CHAPTER 14

  I despise liars, Nail thoughts grumbled. He watched the buildings outside the elevated train slide by. There was great honesty in the insight that there are times for righteous men to lie, but it didn’t help. The Confirmer had been the greatest of men, Nail was just Nail. One above, let me live long enough to beg your forgiveness. Magic water?!

  It was good the other Wordhealers had chosen to leave them alone (all eyed scarf and blade as they left) as that left them quiet. Still the lad read through Nail’s plain, bound paper Speech.

  Nail couldn’t have left him; he was too badly injured and Nail too poor at shinmardu. He tried to stay close to the lad, but already his sun was dimming. He wasted too much. Nor could he have taken him to a physician. Thus far his stay in Wordheal had been characterized chiefly by luck and Nail had not been willing to test that by dragging a broken Given boy to a hospital.

  Ran stopped me. How alarming the thought was. Nail had not lied to the young Amalric: The boy’s vicious attack had hurt Ran beyond his shinmardu ability to detect, but Nail, One’s Clarion, champion of the Set Wars, didn’t need restorative powers to see how easily Ran might have died. He, Nail, had wanted to kill that boy. Amalric. The cancerous man follows me!

  "I don’t understand,” Ran muttered.

  "Hmmm?”

  Why would you leave Nail? Imad had said all those months ago with a wide smile. Not for a moment had his friend believed he had been serious in his intention to leave Mirror. Banin had agreed. You have everything you could ever want here. The people’s teacher. How they love you! I wish they did me! Money, fame, power. What else, Nail?

  The limits of understanding, even in his oldest, closest friends.

  Presently, Ran spoke. "I don’t understand how this is supposed to work. In some places the Speech says that the Textmen, uh, those’re Given?” He looked up inquisitively, and Nail smiled. So rapturous had he been when Nail had gifted him the Speech that the lad had nearly dragged Nail onto the train.

  I wish the young Rockmen cared as much for the Speech. Any book, really.

  Nail touched the lad’s shoulder as he pretended to look at the page when really he was checking the subdural brain-bleed. Healed. Best be safe. He poured more shine in. The lad coughed.

  "'Textmen’ can refer to Given, Sebi or both. The Confirmer, and his mates after he had delivered it, were precise in preserving One and Only’s exact words. Context.”

  Ran smiled at the word. "Ok. Still, he, uh, the Confirmer, seems to say the Textmen are ok. Or, I mean, that they can do their own rokkish thing. Or. Um. How do I say it?”

  Nail rumbled chuckles, "You will not offend me.”

  "Oh. Ok. Are Sebi, and Given I guess, are they ok?”

  The innocence of the question caught Nail unawares. A surprise flank. He thought for a moment. "Define 'Ok’.”

  Ran seemed to take confidence in not being patronized, "Well, are Bard and One the same? It seems like he says that in a few places.”

  "Certainly one might get that impression from a superficial reading. How far have you read?”

  Ran thumbed it, "Sixty seven pages.”

  Nail almost dropped the sword from his lap. "Six?--I thought you were just leafing through it!”

  "Um,” Ran flushed, "I’m. . .um, sorry you thought that?”

  To his shame, Nail cursed several times, coughed, exclaimed, "Lad, it is a travesty bordering on criminal mockery that you are not of silver-eyed stock! I have had dozens of students from a sixth generation of haughty aristocrats who can barely be prodded, on pain of whipping, to finish a night’s devotional.” Several more curses. "Unfair! Ridiculous little pampered chickens who cannot string together three coherent sentences and yet all want to be poets who bed a different maid every night I apologize for the imagery and language!” Nail couldn’t remember the last time he’d spoken so much.

  Ran only grinned.

  Nail recovered himself with a breath. "Before we go any further, it’s important that you understand that the Confirmer is not the Speech’s author, as you might understand from Heir's Lives in the Text. It is One and Only’s Speech alone.”

  "That seems to make the problem worse.”

  "How so?”

  "Well, if it’s One and Only’s, why does he go back and forth on Given and Sebi? Some places seem, uh, to me, to say that Textmen will be punished. If he’s Ante and Bard, why? I mean, you guys know Given, ur, uh, we Given only have one rokk too, right? So do the Sebi. And One himself says they’re the same.”

  Nail turned his head back to the window, carefully constructing his replies as he watched the odd block-buildings slowly shift from sturdy brick to sleek glass.

  "I begin by disputing the accusation of inconsistency, of course.”

  "Ok.”

  "The key, Ran, is capitulation. Why do we say 'the Rock?’. But this name can be explained later. For now, one reason we say 'Rock’ it because it is as the relationship between us and One.”

  ". . .”

  "What I mean can be taken as an allegory: Does the Rock submit to the water? Does the Rock change its path for the water?”

  "Well," Ran turned his heads this and that way, "like a million years. . .”

  Nail frowned.

  "No.”

  "Of course not! It flows around it, conforms itself to the Rock. That’s the essence of being a Rockman: steady, disciplined, hard.

  Now your question: To a degree we recognize Given and Sebi beliefs about Rokk. We agree more than any one group might like to admit. The Sebi were given Rules, the Given the Gift. Often when I have spoken with members of either rokkism, I take great pains to remind them of this pattern: Lawman and the Rules, Heir his Gift, the Confirmer One's Speech. He is the Confirmer because he does nothing more than reaffirmed what has already been said." Nail sighed at a sign so bright he had to sheild his eyes eve during the day. Some pornographic, or nearly so, ad. "It cannot be denied that the Given, and Sebi, have forgotten much.”

  "Forgotten. . .Is that the problem?”

  "Problem?”

  Ran nodded. "I read lots about ancient rokkae, like from Old Nesgoh or the Millenislands, even the Pre-honourish rokkisms. I mean, I know the Rock and the Gift are ancient, anyway, you know what I mean, I always look for the problem. In the Millenislands, for example, the problem is that the rokkae just don’t, really. . . care. The worlds just are the way they are. Ovoni rokkae are the same: bigger and tougher, harder to kill, but that’s all. People need the rokkae to be strong allies to survive as long as they could. Every rokkism has a problem. At least that’s what I think anyway.”

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  "Perhaps you idle too much in ancient foolery, yet I am intrigued.” Nail tapped his sword’s hilt. "May I ask, what you think the problem is for Given?”

  Ran razzed. "That’s easy: men are broken.”

  "Broken?”

  "Yep. Bard made people to do specific things, and people don’t do it. Like bad characters in a book, if you can tell the author really wanted them to do a thing because you really want them to do a thing and if the author’s a good author it ticks you off when they don’t do the thing without it being lame, like everything in the story up to that point about that person makes you see why they'd do the thing or maybe not do it but it still makes you so ticked. They’re broken, not working right. Makes for conflict.”

  "Interesting,” Nail mused, and he thought of what Sirk had once said, If you want to know if you've mastered something, try explaining it to a kid. Old dupe was right again. "For Rockmen then, the, uh, 'problem’ is that people have forgotten One and Only. Forgotten how to capitulate. Thus, they need reminding.”

  "So, not broken?”

  "Like characters in a book? Not at all. Ignorant, silly, frustratingly insubordinate, but yet it is within every man’s power to turn to the Rock. How could it be otherwise for a free man? I’ve already told you how important discipline is. Helpfully this leads very well into what I think your next question will be: 'why One, then?’ The Given, and I hope I can count on you to not be offended as well?” Ran nodded, Nail continued, "Given have done appalling things with Heir. Adding names to him like 'Saga’ and such. Understandable enough, the influence of other rokkisms, Ovon you mention, are strong. Men and women becoming rokkae and vice versa. Nonsense. The Sebi believe no such thing, just glance at their Archives. 'One Rokk for Sebi, One TorLord,’ and that is straight from Lawman. We do no more than correct Given on this point. "

  "What about the Sebi?”

  "What of them?”

  "Well, it sounds like the Rockmen and the Sebi should be saying the exact same thing. But. . ." he grinned, "you don’t. I’ve read what Sebi think of the Confirmer.”

  Nail's turn to grin, "And what do Sebi think of the Confirmer?”

  "Not good.”

  "The Sebi also need reminding. Observe in the Archives how often the reeds come.”

  Ran shook his head, "But the Archives and Speech don't agree.”

  "Ah. The parts that have not been corrupted.”

  "Oh, well that’s different than what you said before.” Ran stared at his feet, still hesitant. "So has what Heir said been corrupted too?”

  "Very much.”

  "So. . . Only when Heir talks about the one Rokk, how Given should treat on another, that’s what you think is real?”

  Nail lolled his head side to side. "More or less.”

  "And whenever the Archives agree with the Speech? Same?”

  Nail nodded.

  "But how can you say, 'The Confirmer was just re-saying what’s been said, look at the Text and the Archives!’ and then say, 'the Text and Archives have been changed?’ How could you know if it was changed so much that the Confirmer needed to correct it?”

  The elevated hissed, jolted, a voice announced they had reached Central. Nail used the time it took winding their way to the station’s exit to ponder his response. A rare, inquisitive lad deserved no less. In the wars the Given soldiers, by far the largest sample of Given thinking he had been exposed to, had, like his own Rockmen, seldom shared such insights. The few books discussing the Gift he had read in Mirror always focused on similarities, stressed how the Speech captured the nature of Rokk, established as it was by things all men could reason out for themselves, truly.

  As they stepped through the last turnstile and onto the street, Ran broke the silence. "It’s no different than what people here do. Assume the superiority of the Text. Once I tried talking to Mrs. Yanks in the Pub, uh, Mrs. Yanks is an old lady who goes to our estate, crank, like really mean, anyway, once Kiyo made us sit by her, cause she's always alone. I tried to tell her about a book I was reading about Red Isle rokkae. The Shattered Lady, I think. She screamed and screamed that they-follow-in-silences would rip me up in maw just for reading it. Kiyo lost it, banned her until she apologized.” Ran looked off to the side, "Likes cheap liquor too much to stay away. Old bat.”

  "I must say,” Nail said gravely, "I do not like being compared to an old, crazy, alcoholic Given woman.” The boy’s smile instantly vanished, and Nail laughed, clapped Ran on the shoulder, propably too hard as he grunted. "Ran, I respect you too much to tell you anything but truth: I have never considered what you’ve said. I have no good answer for it right now, and I would not give you less.”

  Ran looked up, stared at Nail as if he had a fish hanging from his mouth. "Doesn’t that bother you?”

  "Not having an answer?”

  Ran nod was wooden, sad.

  "Perhaps a little, but not enough to consider abandoning the Rock, if that’s what you mean? Never make choices of great import to ease momentary discomfort. Discomfort is an engine for discipline.”

  "What if it's more than a moment?”

  Nail laughed again. How long had it been since he laughed so much? He liked to laugh. "You are young, Ran. At your age one reckons a month’s reflection an eternity’s, and a year’s a thousand again! I would have you abandon the Gift, but never for anything less than serious thought and finding it false. We may not believe men are broken, but we know the Unseeing. A clever enemy, and he adores nothing more that facile minds that seek only comfort. The best answer I can give you is that the Speech, being the One and Only’s own speech, conforms to the realities of history better than the Text or Archives. You are right, it is something I assume. Certainly, preferable to the idea that Rokk can have children and vice versa.”

  When Nail finished, he looked up, suddenly conscious of the overhanging space, and was shocked to be amidst a range of huge, sparkling towers that rose above him like abnormal, straight mountains. Unimpressive from afar, but beneath, with his head craned back, they seemed to rise without end. A different glory than the strange symmetry of his home. He staved a gasp.

  "Hey Nail,” Ran’s voice brought Nail’s mind back from the Field. "I’m sorry, I’ve really liked talking with you, and believe me I’d rather talk to you more than what I have to do now, but I gotta go. It's very. . . logical, straightforward. But I don’t think Rockmen understand what Given believe about Rokk.”

  But Nail’s ears and eyes hummed too loudly and strongly. Even in the heart of Mirror, richest of Rockmen cities, he had never seen such extravagance, all through crystal windows and into shops for clothes and toys and electronic devices. . .so many eateries! Packed with people draped in every shade of red.

  "Nail?” Ran asked.

  Nail blinked. "Sorry, lad. What?”

  "I just wanted to say I got you some of these candies at that stand over there. Once I read a quote from the Mate's Notes that Confirmer liked sweet things.” He held out two hands filled with small, hard candies.

  Nail took these, "The Mate's Notes? You are wasted here.”

  Ran shrugged, but reddened. "Just a quote. I wish I could just read. Just sit and read all day, every day. Anyway, how long are you in Wordheal, Nail? I’d really like to talk again. No one else likes to about this stuff.” The lad shuffled his feet. "I mean, if you’re not busy.”

  "I’m. . .looking for someone. Not sure when I’ll be leaving. But I’ll be around the southern section for a time yet. Perhaps, as I search, I’ll see if I can find some of the smaller Notes in the bookshops.”

  Ran beamed and said, "Thank you! I wish I had. . . well. . . Hopefully we can talk again. I really never understood--" Ran was interrupted by a distant sound of metal, stone and glass. It mixed and warbled, resonated against the walls of the buildings around them.

  "Maw?!” cried Nail, and then, "but I am sorry for the curse,” but when he looked down he found the boy trembling, cowering. "Ran?” Nail touched his shoulder, Ran only shuddered. "Ran! No, ma’am he fine. Ran! Look at my eyes, yes? Breathe, slowly, in deep, out long. Yes, that’s it. One, two, three more. Lad? Lad, are you ok?”

  Ran coughed as Nail poured more shine into him, afraid he’d missed a vital injury. This was unwise, as anyone looking too close could see bruises fading, cuts sealing. "Yeah. I just, I just thought I heard something...bad. A nightmare I had last night. They’re destroying a lot of the older buildings down here.”

  "Destroying? Their own buildings? Good buildings? Why?”

  Ran stood, sure again of his feet. "I guess they want to put something up that they like better.”

  "I have never heard something so insane.”

  Ran coughed again. "Darn throat. I have to go, man. Thanks again for taking me down here, and you know, for the book, and not letting me be killed.” Sudden inspiration lit his face, and he pulled a card from his pocket. "If you ever want a super cheap place to stay, Kiyo rents out our extra rooms. I guarantee it’s nicer than where you’re staying now. Free meals! And maybe we can talk again! It’s at the very end of the elevated south line.” Ran handed the card to Nail, and turned, heading straight for the three greatest towers in Central.

  "Ran,” Nail called, "A question for you to ponder: How can Heir inherit what belongs to One alone? Think on it!”

  Ran disappeared into walls of red with a wave, and Nail sighed. Of all the things he had planned for, befriending a Given lad was not among them. Not too wedded to the Gift it seem. He looked at the card. Be nice to be free of that girl's advances.

  As he turned to move down one of the crowded streets, a passing woman, wonderfully arrayed in scarlet jewels, eyed his sword. He lengthened his mantle to his right side and wrapped it about the scabbard, felt his wild hair writhe in the wind. A well protected section of the city. He would have vanished regardless. His bright sun flexed and began to loose invisible flame, probing, searching. Tracking a shiner, especially one who wished otherwise, was difficult.

  Nail slid into the crowd with confidence and walked slowly and indifferently until the strangers no longer paid him even a glance. People were, he reflected, quite the same everywhere, and didn't like their routines interrupted.