up, and what I saw was the disarray of temple lights. Their heights were arranged so that the lights were equally distant from a point just above the tomb, forming a hemisphere. And not all of the lamps were lit.
"Shizumaat, we will both be driven from the temple for this night’s work."
"Don’t you see it? Look up, Namndas! Don’t you see it?"
"See what?"
"Dance, Namndas. Dance! Turn to your right."
I turned, saw the lights whirl about me, then I stopped and faced my charge. "Shizumaat! This only makes my head swim! We must climb down from-"
"Aaah!" Shizumaat jumped from the tomb and hit the stone floor. running toward the eastern wall. I jumped and ran after.
When I reached the great stairs, Shizumaat was standing far into the dark center of the city square. I ran down the stairs, across the square, and stopped in the center as I angrily grabbed Shizumaat’s left arm. "I shall gladly take a rod and do the servants' work for them, you crazy-"
"Look up, Namndas! Curse your thick skull! Look up!"
Still holding onto its arm, I looked up. What I saw were Aakva’s children arranged in a pattern similar to the pattern of the temple’s lights, but tilted toward the blue light of The Child That Never Moves.
"You have reproduced the arrangement of the night sky."
"Yes-"
"But this will not save your skin, Shizu-"
Shizumaat pointed toward the speck of blue light.
"Turn your face toward The Child That Never Moves. Then, Namndas, turn slowly to your right."
I did so. The implications of what I saw turned my legs to water, and I sat with a thump upon the packed soil of the square. I put out my hands and touched the unyielding soil. "It cannot be!"
Shizumaat squatted next to me. "Then you have seen it, too!"
I nodded. "Yes, I have seen it."
With the morning’s light, the servants of Aakva found both of us dancing upon Uhe’s tomb…