"Not stop," said Mon. "No, that's not right, we're not supposed to stop."
"What then?" asked Bego.
Mon shrugged. So did Edhadeya.
Then Bego began to laugh. "Come on, children, come with me. Let's go wake up your father."
An hour later, the four of them gathered around the Index. Mon and Edhadeya had both seen drawings of it, but never had they seen the thing itself, or watched it being used. Motiak held it in his hands and looked down into the top of it. Nearby, the first of the gold leaves lay alone on the table.
"Are you ready?" he asked.
Bego had his stylus and a pile of blank waxed barks at the other end of the table. "Yes, Motiak."
With that, Motiak began to translate, glancing at the gold leaf, then at the Index, reading out a phrase at a time.
It took hours. Mon and Edhadeya were asleep long before he finished. When at last the work was done, it was earliest dawn, and Bego and Motiak both arose from the table to walk to the window to watch the sun rise.
"I don't understand why this is important to us," said Motiak.
"I can think of two reasons," said Bego.
"Well, of course, the obvious one," said Motiak. "To warn us that people can be brought to Earth by the Keeper, and yet be such miserable specimens of humanity that he has no more use for them and allows them to wipe each other out."
"Ah, but why were they unacceptable?" asked Bego. "I think the priests will have a wonderful time reasoning out the moral lessons from this book."
"Oh, I'm quite sure, quite," said Motiak. "But what was the other reason, my friend?"
"Do you really believe, Motiak, that the armies of Coriantumr and Shiz were so perfectly loyal and disciplined that not one of them deserted and slipped away into the mountains?"
Motiak nodded. "Good point. We've always assumed that the humans that we've found with every major settlement of earth people and sky people were descendants of people who slipped away from the Nafari and the Elemaki. Traders, explorers, misfits-dozens left in the first few generations, then hundreds. Of course, we've never found a settlement where the humans spoke anything but our language."
"Forgive me, Motiak, but that's not strictly speaking correct."
"No?" asked Motiak. "Certainly we've never run into this language before."
"That's right," said Bego. "But there were many places where the humans spoke only skyspeech or earthspeech. They had to learn mid-dlespeech as adults."
"And here we always thought that they were simply Elemaki who were so ignorant and degenerate that they had lost all knowledge of their ancestral language."
"Well, they had" said Bego. "But their ancestral language wasn't middlespeech."
Motiak nodded. "The whole history is very disturbing. If there's one thing that's clear, both from this history and the miserable things that happened to the Zenifi, it's that when nations have monstrously ambitious kings, the people suffer dreadfully."
"And they're blessed by having good kings," Bego reminded him. "I'm sure you're even more sincere than dutiful," said Motiak wryly. "But maybe it's time for me to learn the same lesson Ilihiak learned."
"What, let the people vote on who should be king?"
"No. Not have a king at all. Abolish the whole idea of any one person having such power."
"What, then? Break up the great kingdom that your father and you created? There has never been such peace and prosperity."
"And what if Aronha should be as vicious as Nuab? As blindly ambitious as Coriantumr? As treacherous as Shiz?"
"If you think so, you don't know Aronha," said Bego. "I'm not saying him in particular,"said Motiak. "But did Zenifab know that his boy Nuaha would be as nasty as he became when he ascended to the exalted name of Nuak? From what Ilihiak told me, Nuak began as a good king."
"Nothing would be gained by letting the kingdom collapse into dozens of squabbling lesser kingdoms. Then the Elemaki would be a terrible threat to us again, as they were in the old days, pouring out of the mountains and down the Tsidorek or out of the high valleys... ."
"You don't have to remind me," said Motiak. "I'm just trying to think of what the Keeper wants me to do."
"Are you sure the Keeper has any plan at all in mind?" asked Bego.
Motiak looked at his librarian curiously. "He sends dreams to my daughter. He sends dreams to Ilihiak's spies. He sets a test for you and Mon-which you passed, I thank you-and then gives us the translation whole, in a single night. Oh, we must remember to invite Ilihiak to read it, once you have it copied in a more permanent form."
Bego nodded. "I'll have that seen to at once."
"No, no, sleep first."
"I'll set the copyists to work before I sleep. I won't have stayed up all night only to nap now."
Motiak shrugged. "Whatever. If you feel up to it. I'm going to sleep. And ponder, Bego. Ponder what it is the Keeper of Earth wants me to do."
"I wish you well," said Bego. "But ponder this, too: What if the Keeper wants you to keep doing just as you're doing? What if you were given this record to reassure you that you're doing perfectly as king, compared to the kings of the Rasulum?"
Motiak laughed. "Yes, well, I won't do anything rash. I won't abdicate yet. How's that for a promise?"
"Very reassuring, Motiak," said Bego.
"Just remember this, my friend. There were good kings among the Rasulum, too. But all it took was a bad king or two, and all their great works became nothing."
"They were nomads," said Bego. "They built nothing."
"Oh, and because we have our edifices of stone, our platforms built to raise our homes above the high waters of flood season, because of that our nations can't possibly come crashing down around us?"
"I suppose all things are possible," said Bego.
"All things but the one you're thinking," said Motiak.
"And what is that?" The librarian seemed a bit testy-at Motiak's blithe assumption that he could read the old angel's mind? Or because he feared that Motiak had actually read it?
"You're thinking that perhaps the Keeper didn't know what the record said until it was translated."
"I couldn't possibly think that," said Bego, his icy tone confirming to Motiak that his guess was exactly right.
"Perhaps you're thinking that the Oversoul is, as the oldest records imply, merely a machine that performs such complex operations that it seems like the subtlest of living thought. Perhaps you're thinking that the Oversoul became curious about what was written on these records but couldn't crack the language until Mon's intuition and your hard work combined to give the Oversoul enough to work with. Perhaps you're thinking that none of this actually requires us to believe in the Keeper of Earth at all-only in the ancient machinery of the Oversoul."
Bego smiled grimly. "You didn't read this in my mind, Motiak. You guessed this because it's a thought that occurred to you yourself."
"It did," said Motiak. "But I remembered something else. The Heroes who knew the Oversoul intimately still believed in the Keeper of Earth. And anyway, Bego, how do you explain Mon's ability to sense what's right and what's not? How do you explain Edhadeya's dreams?"
"I don't have to believe in the Keeper of Earth to believe in the great intuitive abilities of your son and daughter."
Motiak looked at Bego gravely. "Be careful whom you speak to about these thoughts."
"I'm aware of the laws concerning heresy and treason. But if you think about it, Motiak, such laws would never have been necessary if people hadn't thought these thoughts before, and said them out loud."
"Our question should not be, Does the Keeper of Earth exist? Our question should be, What is the Keeper of Earth trying to accomplish by bringing my ancestors to this world and placing us in the midst of your people and the earth people? What is the Keeper trying to build, and how can we help?"