Pump Six and Other Stories(35)

"Your aunt sees no difficulty."

"She doesn't live in Kettle Rock. I have to face my family." She shook her head, studying him. "There is something not right about you. Something not Jai."

Raphel scowled. "And what is that, do you think?"

She cocked her head, examining him. "Too difficult to say. Maybe it's the taint of Keli in you. Maybe some water rose has captured your heart, some girl with a black braid and a silver belt around her hips. Those Keli girls are soft, I've heard. Not like Jai. Not like desert girls. We are hawks. They are little sparrows." She laughed. "No. I don't think you are the man for me. I am a traditional girl."

Raphel laughed. "You think you are traditional? You wear a Keli scarf and line your eyes like a Keli girl, and you still call yourself Jai?"

She shrugged. "I wouldn't expect you to understand."

"I am Jai. My hook knife is sharp."

"So you say." She shook her head. "Go back to Keli, Raphel. Find a soft water girl who will love whatever desert bite you have left. Your grandfather is right. You don't belong here." She wrapped her scarf back across her face.

Raphel watched her walk away from him, her skirts molded across her hips as she swayed into the wind. For a moment he imagined following her but he forced himself to stand still. Pursuit would only lead to humiliation. He turned and strode away before the watching chaperones could see he had been discarded.

"The path of a Pasho is not one of simple reading. Knowledge is dangerous. We know this from the First Age, when people studied quickly quickly, like ants. We know this because there is so little left of what they constructed. Knowledge is always two-edged. For every benefit, there is hazard. For every good, evil. Carelessness and convenient solutions lead to chaos.

"It is not for a Pasho simply to gain knowledge, but to deserve knowledge. Our libraries are locked and the concepts inside are graded into levels of attainment. We do not keep this knowledge under lock and key because we crave power, as outsiders often accuse. We keep it because we fear it.

"The process of becoming Pasho is not a process of study, but a process of wisdom. Milliner knew knowledge must spread again, but this time, it must spread without destruction accompanying it. Knowledge and technology are not things to be handed to any man who demands them. That path can only lead to disaster. We saw this in the First Age. We moved too quickly and were punished for it. This time we move slowly, slowly like the turtle and hope that there is no Second Cleansing."

—Pasho Cho Gan, CS 580. (Pasho Wisdom, Vol. XX)

"I went to be matched yesterday."

Old Gawar sat outside the door of his haci, surrounded by piles of red chilies, drying. The hot spice scent saturated the air, making Raphel cough. The old man smirked as he plucked dried chilies out of various piles, turned them speculatively between his gnarled fingers, then set them in his mortar and ground them into red dust before dumping the flakes into a clay urn. "So my grandson comes to see me again, does he?"

"What did you tell Bia' Hardez?"

The old man laughed. "Mala rejected you, did she?" He studied Raphel's angry face for an answer, then went back to grinding chilies, shaking his head and grinning. "Even your brainless mother should have known better than to arrange a meeting with that girl."

"You poisoned my name with her."

His grandfather laughed and crushed new chilies into dust. "Never." His vigorous movements sent up red powder clouds as he worked. "But I'm not surprised. Her grandfather fought with me. He died like a desert lion. We fought across Keli's bridges together. We stormed her towers. Mala would be too proud to take a fish-eater for a husband. I don't know what your mother was thinking. I'm brave, but I would never send my hook hands into an unwinnable battle." He dumped more finished chilies into the storage urn. "You should meet with the Renali family. They have a daughter."

"The ones who sell rice wine from Keli?" Raphel scowled. "You think too little of me."

The old man laughed. "Oh? My grandson is Jai after all?"

"I have never been anything else."

"Would you burn Keli?"

"We are not at war."

"War never ends. Even now they send their goods and people closer to us. Even good girls like Mala wear Keli scarves. How long before we are like the Kai, just another tribe who look and dress and talk like the Keli people? Wars such as this never end. If you want to prove you are Jai, you will help me wage war again, and put Keli in its place."

Raphel laughed. "What war can you wage?"

Old Gawar's eyes flicked up to Raphel, then back down to his grinding. A smile quirked at the corners of his mouth. "My hook knife is still sharp. Even now I counsel with the basin villages. There are many who would war on Keli. If you are Jai, you will help us."

Raphel shook his head. "Pasho do not deal war. If you want to gather more water for the village, I can help. If you want to feed our children better, this too I can accomplish. What you ask, I cannot give."

"Cannot? Or will not?" The old man studied Raphel, then smiled, showing worn yellowed teeth. "The all-seeing all-giving knowledge of the Pasho." He spat. "One hand open with an eye, the other behind the back with a noose. Look at the dirty Kai, well under the yoke of Keli now. They took your knowledge."