The first man to pass through the water," said a woman.
"The man who passes through the waters of women," said another.
Luet explained to him, seeming a little embarrassed. "Famous prophecies," she said. "There are so many of them, it's hard not to fulfil one now and then."
He smiled. He knew that she took the prophecies much more seriously than she pretended. And so did he.
He noticed that no one asked her what had happened on the water; no one asked whether she had seen a vision. But they lingered, waiting, until finally she said, "The Oversoul gave me comfort, and it was enough." They drifted away then, most of them, though a few looked at Nafai until he shook his head.
"We're through the easy part now," she said.
He thought she was joking, but then she led him through the Private Gate, a legendary gap in the red wall that he had only half-believed was real. It was a curving passageway between a pair of massive towers, and instead of city guards, there were only women, watching. On the other side, he knew, lay Trackless Wood. Quickly he learned that it had earned its name. His face was streaked with cuts, and so was hers, and their arms and legs as well, by the time they emerged onto Forest Road.
"That way is Back Gate," said Luet. "And down any of these canyons you'll reach the desert. I don't know where you're going from there."
"That's good enough," said Nafai, "I can find my way."
Then I've done what the Oversoul sent me to do."
Nafai didn't know what to say. He didn't even know the name for what he was feeling. "I think that I don't know you," said Nafai.
She looked at him, a little perplexed
"No, that's wrong," Nafai said "I think that I didn't know you before, even though J thought I knew you, and now that I finally know you, I don't really know you at all."
She smiled. Those crossing currents do it to you every rime," she said. "Tell no one, man or woman, what you did tonight."
"I'm not sure, when I remember it, whether I'll believe that it really happened myself,"
"Will we see you again, at Aunt Rasa's house?"
"I don't know," said Nafai. "I only know this: that I don't know how I can get the Index without getting killed, and yet I have to get it."
"Wait until the Oversoul tells you what to do," said Luet, "and then do it."
He nodded. "That's fine, if the Oversoul actually tells me something."
"She will," said Luet. "When there's something to do, she'll tell you."
Then, impulsively, Luet reached out her hand and grasped his again, for just a moment. He remembered again, like an echo in his flesh, how it felt to cling to her on the lake. He was a little embarrassed now, though, and drew his hand away. She had seen him being weak. She had seen him naked.
"See?" she said. "You're forgetting already how it really was."
"No I'm not," he said.
She turned away and headed down the road toward Back Gate. He wanted to call out to her and say, You were right, I was forgetting how it really was, I was remembering it through common ordinary eyes, I was remembering it as the boy I was before, but now I remember that it wasn't me being weak or me being naked, or anything else that I should be ashamed of. It was me riding like a great hero out of prophecy across the magical lake, with you as my guide and teacher, and when we shed our clothing it wasn't a man and woman naked together, it was rather two gods out of ancient stories from faraway lands, stripping away their mortal disguises and standing revealed in their glorious immortality, ready to float over the sea of death and emerge unscathed on the other side.
But by the time he thought of all the things he wanted to say, she had disappeared around a bend.
FOURTEEN - ISSIB'S CHAIR
Nafai didn't know what to expect when he got to the rendezvous. All the way across the desert in the starlight, he kept imagining terrible things. What if none of his brothers escaped? They didn't have the help of Luet and the women of Basilica. Or what if they did escape, but the soldiers followed one of them to their hiding place, and then slaughtered them? When he got there, would he find their mutilated bodies? Or would there be soldiers lying in wait for him, to take him as he made his way down the canyon?
He paused at the top of the canyon, the place where they had stopped to cast lots early that same morning. Oversoul, he said silently, should I go down there?
The answer he got was a picture in his mind-one of Gaballufix's inhuman soldiers walking through the empty nighttime streets of Basilica. He didn't know what sense to make of this. Was the Oversoul telling him that the soldiers were all in the city? Or was Nafai seeing this vision because the Oversoul was telling him that soldiers were waiting for him in the arroyo, and his brain had simply added irrelevant details of the city to the vision?
One thing was inescapable-the sense of urgency he was getting from the Oversoul. As if there was an opportunity he could not afford to miss. Or a danger he had to avoid.
When the message is so unclear, Nafai said silently, what can I go on except for my own judgment? If my brothers are in trouble I need to know it. I cant abandon them, even if there might be danger to myself. If I'm wrong, take this thought from me.
Then he started down the arroyo. There came no stupor, no distraction. Whatever else the Oversoul was trying to tell him, it certainly didn't mind him going down to the rendezvous with his brothers.
Or else it had given up on him. But no-it had just gone to so much trouble to bring him out of the city, through the Lake of Women, the Oversoul could hardly plan to abandon him now.
It was so dark in the canyon that he ended up stumbling, sliding down, until he finally came to rest on the gravelly shelf where his brothers were supposed to be waiting.
"Nafai."
It was Issib's voice. But Nafai hardly had time to hear it before he felt a harsh blow. Someone's sandal against his face, shoving him down into the rocks.
"Fool!" shouted Elemak. "I wish they'd caught you and killed you, you little bastard!"
Another foot, from the other side, smashing into his nose. And now Mebbekew's voice. "All gone, the whole fortune, everything, because of you!"
"He didtft take it, you fools!" cried Issib. "Gaballufix stole it!"
"You shut up!" shouted Mebbekew, advancing on Issib. Nafai was at last able to see what was happening. Though his face stung from the tiny rocks embedded in the bottoms of their sandals, they really hadn't hurt him seriously. Now, though, he could see that they truly were raging. But why at Nafai?
"Rash was the one who betrayed us," said Nafai.
Immediately they turned back to him. "Is that so?" said Elemak. "Didn't I tell you that I was going to do all the talking? I could have had the Index for a quarter of what we had, but no, you had to-"
"You were giving up!" cried Nafai. "You were walking out!"
Elemak roared in fury, pulled Nafai up by the shirt, lifting him partway from the ground. "Half of bargaining is walking out, you fool! Do you think I didn't know what I was doing? I, who have bargained in foreign lands and made great profit on few goods-why couldn't you trust me to know what I was doing? All you've ever bargained for is a few stupid myachiks in the market, little boy."
"I didn't know," said Nafai.