Inside the hut, as Akma helped fill their traveling bags with the food they would need to carry and the spare clothing and tools and ropes they'd need, Mother spoke to him. "It wasn't Didul, you know. He didn't choose to have the dream, and your father didn't choose to hear it from him. It was the Keeper."
"I know," said Akma.
"It's the Keeper trying to teach you to accept her gifts no matter whom she chooses to give them through. It's the Keeper who wants you to forgive. They're not the same boys they were when they tormented you. They've asked for your forgiveness."
Akma paused in his work and looked her in the eye. Without rancor-without any kind of readable expression-he said, "They've asked, but I refuse."
"I think it's beneath you now, Akma. I could understand it at first. The hurt was still fresh."
"You don't understand," said Akma.
"I know I don't. That's why I'm begging you to explain it to me."
"I didn't forgive them. There was nothing to forgive."
"What do you mean?"
"They were doing as their father taught them. I was doing as my father taught me. That's all. Children are nothing but tools of their parents."
"That's a terrible thing to say."
"It's a terrible thing. But the day will come when I'm no longer a child, Mother. And on that day I'll be no man's tool."
"Akma, it poisons you to hold all this hatred in your heart. Your father teaches people to forgive and to abandon hate and-"
"Hate kept me going when love failed me," said Akma. "Do you think I'm going to give it up now?"
"I think you'd better," said Chebeya. "Before it destroys you."
"Is that a threat? Will the Keeper strike me down?"
"I didn't say before it kills you. You can be ruined as a person long before your body is ready to be put into the ground."
"You and Father can think of me however you like," said Akma. "Ruined, destroyed, whatever. I don't care."
"I don't think you're ruined," said Chebeya.
Luet piped up. "He's not bad, Mother. You and Father shouldn't talk about him as if he's bad."
Chebeya was shocked. "We've never said he was bad, Luet! Why would you say such a thing?"
Akma laughed lightly. "Luet doesn't have to hear you use the word to know the truth. Don't you understand her gifts yet? Or hasn't the Keeper given you a dream about it?"
"Akma, don't you realize it isn't your father or me that you're fighting? It's the Keeper!"
"I don't care if it's the whole world and everything in it, on it, and above it. I ... will... not... bend." And, obviously aware that it was a very dramatic thing to say-and faintly ridiculous coming from one so young-Akma shouldered his burden and left the hut.
There was no light but moonlight as they left the land that, for this short time they had made bountiful with good harvests. No one looked back. There was no sound of alarm behind them. Their flocks of turkeys and goats were not quiet; they talked sometimes among themselves; but no one heard.
And when they crested the last hill before being truly out of the land they knew, there, waiting for them in the shadow of the pine forest, stood the Pabulogi. Akmaro embraced them; they laughed and cried and embraced others, men and women. Then Akmaro hurried them and they all moved out together.
They camped in a side valley, and there they laughed and sang songs together and rejoiced because the Keeper had delivered them from bondage. But in the midst of their celebration, Akmaro made them break camp and flee again, up the valley into unknown paths, because Pabulog had arrived and found the guards asleep, and now an army was chasing them.
Following uncharted paths was dangerous, especially this time of year. Who knew which valleys would be deep in snow, and which dry? The thousands of valleys all had different weathers and climates, it seemed, depending on the flow of winds moist and dry, cold and hot. But this path was warm enough, considering the elevation, and dry enough, but with water for their herds. And eleven days later they came down out of the mountains from a small valley that was not even guarded, because no Elemaki raiders ever came that way. The next afternoon they stood across the river, and despite the instructions of the priests Akmaro would not let his people enter the water.
"They have already been made new men and women," said Akmaro.
"But not by the authority of the king," said the priests who argued with him.
"I know that," said Akmaro. "It was by the authority of the Keeper of Earth, who is greater than any king."
"Then it will be an act of war if you cross this water," said the priest.
"Then we will never cross it, because we mean no harm to anyone."
Finally Motiak himself came out and crossed the bridge to speak to Akmaro. They stood face to face for a moment, and people on both sides of the water watched to see how the king would put this upstart stranger in his place. To their surprise, Motiak embraced Akmaro, and embraced his wife, and took his son and daughter by the hand, and led the children first, the adults following, across the bridge. None of them touched the water of the Tsidorek that day, and Motiak proclaimed that these were true citizens of Darakemba, for they had already been made new men and women by the Keeper of Earth.
The sun had not yet set on that day when Ilihi came to greet Akmaro, it was a joyful reunion, and they told each other stories of their lives since parting until into the night. In later days many of the people of the land of Khideo made the journey to Darakemba to greet old friends and, sometimes, kinfolk who had left Zinom to follow Akmaro into the wilderness.
Nor was this the last of the reconciliations. Motiak sent out a proclamation for the people of Darakemba to gather in the great open place beside the river. There he caused that his clerks read out to the people the story of the Zenifi, and then the story of the Akmari, and all the people were amazed at how the Keeper had intervened to preserve them. Then the sons of Pabulog came forth and asked for Akmaro to take them down into the water. This time when they emerged they explicitly rejected their old identities. "We are no longer Pabulogi," said Pabul, and his brothers echoed him. "We are Nafari now, and our only father is the Keeper of Earth. We will look to Akmaro and Motiak to be our ur-fathers; but we ask for no inheritance beyond that of the simplest citizen of Darakemba."
Now, when the people of Darakemba had gathered, they assembled themselves as they always had, the descendants of the original Darakembi on the king's left, and the descendants of the original Nafari on the king's right. And within those groups, they subdivided further, for the Nafari still remembered which of them, reckoning by the father's line, were Issibi, and which Oykibi, and which Yasoi, and which Zdorabi. And in both groups, sky people and middle people gathered separately in their clans; and at the back, the few diggers who were free citizens.
When the reading of the histories was finished, Motiak arose and said, "No one can doubt that the hand of the Keeper has been manifest in the things we have seen and heard. For the last few days I have spent every waking hour in the company of Akmaro and Chebeya, two great teachers that the Keeper has sent to us to help us learn how to be worthy guardians of the land the Keeper has given us. Now he will speak to you, with greater authority than any king."
The people whispered to each other because the king had said such an astonishing thing. Then they listened as Akmaro spoke, moving from group to group among them; and other men and women from the Akmari went from group to group, each one teaching a part of the message that the Keeper had sent through Binaro so many years before, the message Binaro had died for. Not all believed in everything they were told, and some of the ideas were shocking, for Akmaro spoke of diggers and angels and humans being brothers and sisters. But no one dared speak in opposition to him, for he had the friendship of the king-and many of the people, perhaps most of them, especially among the poor, believed in what he said with their whole hearts.