"Don't you think it's funny, Issib? Elya can sit here and talk about Father being in danger from powerful people-and yet his solution for it isn't to denounce those dangerous people, it's to try to get Father to stop talking."
"Nobody's being rational."
"I actually do understand politics," said Nafai. "I study history all the time. I left my class behind years ago. I know something about how wars start and who wins them. And this is the stupidest plan I've ever heard. Potokgavan has no chance of holding this area and no compelling reason to try. All that will happen is they'll send an army, provoke the Gorayni into attacking, and then they'll realize they can't win and go home to their floodplain where the Wetheads can't touch them, leaving us to bear the brunt of the Gorayni wrath. Building war wagons for them is so obviously going to lead to disaster that only a person completely blinded by greed could possibly support it. And if the Oversoul is telling Father to oppose the building of wagons, then the Oversoul is right."
"I'm sure the Oversoul is relieved to have your approval."
"Anything I can do to help."
"Nafai, you're fourteen."
"So?"
"Elemak doesn't want to hear that kind of thing from you."
"Neither do you, right?"
"I'm really tired. It's been a long day." Issib floated out of the kitchen.
Nafai finally started to eat. To his disgust he had no appetite, even though he knew he was still hungry. Must eat, can't eat. Forget it. He flushed the food down the drain and put the plate in the cleaning rack.
He walked out into the courtyard, heading for his room. The night air was chilly already-they were close enough to the desert to get sharp fells in temperature when the sun was down. He was still trembling. He didn't know why. It wasn't because of Father's vision of the destruction of the world, and it wasn't because of the war that would probably come to Basilica if they went ahead with the idiotic alliance with Potokgavan. Those were dangers, yes, but distant ones. And it wasn't because of Elemak's threats of violence, he'd lived with those all his life.
It wasn't until he was lying on his mat, still shaking even though his room was not cold, that he finally realized what was bothering him. Elemak had mentioned that Gaballufix was involved in negotiating the price with the Potoku. Obviously this whole plan had Gaballufix's support-who else but the clan chief would think he could commit the Palwashantu to such a dangerous course of action without even consulting the council? And so it was reasonable to suppose that when Elya warned about the dangerous enemies Father was making, it was Gaballufix he was referring to.
Gaballufix, whose house Elemak secretly visited today.
Where was Elemak's loyalty? With Father? Or with his half-brother Gaballufix? Clearly Elya was involved with this war wagon plan. What else was he involved with? The dangerous people weren't making threats, he had said. So what were they making-plans? Was Elya in on a plan to do something ugly to Father, and his hints were an attempt to warn Father away?
Just today, Mebbekew had spoken of metaphorical patricide.
No, thought Nafai. No, I'm simply upset because all of this has happened so suddenly, in one day. Father has a vision, and suddenly he's caught up in city politics in a way he never was before, almost as if the Oversoul sent him this vision specifically because of this stupid provocative project of Gaballufix's, because action needed to be taken now.
Why? What did the fate of Basilica matter to the Oversoul? Countless cities and nations had risen and fallen-dozens every century, thousands and thousands in all of human history. Maybe millions. The Oversoul hadn't lifted a finger. It wasn't war that the Oversoul cared about; it certainly wasn't preventing human suffering. So why was the Oversoul getting involved now? What was the urgency? Was it worth tearing their family apart? And even if maybe it was, who decided anyway? Nobody had asked the Oversoul for this, so if they really were getting bounced around as part of some master plan, it might be nice if the Oversoul let them in on what it had in mind.
Nafai lay on his mat, trembling.
Then he remembered. I wasn't going to sleep on a mat tonight. I was going to try to be a real man.
He almost laughed aloud. Sleeping on the bare floor- that would make me a man? What an idiot I am. What an ass.
Laughing at himself, now he could sleep.
SIX - ENEMIES
"Where did you spend all day yesterday?"
Nafai didn't want this conversation, but there was no avoiding it. Mother was not one to let one of her students disappear for a day without an accounting.
"I walked around."
As he had expected, this was not going to be enough for Mother. "I didn't think that you flew? " she said. "Though I'm surprised you didn't curl up somewhere and sleep. Where did you go?"
"To some very educational places," said Nafai. He had in mind Gaballufix's house and the Open Theatre, but of course Mother would interpret his words as she wished.
"Dolltown?" she asked.
"There's nothing much going on there in the daytime, Mother."
"And you shouldn't be going there at all," she said. "Or do you think you already know everything about everything, so that you have no further need of schooling?"
"There are some subjects you just don't teach here, Mother." Again, the truth-but not the truth.
"Ah," she said. "Dhelembuvex was right about you."
Oh, yes, wonderful. Time to get an Auntie for your little boy.
"I should have seen it coming. Your body is growing so fast-too fast, I fear, outstripping your maturity in every other area."
This was too much to bear. He had planned to listen calmly to everything she said, let her jump to her own conclusions, and then get back to class and have done with the whole thing. But to have her thinking that his gonads were running his life when, if anything, his mind was more mature than his body-
"Is that as smart as you know how to be, Mother?"
She raised an eyebrow.
He knew he was already overstepping himself, but he had begun, and the words were there in his mind, and so he said them. "You see something inexplicable going on, and if it's a boy doing it, you're sure it has to do with his sexual desires."
She half-smiled. "I do have some knowledge of men, Nafai, and the idea that the behavior of a fourteen-year-old might have some link to sexual desire is based on much evidence."
"But I'm your son, and still you don't know me from a pile of bricks."
"So you didn't go to Dolltown?"
"Not for any reason you'd imagine."
"Ah," she said. "I can imagine many reasons. But not one of the possible reasons for you to go to Dolltown suggests that you have very good judgment."
"Oh, and you're the expert on good judgment, I imagine."
His sarcasm was not playing well. "You forget, I think, that I am your mother and your schoolmistress."
"It was you, Mother, and not I who invited those two girls to that family meeting yesterday."
"And this showed poor judgment on my part?"
"Extremely poor. By the time I got to the Open Theatre it was still several hours before dark, and already the word was out about Father's vision."
"That's not surprising," said Mother. "Father went directly to the clan council. It would hardly be a secret after that."
"Not just his vision^ Mother. There was already a satire in rehearsal-one of Drotik's, too, no less-that included a fascinating little portico scene. Since the only people present who were not family were those two witchgirls-"