"I'm alone," she said. "I wasn't sure who I was coming to. Whose house. I've never been outside of the city walls before."
"When did you get here?"
"Just now. The Oversoul led me."
Of course. "To what purpose?"
"I don't know," she said. "To tell my dream, I think. It woke me."
Nafai thought of his own dream, which he couldn't remember.
"I was so-glad," she said. "That the Oversoul had spoken again. But the dream was terrible."
"What was it?"
"Is it you I'm supposed to tell?" she asked.
"I should know?" he answered. "But I'm here."
"Did the Oversoul bring you out here?"
With the question put so directly, he couldn't evade it. "Yes," he said. "I think so."
She nodded. "Then I'll tell you. It makes sense, actually, that it be your family. Because there are so many people who hate your father because of his vision and his courage in proclaiming it."
"Yes," he said. And then, to prompt her: "The dream."
"I saw a man alone on foot, walking in the straight. He was walking through snow. Only I knew that it was tonight, even though there's not a speck of snow on the ground. Do you understand how I can know something, even though it's different from what the dream actually shows me?"
Remembering the conversation on the portico a week ago, Nafai nodded.
"So there was snow, and yet it was tonight. The moon was up. I knew it was almost dawn. And as the man walked along, two men wearing hoods sprang out into the road in front of him, holding blades. He seemed to know them, in spite of the hoods. And he said, ‘Here's my throat. I carry no weapon. You could have killed me at any time, even when I knew you were my enemy. Why did you need to deceive me into trusting you first? Were you afraid that death wouldn't bother me enough, unless I felt betrayed?'"
Nafai had already made the connection between her dream and Father's meeting, only a few hours away. "Gaballufix," said Nafai.
Luet nodded. "Now I understand that-but I didn't until I realized this was your father's house."
"No-Gaballufix arranged a meeting for Father and Roptat and him this morning, at the coolhouse."
"The snow," she said.
"Yes," he said. "It's always got frost in the corners."
"And Roptat," she whispered. "That explains-the next part of the dream."
Tell me,"
"One hooded man reached out and uncovered the face of his companion. For a moment I thought I saw a grin on his face, but then my vision clarified and I realized it wasn't his face that had the smile. It was his throat, slit clear back to the spine. As I watched him, his head lolled back and the wound in his throat opened completely, as if it were a mouth, trying to scream. And the man-the one that was me in the dream-"
"I understand," said Nafai. "Father."
"Yes. Only I didn't know that."
"Right," said Nafai. Impatiently, urging her to get on with it.
"Your father, if it was your father, said, ‘I suppose it will be said that I killed him.' And the hooded man says, ‘And you did, in very truth, my dear kinsman.'"
"He would say that," said Nafai. "So Roptat is supposed to die, too."
"I'm not done," said Luet. "Or rather, the dream wasn't finished. Because the man-your father-said, ‘And who will they say killed me? And the hooded one said, ‘Not me. I'd never lift a hand against you, for I love you dearly. I will merely find your body here, and your bloody-handed murderers standing over it.' Then he laughed and disappeared back into the shadows."
"So he doesn't kill Father."
"No. Your father turned around then and saw two other hooded men standing behind him. And even though they didn't speak or lift their hoods, he knew them. I felt this terrible sadness. ‘You couldn't wait,' he said to the one. "You couldn't forgive me,' he said to the other. And .then they reached out with their blades and killed him."
"No, by the Oversoul," said Nafai. "They wouldn't do it."
"Who? Do you know?"
"Tell no one of this last part of the dream," said Nafai. "Swear it to me with your most awful oath."
"I'll do no such thing," she said.
"My brothers are all home tonight," said Nafai. "Not lying in wait for Father."
"Is that who the hooded men are, then? Your brothers?"
"No!" he said. "Never."
She nodded. "I'll give you no oath. Only my promise. If your father is saved from death by my having come here, then I'll tell no one else of this part of the dream."
"Not even Hushidh," he said.
"But I make you another promise," she said. "If your father dies, I'll know that you didn't warn him. And that the hooded ones in the dream included you -because to know of the plot and fail to warn him is exactly the same as holding the charged-wire blade in your own hands."
"Do you think I don't know that?" said Nafai. He was angry for a moment, that she would think he needed to be taught the ethics of this situation. But then his thoughts moved on, as Luet's warning clarified other things that had happened that day. "That's why Meb went to pray," said Nafai, "and why Elya locked the inner gate. They knew-or maybe they just suspected something-and yet they were afraid to tell. That's what the dream meant-not that they would ever lift a hand against Father, but rather that they knew and were afraid to warn him."
She nodded. "It often works that way in dreams," she said. "That would be a true meaning, and it doesn't empty my head when I think that thought.^
"Maybe the Oversoul itself doesn't know."
She reached out and patted his hand. It made him feel like a child, even though she was younger and much smaller than he. He resented her for it.
"The Oversoul knows," she said.
"Not everything," he said.
"Everything that can be known," she said. She walked to the door of the traveler's room. "Tell no one that I came," she said.
"Except Father," he said.
"Can't you say that it was your dream?"
"Why?" asked Nafai. "Your dream he would believe. Mine would be-nothing to him."
"You underestimate your father. And the Oversoul, too, I think. And yourself." She stepped out into the moonlit yard in front of the house. She started to turn right, heading for Ridge Road.
"No," he whispered, catching her arm-small and frail indeed, she was a girl so young and little-boned. "Don't pass in front of the gate."
She gave him a questioning look, eyes wide, reflecting the moon, which was half-risen now over his shoulder.
"Perhaps I woke someone when I opened it," he explained.
She nodded. "I'll go around the house on the other side."
"Luet," he said.
"Yes?"
"Will you be safe, going home now?"
"The moon is up," she said. "And the guard at the Funnel Gate will give me no trouble. The Oversoul made him sleep when I passed before."
"Luet," he said, calling her back again.
Again she stopped, waited for his words.
"Thank you," he said. The words were nothing compared to what he felt in his heart. She had saved his father's life-and it was a brave thing for a girl who had never left the city to come all this way in the starlight, guided only by a dream.
She shrugged. "The Oversoul sent me. Thank her ." Then she was gone.
Nafai returned to the gate, and this time deliberately made some noise coming in and latching it. If one of his brothers was listening or watching, he didn't want his return to surprise him. Let him hear and go back to his room before I come through the inner gate.