“No, Duun-hatani.”
“You will say: ‘I am hatani; what you loose you cannot recall; what you ask you cannot unask; what I do is my solution.’ There was a wicked man once who called a hatani. ‘Kill my neighbor,’ he said. ‘That’s not hatani business,’ the hatani said and went away. The wicked man found another hatani. ‘My life is wretched,’ the wicked man said. ‘I hate my neighbor. I want to see him die.’ ‘That is a hatani matter,’ the hatani said. ‘Do you give it into my hands?’ ‘Yes,’ the wicked man said. And the hatani struck him dead. Do you understand the solution?”
Thorn looked up in horror.
“Do you understand?” Duun asked. “His problem was removed. And the world was eased. That’s what you are. A solution. The helper of the world. Do you want my solution for your problem?”
Thorn’s heart beat very fast. “What should I do, Duun-hatani?”
“Tell Cloen to hit you once. Tell him to use his judgment in the matter.”
He looked at Duun a very long time. His gut ached. “Yes,” he said.
“Remember the lesson. Do as you’re told. Someday you’ll be wise enough to solve problems. Until then, don’t create them. Do you hear?” Duun reached out and closed his hand on Thorn’s shoulder. “Do you hear?”
“I hear.”
Duun let him go.
* * *
* * *
VIII
“It certainly didn’t help matters,” Ellud said, with the report aglow in his lap. He flung it aside and the optic draped itself over the stack of real paper and went on glowing with ghostly, damning letters. “I chastised my staffer. I don’t know why I picked him. But, dammit, Duun-you passed him.”
“For his faults,” Duun said. “As well as his virtues. I never expected perfection. I didn’t want it. That’s why I stayed by your choices.” “Damn hatani tricks,” Ellud said after a moment. “I understand what you’re doing. But I don’t like it with my staff. Cloen could have been killed.”
“I didn’t judge so. In that, I was right.”
“It’s in the record what happened. It was too well witnessed. I can’t get rid of it. And with all the sniffing about the council’s doing, I wish to the gods I could.”
“What did happen was my fault. Power without restraint. I counted on two more years at Sheon. Haras was restrained. I’ll tell you something which should be evident. Hatani solutions are too wide for young minds. His morality is adequate to hold his power back. It isn’t adequate to use it.”
“To make him hatani-Duun, that’s what’s sent the wind up the council’s-”
“I know.”
“I took it for a figure of speech. That it was all you could teach. It was what you knew how to teach.”
“Come now.”
“Well, that it was easier. But you mean to go all the way with this. When they get that rumor-”
“Try to be discreet.”
“If the Guild could just devise something- clever, if they could find a halfway status-”
“There’s no halfway. To give him what I’ve given him-with nothing but restraint to manage it? No.”
Ellud reached and turned off the recorder. There was dismay on his face. Terror. “For the gods’ sake, Duun. Have you lost your senses? What are you after? What are you after, Duun?”
“Shbit will have gotten my letter by now. Things should be quieter, from council quarter.”
A brief silence, no more comfortable. “What did you tell him?”
“I offered him salutation. I felicitated him on his council appointment. I wished him health. I signed it. It was a simple letter. He hasn’t answered. I expect your supply difficulties to clear up slowly, but I do expect them to clear up.”
“You’re not the man I knew.” Ellud fidgeted with the hem of his kilt. “I don’t know how to understand you.”
“Old friend. You had courage enough to stay in office this long. I trust you’ll keep on with it.”
“I have to. Without this office I’m a naked target. They’d go for me. Shbit and his crew. Dammit, I’ve got no choice. They’d eat me alive.”
“I’m here. Trust me.”
Ellud stared at him.