Hegira Read Free Page A

mischievous child, he might laugh at any moment. But these were betrayals of his body. He was perfectly serious.
    “Nobody's holding you. You should get your strength back, however. Eat some food.”
    “I'm on a fast.”
    “For how long? Until you starve?”
    “I'm starving now. It brings me closer to my goal.”
    “And what is your goal?”
    “To live in the light of God, not the mud of the world.”
    “What's your name?”
    “Jacome. Yours?”
    “Bar-Woten.”
    “A peculiar name.”
    “I'm an Ibisian. I picked the name up when I killed a bear fifteen years ago. He clawed out an eye before he died. Bear-killer, of the One-eyed God. Bar-Woten. Why do you call yourself Jacome? That's not your name. Am I right that penitents, if they try to deny the world, must deny themselves? Change their names?”
    “Yes,” Jacome said. “Fools of God. Buffoons.”
    “Then what was your name before you changed?”
    “You'd have to ask the fellow I was. I can't answer.”
    Bar-Woten motioned for Barthel to leave.
    “Tell me about your god,” he said.
    “You're interested?”
    “I am.”
    Barthel sat outside and leaned against the wall. His eyes surveyed the ceiling, searching for bugs to amuse him, certainly not interested by the drivel being spoken inside. He did not understand his master at times. It was often hard to like Bar-Woten. He was kind, but he loved nothing. Barthel, on the other hand, wished to love everything. That was impossible with Bar-Woten constantly calling for him. The man's gloom was sometimes appalling.
    Bar-Woten interrupted Jacome's discourse long enough to debate a few points of logic. “This Heisos, also known as Yesu, is on every Obelisk across Hegira, right?”
    “He is.”
    “Then why isn't everyone converted by His truth?”
    “Because there are words on the Obelisks that contradict what He taught. Inspired by the adversary.”
    “How do you know which to choose, which is right?”
    “By the heart, the way it beats to the right words.”
    “Did Heisos live on Hegira?”
    “No.”
    “Then was His mission intended for the Second-born?”
    “For all humanity.”
    Barthel paced in the hallway, bent to listen at the door, then had an inspiration. He would go out for food. But he had very little of the Bey's money with him. He knocked cautiously. No answer. They were still talking. He feared the penitent might convert the Bey. A dreadful thing. He knocked again. Bar-Woten opened the door.
    “Master, shall I buy food for all of us?”
    The Bey looked at him intensely through his single eye, then reached into his jacket pocket for a coin. “Good food, fresh, and a variety of it. Enough to last all of us for a day or so.”
    Barthel grinned and ran off.
    Bar-Woten shut the door and asked Jacome another question. “What made you find the grace of Kristos?”
    “The guidance of my heart.”
    “Can you remember what made you follow your heart?”
    Jacome scowled. “It's only important that I found the truth in time.”
    “But you forget what happened. Was it someone who helped you?”
    “I haven't forgotten. No one helped me at first. But when I joined the Franciscans, they helped me.”
    “I want to know what converted you. Perhaps I can find something like it in myself.”
    Barthel found his idea less attractive when he stood on the street. There were no food stalls nearby. The Bey's presence, at any rate, was always reassuring. Now, alone in a city he did not know well, he felt his pulse rise and his eyes widen. The people did not look harmful. Still, any city held thieves, cutthroats, pickpockets. Monsters to suck a poor Momadan dry. The Bey's teachings from Barthel's youth could not eradicate this fear.
    As Barthel walked, swaggering slightly and looking from side to side to show his confidence, he thought of the comforts of Khem and how they had passed in such an inconceivably short time. The Bey had never bothered to explain or excuse the actions of Sulay in Khem — and for this