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pebble. The two weighted ends of the badan were worn hanging down, one at the front and one at the back.
    So this was a vesting room. Here the Nomana came to change into these clean light garments, which made them seem, when they entered the square in procession in their hundreds, on the day of the Congregation, like spirits from another world.
    Seeker moved down the racks, not daring to touch the cool white fabric. He knew he had no right to be here. He also knew that this room was not his destination, because at the far end was another door, and it too was open.
    Where your way lies, the door is always open.
    He passed through this second door and found himself in a courtyard. In the middle of the courtyard was a wide circular bed of sand that had been raked into a pattern of overlapping fans. There were many doors leading out of the courtyard, but only one other was open. Through this door came a sound like the buzzing of bees, only deeper and harsher. Seeker walked slowly round the yard, keeping to the cobbles, and so came to the open door. Here the sound was much louder, almost painful. He winced and put his hands to his ears. He stepped through the door.
    He was in a washhouse. Pipes ran round the walls, and channels on the stone floor carried gurgling water to corner drains. Pipes also crossed the high ceiling, and from them projected smaller pipes with taps on their ends. One tap was open and gushing water, and dangling from this overhead pipe, wrists tied by a strip of cloth, was a half-naked man. His arms were pulled high above his head, and his head hung down on his bare chest, and the water from the pipe ran in a ceaseless stream down his arms and over his drenched hair and down his body to trickle from his bare feet to the floor.
    Round this dangling man were gathered a crowd of
Nomana, men and women, filling the washhouse. Every one of them had their hands over their ears, as Seeker had, and every one of them had their eyes fixed on the dangling man. As they stared, they made the deep buzzing, grating sound that seemed to chisel into the very brain.
    Seeker saw and was afraid. The look on the faces of the Nomana was so intent: that stare, and the relentless drill of sound, offered no pity to the soaked and dangling man. It was hard enough to endure the buzzing even from the doorway. To be its focus must have been unbearable. And indeed, every few moments, the poor man twisted his head, as if to escape the torment, and groaned in his distress.
    What was happening? Was this some terrible punishment? The dangling man was a Noma too, as Seeker could tell from his clothing. The cloth that bound his wrists was his badan. Perhaps this was some kind of test. Seeker had heard tales of rigorous training in the novitiate. But even as he thought this, he knew that it could not be so. This was more than a test. This was a form of torture.
    The dangling man groaned again and tried in vain to block his ears with his straining arms. The effort cost him pain. He let his head drop further. Then, struck by some unseen wave of torment, he raised his head and cried out loud in his agony. That was when Seeker saw his face. Even streaming with water, even twisted in pain, even three years older, Seeker recognized that face.
    "Blaze!" he cried.
    The dangling man's eyes jerked open. He looked directly at Seeker in the doorway. He saw him; there was no doubt about that. But he did not know him. His eyes were empty. Something had been done to him, and now, at last, Seeker understood.
    Blaze was being
cleansed.
    "Blaze!" he cried again, in terror and grief. "Blaze! Don't let them do it!"
    His beloved brother stared back at him, with that familiar broad face, that wide mouth; but the eyes had changed, and he did not know him. It was as if his brother were no longer there in his own body.
    Seeker heard a voice screaming. The terrible buzzing sound stopped. The Nomana turned towards him. The scream was his own voice.
    The Noma nearest to him