But that issue is closed, thought Elemak. It was closed when the Oversoul made such a fool of me. The message was clear—try to kill Nafai and you'll only be made to bumble and fumble around like a half-wit, unable even to tie a knot. And now it wouldn't be Nafai he'd have to overcome in order to change their destination, it would be Father. No, there was no escape for Elemak. And besides, Basilica had nothing for him. Unlike Meb, he wasn't content to hop from bed to bed and live off any woman who'd take him in. He needed to have stature in the city, he needed to know that when he spoke, men listened. Without money, there was little hope of that.
Besides, he loved Eiadh and was proud of little Proya, and he loved the desert life in a way that no one else, not even Volemak, could ever understand. And if he went back to Basilica, Eiadh would eventually not renew his marriage contract. He would again be in the unmanly position of having to look for a wife solely in order to maintain himself in the city. That would be unbearable— thiswas how men were meant to live, secure with their women, secure with their children. He had no desire to break up his family now. He had stopped dreaming of Basilica, or at least had stopped wishing for it, since the only kind of life worth living there was out of reach to him.
Only Meb and Dolya still had fantasies of returning. And, useless as they both were, it wouldn't hurt the company one bit to let them go.
So as Elemak and his father were choosing the site for that night's camp, he broached the subject. "You know that Meb and Dolya still want to go back to Basilica."
"They have so little imagination, I'm not surprised," said Volemak. "Some people only have one idea in their lives, and so they can hardly bear to let it go."
"You know that they're also nearly worthless to us."
"Not as worthless as Kokor," said Father.
"Yes, well, it's hard to compete with her."
"None of them are completely worthless," said Father. "They may not do their share of work, but we need their genes. We need their babies in our community."
"Our life would be much easier… a lot less conflict and annoyance… if—"
"No," said Volemak.
Elemak seethed. How dare Father not even let him finish his sentence.
"It's not by my choice," said Volemak. "I'd let anyone go back who wanted to, if it were up to me. But the Oversoul has chosen this company."
Elemak stopped paying attention almost as soon as Father mentioned the Oversoul. It always meant that the reasonable part of the discussion was over.
When they camped for the night, Elemak determined that during his watch, if Meb and Dolya decided to slip away, he'd make sure he didn't happen to notice them. It would be easy enough to find the way—the desert wasn't all that challenging through here, and they'd have the best chance of the whole journey to return to civilization. Which wasn't that good a chance, admittedly—there would be as great a risk of bandits as ever. Perhaps more, now that Moozh ruled in Basilica and would drive rough and uncivilized men from the city. Maybe the Oversoul would watch out for them and help them get back to Basilica—and maybe not. Whatever happened, Elemak wouldn't block their attempt, if they made one.
But they didn't. Elemak even stood a longer watch than usual, but they never slipped out of their tent, never tried to steal a camel or two. Elemak finally woke Vas for his watch and then went to bed, full of fresh contempt for Meb. If it had been I who wanted to leave the group and live somewhere else, I would have taken my wife and baby and left. But not Mebbekew. He takes no for an answer far too easily.
At midmorning on the third day of travel, they reached the point where, to return to Basilica, they would have traveled north. Elemak recognized the spot; so, of course, did Volemak. But no one else did; no one realized that when they continued eastward instead of turning straight north, they were closing their last hope of restoring something like their old life.
Elemak didn't feel at all sad about it. He wasn't like Mebbekew—his life had centered in the desert all along. He had only returned to Basilica in order to sell his goods and find a wife, though of course he always enjoyed the city and thought of it as home. It's just that the idea of home had never meant that much to him—he didn't get homesick or nostalgic or teary-eyed about it. Not till Eiadh gave birth and he held Proya in his arms and heard the boy's firm loud cry and saw his smile. And then home, to him, was the tent where Eiadh and Proya slept. He had no need of Basilica now. He was too strong in himself to hunger for a particular city the way Meb did.
But if this caravan was going to be Elemak's world for the next few years, he was determined to make sure his position in this small polity was as dominant and important as possible. In the valley, where Zdorab's garden brought in half the food and Nafai was as good at hunting as Elemak himself, there was no way for Elemak to fully emerge, secure in his position of leadership. Now, though, on camelback again, even Father deferred to Elemak's judgment on many, many issues, and while the Oversoul chose their general direction, it was Elemak who determined their exact path. He could look back over the company and find Eiadh, her eyes on him whenever she wasn't busy with nursing the baby. The journey was reminding her of how essential he was to the survival of the whole enterprise, and he loved the pride she took in that.
The Oversoul had told Father that if they found a good safe route and had plenty of supplies, sixty days of steady traveling would bring them to their destination. But of course, sixty days of traveling was out of the question. The babies could never endure that long a stretch of heat and dryness and instability. No, they would have to find another secure place and rest again. And perhaps another after that. And in each place, they would probably have to stay long enough to put in a crop and harvest it to feed them on the next leg of their journey. A year. A year in each place, perhaps three years to make a sixty-day journey. Yet through it all, it would be Elemak truly leading them, and by the end of it everyone should be turning to me for leadership, with Father reduced to nothing more than what he ought to be—a wise old counselor. But not the true leader, not anymore.
That will be me, by right. If I decide then that the Oversoul's destination is the place where I want to lead the group, then that's where I'll lead them, and they'll get there safely and in good time. If I decide otherwise, of course, then the Oversoul can go hang.
The Nividimu River wasn't a seasonal river—it rose from natural springs in the rugged Lyudy Mountains, which were high enough to catch snow in the winter. But the flow was never much, and when the river dropped steeply down the Krutohn Valley and reached the low, hot, dry desert, it sank into the sand and disappeared many kilometers before reaching the Scour Sea.
It was because of the Nividimu that the great north-south caravan trail climbed steeply up into the Lyudy Mountains and then followed the river down, almost to the point where it disappeared. It was the most dependable source of drinkable water between Basilica on the north and the Cities of Fire to the south. Perhaps a dozen caravans a year passed along the banks of the Nividimu, and so it was almost to be expected that the Index would instruct them to make camp for a week in the foothills of the Lyudy Mountains while a northbound caravan with a heavy military escort made its way up the valley and then down the twisting road out of the mountains.
The worst thing about the wait was that they couldn't make any fires. The military escort, the Index told them, was nervous and eager to find an enemy. Smoke would be taken as a sign of bandits, and the soldiers wouldn't wait to find out otherwise before slaughtering them all. So they ate the most miserable traveling rations and sat around getting annoyed with each other, waiting for the day that Volemak told them that the Index had decided they could leave.