Praise for WYRMS
"The plot is complex but without any flaw in conception or
resolution. The prose is a model of narrative clarity; the
author never says More than is needed or arbitrarily withholds
information, yet even the simplest declarative sentence
carries a delicious hint of further revelation."
-- The New York Times Book Review
"Card takes the reader from the complex and hair-trigger
world of court diplomacy to a mountaintop where a monstrous
creature awaits his victim/lover. Beautiful, thought-
provoking, and compulsively readable."
-- Ellen Datlow, fiction editor of Omni
"Card looks deep, where others take much for granted.
|('ky/my] has moments of great eloquence, humanity, and
wisdom... like his worthiest characters, Card has the
strength to forgo glamor in favor of truth."
--Locus
"When I published Orson Scott Card's first stories in Analog magazine, I predicted he would become one of the most
important writers in the field of speculative fiction. Wyrms proves that I was right. And More. Card is not only one of
th)e most important writers in the field -- he is one of the
absolute best!"
-- Ben Bova
"The fine, detailed writing style of this marvelous story
finally convinced me that Card is one of the three or fom
top SF writers of our time."
-- A.E. van Vogt
Look for these TOR books by Orson Scott Card
ENDER'S GAME
HART'S HOPE
RED PROPHET
SAINTS
SEVENTH SON
SONGMASTER
SPEAKER FOR THE DEAD
ORSON SCOTT CARD
ATOM DOHERTY ASSOCIATES BOOK
This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this
book are fictitious, and any resemblance to real people or events is
purely coincidental.
WYRMS
Copyright © 1987 by Orson Scott Card
All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in
part in any form.
Published by arrangement with Arbor House
A TOR Book
Published by Torn Doherty Associates, Inc.
49 West 24th Street
New York, NY 10010
Cover art by Dennis Nolan
Book designed by Sheree L. Goodrnan
ISBN: 0-812-53357-7 Can. ISBN: 0812533585
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 871323
First TOR edition: August 1988
Printed in the United States of America
0987654321
To Mark and Rana,
for greatness of heart
I
THE HEPTARCITS DAUGHTER

her TUTOR WOKE HER WELL BEFORE DAWN. patience FELT
the chill of the morning through her thin blanket, and her
muscles were stiff from sleeping on a hard mat on the
floor. Summer was definitely over, and she allowed herself
to wish, however briefly, that the north-facing window
of her room might be glazed--or at least shuttered
--for the winter.
It was all part of Father's training, to harden and
toughen her, to make her despise the luxuries of court
and the people who lived for them. She assumed that
Angel's ungentle hand on her shoulder was a part of the
regimen. What, did I smile in my sleep? Did it look like
my dreams were sweet? Thank you, Angel, for rescuing
me before I was corrupted forever by some imaginary
delight.
But when she saw Angel's face, his worried look told
her that something was quite wrong. It was not so disturbing
that he worried, as that he let her see he worried;
ordinarily he could hide or show any emotion at will, and
had trained her to do the same.
2 orson scott card
"The King has a task for you," whispered Angel.
Patience cast off her blanket, took up the bowl of icy
water on the windowsill, and poured it over her head.
She refused to let her body flinch at the cold. She
toweled herself roughly with burlap until the skin all over
her body tingled.
"Does Father know?" she asked.
"Lord Peace is in Lakon," said Angel. "Whether he
knows or not is no help to you here."
She knelt quickly beneath the ikon that was her room's
only decoration. It was a shimmering engraving of the
starship Konkeptoine, cut into bright green crystal. It was
worth More than the price of a poor man's house. Patience
liked the contrast between the deliberate poverty of
her room and the opulence of her religious display. The
priests would call it piety. She thought of it as irony.
Patience murmured the Come Kristos in eight seconds--
she had it down to a science--kissed her fingers and
touched them to the Konkeptoine. The crystal was warm.
Aker all these years, still alive. No doubt it was almost
hot when her mother touched it, when she was a girl. And long before Patience would have a daughter, it
would be cold and dead, the light gone out of it.
She spoke to Angel over her shoulder. "Tell me the
task King Oruc has set for me."
"I don't know. Only that he called for you. But you
can guess, can't you?"
Angel was testing her, of course. It was the story of
her life, test after test. She complained about it, sometimes,
but the truth was she enjoyed it, took pleasure in
solving the diplomatic puzzles that Father and Angel
constantly put to her.
So--what could King Oruc want her to do? The
Heptarch had never called for her before. She had often
been in Heptagon House, of course, but only when sumwyrms | 3
moned to play with one of the Heptarch's children, never
to perform a task for the Heptarch himself. Which was to
be expected. At the age of thirteen, she was hardly old
enough to expect a calling from the King.
Yesterday, though, an embassy had arrived from Tassali,
a kingdom in the East which, in ancient times, had once
been under the suzerainty of the Heptarch of Korfu. That
meant little: All seven parts of the world had once been
ruled by the Heptarchy, and Tassali had been free of
Korfu for a thousand years. Prekeptor, the only prince
and heir presumptive of Tassali, a sixteen-year-old boy,
had come with an array of high-ranking Tassaliki and
very expensive gifts. From this information Patience had
already concluded the obvious--that the embassy was
there to conclude a marriage treaty with one of King
Oruc's three daughters.
The dowry had no doubt been negotiated a year ago,
before the embassy set out. One does not send a royal heir to meet the bride until most of the details of the
treaty are set. But Patience could guess easily enough
that one remaining point of negotiation was bound to be
the question: Which daughter? Lyra, the eldest daughter,
fourteen years old and second in line to the Heptarchy?
Rika, who was only a year younger than Patience and
easily the brightest of the Heptarch's children? Or the
baby, Klea, now only seven years old but certainly old
enough to be married off if politics demanded it?
Patience could think of only one task she might perform
in connection with this visit. She was fluent in
Tassalik, and she seriously doubted that Prince Prekeptor
spoke a word of Agarant. They were quite provincial in
Tassali and clung to their dialect tenaciously. If a meeting
were to take place between Prekeptor and one of
Oruc's daughters. Patience would be an excellent interpreter.
And since Klea was an unlikely candidate and
4 orson scott card
Rika could speak passable Tassalik, it was most likely
that the chosen daughter was Lyra.
All this reasoning took place while Patience pulled on
her silk chemise. She turned to face Angel then, and
smiled. "I'm to be the interpreter between Prekeptor and
Lyra, when they meet today so they can decide whether
they detest each other so much it is worth causing an
international quarrel to avoid being married."
Angel smiled. "It seems the most likely thing."
"Then I must dress to take part in an official meeting
between future sovereigns. Would you call Nails and
Calico to me?"
"I will," said Angel. But he stopped at the door.
"You must realize," he said, "that Prekeptor will know
who you are."
It was a warning, and Patience understood very well
that King Oruc was playing a dangerous game, putting
her in the middle of a political situation so closely involved
with royal succession. Especially with Father away.
Oruc must have planned this for some time, to have
Father away on a trivial matter. Ordinarily, Lord Peace
would have been at the heart of the negotiations over
such a vital alliance.
Nails and Calico, her dressing maids, came in, trying
to seem light and cheerful, when obviously they had been
aroused from deep--and, in Calico's case, drunken--
slumber. Patience selected her gown and wig and endured
their ministrations as they turned her into a poppet.
"Called to the King," Nails kept saying. "What honor,
for a daughter of a slave."
It was annoying to have her father called a slave over
and over again, but she knew that Nails was not being
malicious, merely stupid. And as Father always said,
Never be angry when fools behave like fools. It's better
wyrms 5
when fools identify themselves, Patience reminded herself.
It removes so much uncertainty.
When the women were finished, the sun was just
coming up. She dismissed them and opened the small
brass case that contained the diplomatic equipment Father
and Angel had decided she was old enough to use
discreetly.
For self-defense, a loop, of course. It was a long
strand of incredibly strong plastic, so fine that it was
almost invisible. It could cut through flesh with only a
little pressure. It had knobs of plastic on both ends, so
Patience could grasp it without slicing off her fingers.
And for attack, a glass pendant which contained a
swarm of pinks, almost invisibly tiny insects that homed
in on human eyes and in a matter of minutes would build
honeycomb nests that always resulted in blindness within
hours. If the eyes were not removed quickly, the pinks
would bore through to the brain and cause chronic, permanent
palsy. A vicious weapon, but Angel always said
that a diplomat who is not prepared to kill had better be
prepared to die. She tipped back her head and put drops
in her eyes, of a liquid that would kill pinks on contact.
It would stay in her eyes for hours. As Father said, Never
carry a weapon that can be used against you.
As she prepared herself, she tried to figure out what
King Oruc had in mind for her. There were other interpreters
he could use. The choice of Patience was fraught
with implications, especially if Prekeptor knew who she
really was. There was no circumstance Patience could
think of where anything would be helped by using her as interpreter; and she could think of dozens of things that
might go wrong, to have the daughter of Lord Peace
standing beside the daughter of King Oruc, when the heir
to a powerful kingdom came to meet his possible wife.
Patience had been aware throughout her childhood that
6 orson scott card
she was not an ordinary slave in the Heptarch's household.
One of the first lessons a child in King's Hill had to learn was to treat each slave according to the strictest
protocols of rank. Whores and chamberslaves needed no More respect than dogs; ambassadors and ministers of
state, like her father. Peace, were treated with as much
honor as any lord except the Heptarch himself or the
heads of the Fourteen Families.
But even among the children of the most noble of the
King's slaves. Patience was given special treatment. Adults
whispered when they saw her; many of them surreptitiously
found opportunities to touch her lips with the
back of a hand, as if in a symbolic kiss.
She had told Father of this one day when she was five.
He immediately grew stern. "If anyone does it again, tell
me at once. But better than tell afterward, try to stand
away from them, and not give them an opportunity."
He was so serious that she was sure she had done
something wrong.
"No, child," said Father. "First, do not show me that
you are afraid and ashamed. Your face must never show
such things."
She relaxed her face, as her tutor, Angel, had taught
her.
"And second," said Father, "you have done nothing
wrong. But for these adults, who should know better, to
do such things is--"
Patience expected him to say something like "wrong"
or "sinful," because the priests had been hinting about
certain things that people did with children's bodies that
were very bad.
So she was startled when he said, "Treason."
"Treason?" How would it injure the Heptarch to touch
the lips of the daughter of a slave?
Father studied her calmly, then said, "I have decided
wyrms | 7
you can know, now, or else you won't be able to protect
yourself against these thoughtless traitors. Your grandfather
was Heptarch until the day he died. I have no
brothers or sisters."
She was only five. She knew something of the laws of
succession, but it did not occur to her to apply them to
herself. Father pointedly glanced toward the parlor, where
the servants would be listening. All the servants except
Angel were chosen by the King, and frankly spied for
him. Father smiled at her and said, "How is your Geblic?'
Then he wrote in Geblic on a piece of paper:
Compose a brief letter to this person:
Agaranthamoi Heptest
She had been trained in the protocols of names and
titles from her first words. The labyrinthine network of
precedence, rank, and royal favor was second nature to
her. So were all the ins and outs of the royal titles. The
surname of the ruling Heptarch's family was always
rooted in Hept; the forename of any person of royal
blood was always rooted in Agaranth.
She also knew that only the ruling Heptarch could bear
the surname Heptest, and Agaranthamoi meant "eldest
son and only child." Thus, Agaranthamoi Heptest by
definition meant the Heptarch, who had no brothers or
sisters. Since Oruc, the ruling Heptarch, had several
siblings, his dynastic name was Agaranthikil. This could
not possibly be his name, and to call any living person but Oruc by the surname Heptest was treason.
But the test was not merely to decipher the meaning of
the names, she knew. Father had just told her that her
grandfather was ruling Heptarch all his life, and Father
was his only child. Therefore Agaranthamoi was a per8 orson scott card
fectly proper forename for him. Father was telling her
that he was the rightful King of Korfu.
So she wrote a short letter:
Agaranthamoi Heptest, Lord and Father:
Your unworthiest daughter begs you to be discreet, for to
utter your name is death.
Humbly, Agaranthemem Heptek
Her hand trembled as she signed this strange name for
the first time. Agaranthemem meant "eldest daughter
and only child." Heptek meant "heir to the reigning
Heptarch." It was a name as treasonable as the one her
father had written. But it was her true name. Somehow,
in the movement of history, her father had been deprived
of his throne, and she of her place as his heir. It was a
staggering burden for a child of five to bear. But she was
Patience, the daughter of Lord Peace and pupil of Angel
the Almost-Wise, and in the eight years since then she
had never once uttered either name, or given the slightest
sign to anyone, by word or act, to show that she knew
what her rank and birthright ought to be.
Father burned the paper with their names on it, and
combed the ashes to dust. Ever since that day. Patience
had watched her father, trying to determine what his life
meant. For King Oruc had no More faithful and loyal
slave than Lord Peace, the man who should be Heptarch.
Even in private, even when no one could hear, Father
often said to her, "Child, King Oruc is the best Heptarch
the world could hope for at this time. In the five thousand
years since the starship first brought human beings
to the world Imakulata, it has never been More important
to maintain a King on his throne than it is, today, to
preserve King Oruc."
He meant it. He did everything he could to prove to
her that he meant it.
wyrms | 9
It caused her untold agony of heart, trying to discover
why Father gave such love and loyalty to the man who
exercised power and received honor that by rights should
have belonged to Lord Peace. Was Father so weak that
he could not even reach for what ought to be his own?
Once, when she was ten years old, she hinted to him
of how this question perplexed her. And his only answer
was to place his fingers on her lips, not as some traitors
had done, to receive the kiss of blessing from the mouth
of the King's daughter, but to silence her.
Then, gazing intently into her eyes, he said for the first
time: "The King cares only for the good of the King's
House. But the King's House is all the world."
That was the only answer she got from him. In the
years since then, though, she had begun to grasp what he
meant. That the Heptarch, the true Heptarch, always
acted for the benefit of the whole world. Other lords
could act to preserve their dynasty or enrich themselves,
but the true Heptarch would even give up the Heptagon
House and let a usurper rule in Heptam, the capital of
Korfu--if, for some unfathomable reason, such a thing
was to the greater benefit of the whole world.
What she could never understand was how her father's
displacement from his proper place benefited anyone. For
as she grew More learned and skillful in the arts of
diplomacy and government, observing the great public
councils and hearing of the delicate negotiations and
compromises that gathered ever More power to Heptagon
House, she saw plainly that the most brilliant mind, the
prime mover in consolidating King Oruc's hold on Korfu,
was Lord Peace.
As always, she had finally had to conclude that her
education was not complete. That someday, if she learned
enough and thought enough, she would understand what
Father was trying to do by working so loyally to keep the
usurper in power.
10 orson scott card
Now, however, she did not face so theoretical a problem.
She was thirteen years old, far younger than the age
at which a diplomatic career usually began, and King
Oruc had called her to begin service. It was so obviously
a trap that she almost believed his purpose might be
innocent. What good could possibly come to King Oruc
by inserting the rightful heir to the throne into the middle
of a delicate dynastic negotiation? How could it help
Oruc to remind the Tassaliki that his own family had held
the Heptagon House for a mere fifty years? That there
was a marriageable daughter of the original ruling family,
whose claim to the Heptarchy went back hundreds of
generations, five thousand years to the first human beings
to set foot on Imakulata? It was so reckless that it was
hard to believe Oruc stood to gain anything that might
offset the potential risk.
Nevertheless. I will go where the King requests, do
what the King desires, to accomplish the King's hopes.
He did not receive her in the public court. It was too
early for that. Instead she was led to the Heptarch's
chambers, where the smell of the breakfast sausage still
spiced the air. Oruc pretended not to notice her at first.
He was engaged in intent conversation with the head of
Lady Letheko, who had been his Constable until she died
last year. She was the only one of the King's household
slaves who understood as much of the nuances of protocol
as Lord Peace did; in his absence, it was not surprising
that King Oruc had ordered her head brought in from
Slaves' Hall to advise him during the visit of the Tassal
embassy.
"There may be no wine served," Letheko insisted.
She moved her mouth so vigorously that it set the whole
jar moving. King Oruc let go of her air bladder to steady
the jar. No sense in spilling the gools that kept her head
alive, or slopping messy fluids all over the fine rugs of
the chamber floor.
wyrms 11
Deprived of air, she nevertheless kept moving her
mouth, as if her argument was too important to wait for
such a trifle as a voice. Oruc resumed pumping.
' 'Unless you want them to think of you with contempt
as a winebibber. They take their religion seriously, not
like some people who act as if they thought Vigilants
were mere . . ."
Again Oruc let her bladder run out of air. He waved a
servant to take away Letheko's head, and turned to Patience.
"Lady Patience," he said.
"The Heptarch is kind to speak so nobly to the daughter
of his lowest slave." It was pro forma to talk that
way, but Patience had her father's knack of making the
trite phrases of diplomatic speech sound sincere, as if
they had never been spoken before.
"How lovely," said King Oruc. He turned to his wife,
who was having her hair brushed. "Hold up your mirror,
my love, and look at her. I heard she was a pretty girl,
but I had no idea.''
The Consort lifted her mirror. Patience saw in it the
reflection of the woman's pure hatred for her. Patience
responded as if it had been a look of admiration, blushing
and looking down.
"Lovely," said the Consort. "But her nose is too
long."
"The Lady Consort is correct," said Patience, sadly.
"It was a fault in my mother's face, but my father loved
her anyway." Father would have been annoyed at her for
reminding them, however subtly, of her family connections.
But her tone was so flawlessly modest that they
could not possibly take offense, and if the Consort continued
in trying to provoke her, she would only make
herself look increasingly boorish, even in the eyes of her
husband.
Oruc apparently reached the same conclusion. "Your
12 orson scott card
hair is sufficiently beautiful for the needs of the day," he
said. "Perhaps, my love, you could go and see if Lyra is
ready."
Patience noted, with satisfaction, that she had guessed
correctly which daughter was meant to be the price of the
Tassal treaty. She also enjoyed watching the Consort's
attempt at seeming regal as she stalked out of the room.
Pathetic. King Oruc had obviously married beneath the
dignity of his office. Still, she could understand the
Consort's hostility. By her very existence Patience was a
threat to the Consort's children.
Of course she showed none of these thoughts to King
Oruc. He saw nothing but a shy girl, waiting to hear why
the King had called her. Especially he did not see how
tense she was, watching his face so carefully that every
second that passed seemed like a full minute, and every
tiny motion of his eyebrow or lip seemed a great flamboyant
gesture.
He quickly told her all that she had already figured
out, and ended with the command that she had expected.
"I hope you'll be willing to help these children communicate.
You're so fluent in Tassalik, and poor Lyra doesn't
know More than ten words of it."
"You do me More honor than I can bear," said
Patience. "I'm only a child, and I'm afraid to put my
voice into such weighty affairs."
She was doing what her father said a loyal slave must
do: warn the King when the course he had chosen seemed
particularly dangerous.
"You can bear the honor," he said drily. "You and
Lyra played together as children. She'll be much More
comfortable, and no doubt so will the prince, if their
interpreter is a child. They'll be, perhaps, More candid."
"I'll do my best," Patience said. "And I'll remember
WYRMS | 13
every word, so that I can learn from my mistakes as you
point them out to me afterward."
She did not know him well enough to read his calm
expression. Had he really been asking her to spy on Lyra
and the Tassal prince? And if so, did he understand her
promise to report afterward all that they say? Have I
pleased him or offended him, read too much into his
commands, or not enough?
He waved a hand to dismiss her, immediately she
realized that she could not yet be dismissed. "My lord,"
she said.
He raised an eyebrow. It was presumptuous to extend
one's first meeting with the King, but if her reason was
good enough, it would not harm her in his eyes.
"I saw that you had the head of Lady Letheko. May I
ask her some questions?"
King Oruc looked annoyed. "Your father told me that
you were fully trained as a diplomat."
"Part of the training of a diplomat," she said softly,
"is to get More answers than you think you will need, so
you'll never wish, when it's too late, that you had asked
just one More question."
"Let her speak with Letheko's head," said Oruc.
"But not in here. I've heard enough of her babbling for a
morning."
They didn't even give her a table, so that Lady Letheko's
canister sat directly on the floor in the hallway. Out of
courtesy, Patience stepped out of her skirt and sat cross-
legged on the floor, so Letheko would not have to look
up to see her.
"Do I know you?" asked Letheko's head.
"I'm only a child," said Patience. "Perhaps you didn't
notice me."
"I noticed you. Your father is Peace."
Patience nodded.
14 | orson scott card
"So. King Oruc thinks so little of me that he lets
children pump my sheep-bladder lung and make my voice
ring out harshly in this shabby hallway. He might as well
send me out to Common Hall on the edge of the marsh,
and let beggars ask me for the protocols of the gutter."
Patience smiled shyly. She had heard Letheko in this
mood before, many times, and knew that her father
always responded as if the old lady had been teasing. It worked as well for her as it had for Father.
"You are a devil of a girl," said Letheko.
"My father says so. But I have questions that only you
can answer."
"Which means your father must be out of King's Hill,
or you'd ask him."
"I'm to be interpreter between Lyra and Prekeptor at
their first meeting."
"You speak Tassalik? Oh, of course, Peace's daughter
would know everything." She sighed, long and theatrically,
and Patience humored her by giving her plenty of
air to sigh with. "I was always in love with your father,
you know. Widowed twice, he was, and still never offered
to take a tumble with me behind the statue of the
Starship Captain in Bones Road. I wasn't always like
this, you know." She giggled. "Used to have such a
body."
Patience laughed with her.
"So, what do you want to know?"
"The Tassaliki. They're believers, I know, but what
does that mean in practical terms? What might offend
Prekeptor?"
"Well, don't make jokes about taking a tumble behind
the statue of the Starship Captain."
"They don't think he was the Kristos, do they?"
"They're Watchers, not Rememberers. They don't think
wyrms I 15
Kristos has ever come to Imakulata, but they watch every
day for him to come."
"Vigilants?"
"God protect us from Vigilants. But yes, almost. More
organized, of course. They do believe in warfare, for one
thing. As a sacrament. I do protocols, you know, not
theology."
"Warn me of whatever I need to be warned of."
"Then stop pumping."
Patience stopped pumping air, and lay supine before
the severed head in order to read its lips and catch the
scraps of sound that an unbreathing mouth can produce.
"You are in grave danger. They believe the seventh
seventh seventh daughter will bring Kristos."
Patience wasn't sure whether she had heard correctly.
The phrase meant nothing to her. She let her face show
her puzzlement.
"No one told you?" asked Letheko. "God help you,
child. An ancient prophecy--some say as old as the
Starship Captain--says that the seventh seventh seventh
daughter will save the world. Or destroy it. The prophecy
is vague."
Seventh seventh seventh daughter. What in the world
did that mean?
"Seven times seven times seven generations since the
Starship Captain. Irena was first. You are the 343rd
Heptarch."
Patience covered Letheko's lips with her fingers, to
keep her even from mouthing such treason.
Letheko smiled in vast amusement. "What do you
think they can do to me, cut off my head?"
But Patience was no fool. She knew that heads could
be tortured More cruelly and with less effort than would
ever be possible with a living human being. If she were
wise, she would stop this dangerous conversation with
16 I orson scott card
Letheko at once. And yet she had never heard of this
prophecy before. It was one thing to know she was in the
dangerous position of being a possible pretender to the
throne. But now to know that every true believer in every
human nation of the world thought of her as the fulfiller
of a prophecy--how could Father have let her go on for
so many years without telling her all of what others
thought she was?
Letheko wasn't through. "When you were born, a
hundred thousand Tassaliki volunteered to form an army
to invade Korfu and put you on the throne. They haven't
forgotten. If you gave the Tassaliki so much as a hope
that you would join them, they would declare a holy war
and sweep into Korfu in such numbers and with such
fury as we haven't seen since the last gebling invasion.
King Oruc is insane to put you in the same room with a
young Tassal prince who wants to prove his manhood."
Again Patience covered Letheko's mouth to stop her
speech. Then she lifted herself on her hands, leaned
forward, and kissed the wizened head on the lips. The
stench of the fluids in the canister was foul, but Letheko
had risked great suffering to tell her something far More
important than how one behaves properly with a devout
Tassal prince. A gool sloshed lazily in the canister. A
tear came to the corner of the old woman's eye.
"How many times," mouthed Letheko, "I wanted
to take you in my arms and cry out, My Heptarch,
Agaranthemem Heptek."
"And if you had," whispered Patience, "I would be
dead, and so would you."
Letheko grinned maniacally. "But I am." Patience
laughed, and gave Letheko air to laugh aloud. Then she
called the headsman to take the old lady back to Slaves'
Hall.
Patience walked through the great chambers of the
wyrms | 17
court, seeing the people on their errands there in a different
light. Most of them wore crosses, of course, but that
was the style. How many of them were believers? How
many were Watchers, or even secret Vigilants, harboring
mad thoughts of her saving--or destroying--the human
race, ushering in the coming of Kristos to Imakulata? More to the point, how many of them would die in order
to bring down King Oruc and restore Peace to Heptagon
House as its master, and Patience as his daughter and
heir?
And as thoughts of bloody revolution swam through
her head, her Father's cool voice came to the surface and
said, through a hundred memories, "Your first responsibility
is the greatest good for all the world. Only when
that is secure can you care for private loves and comforts
and power. The King's House is all the world."
If she was the sort of woman who would plunge Korfu
and Tassali into a bloody religious war, she was too
selfish and mad for power to serve as Heptarch. As many
as a million could die. Perhaps More. How could anything
ever surface from such an ocean of blood?
No wonder Father never told her. It was a terrible
temptation, one she could never have faced when she
was younger.
I am still young, she thought. And King Oruc is
putting me alone in a room with Prekeptor and Lyra. We
could talk in Tassalik and never be understood. We could
plot. I could commit treason.
He is testing me. He is deciding whether or not I will
be loyal to him. No doubt he even arranged for Letheko
to be available, so I could learn from her what he no
doubt knew she would tell me. My life, and possibly
Father's life, is in my own hands right now.
But Father would say, What is your life? What is my
life? We keep ourselves alive only so we can serve the
18 orson scott card
King's House. And he would not say, but I would remember,
The King's House is all the world.
Patience tried to figure out whether the world most
needed her alive or not. But she knew that this was not a
decision she was capable of making, not yet, not now.
She would try to stay alive because it was unthinkable to
do anything else. And to stay alive required perfect,
absolute loyalty to King Oruc. She could not even appear
to consider a plot to take the throne.
One thing was certain. After this was over, if she
pulled it off, Father's and Angel's simple little tests
would never frighten her again.
I
MOTHER OF GOD

lyra WAITED IN THE GARDEN OF heptagon house. oh VI-
ously, her mother had dressed her. Her gown was a
bizarre mixture of chastity and seduction, modest from
neck to floor, with just a touch of lace at her throat and
wrists. But the fabric was translucent, so that whenever
she was backlit her voluptuous shape was perfectly
silhouetted.
"Oh, Patience, I was so glad when Father said I could
have you interpret for me. I begged him for days, and he
finally relented."
Could it be that her presence here was only the result
of Lyra's pleading? Impossible--Oruc was too strong a
man to let his daughters endanger his throne on a whim.
"I'm glad he did," said Patience. "I'll be sorry if you
have to leave Heptam, but at least I can tell you whether
I approve."
This was obviously a joke, spoken by a thirteen-year-
old slave to the daughter of the Heptareh, but Lyra was
so tense she didn't notice the impropriety of the remark.
"I hope you do. And oh, if you see something in him
10
20 | orson scottcard
that I don't see, please let me know. I want so very much
to please Father by marrying this prince, but if he's really
awful, I can't possibly go through with it."
Patience showed nothing of the contempt she felt.
Imagine--a daughter of the Starship Captain's blood even
thinking of refusing a marriage, not for reasons of state,
but because she found the suitor unattractive. To put
one's personal pleasure ahead of the good of the King's
House was proof of unfitness. You should be out in a
country house, said Patience silently, the daughter of a
country lord, going to country dances and giggling with
your girlfriends about which of the country boys had the
fewest pimples and the least repulsive breath.
Neither her words nor her face betrayed her true feelings.
Instead she made herself a perfect mirror, reflecting
back to Lyra exactly what Lyra wanted to see and hear.
"He won't be awful, Lyra. The negotiators would never
have come this far if he had a second head growing out
of his shoulder."
"Nobody gets second heads anymore," said Lyra.
"They have a vaccine for it."
Poor child, thought Patience. She was usually bright
enough to understand such an obvious irony as that.
It did not seem incongruous to Patience that she was
thinking of Lyra, three years her senior, as a child. Lyra
had been pampered and spoiled, and despite the evidence
of her body she was not a woman yet. A thousand times
in their years as children together in King's Hill, Patience
had wished for just one night a year in the soft bed of one
of the Heptarch's daughters. But now, seeing the poor
result of a gentle upbringing, she silently thanked her
father for the cold room, the hard bed, the plain food, the
endless study and exercise.
"You're right, of course," said Patience. "May I kiss
you for luck?"
wyrms | 21
Lyra distractedly held out her hand. Patience knelt
before her and reverently kissed Lyra's fingertips. She
had learned years ago what a soothing effect such obeisance
had on Oruc's daughters. As Angel always said,
Your own humility is the best flattery.
The far door to the garden opened. A white hawk flew
out the door into the open air. It immediately flew straight
up and began to circle. A white songbird, already perched
on a low branch, began to sing sweetly. Lyra cried out
softly, hiding her mouth behind her hand, for it was
obvious the hawk had seen. It plummeted downward
directly toward the songbird--
And was caught by the swift motion of a net. It
struggled, but the young falconer who had caught the
hawk reached deftly past the jabbing beak and brought
the bird upside-down out of the net. The falconer was
dressed all in white, a perfect, dazzling white that hurt
the eyes when the sun was reflected in it. He whistled;
the door opened behind him and two servants came out,
bearing cages. In only a few seconds, the falconer had
put the two birds into the cages.
Through it all, the songbird had not missed a note.
Obviously, thought Patience, this scene has been rehearsed
so often the songbird has lost its fear of the
hawk.
Then she looked More closely and realized that, quite
to the contrary, the songbird remained perfectly placid
because it was blind. The eyes had been put out.
The servants stepped back toward the door as the
falconer sank to his knees in front of Lyra and began to
speak in Tassilik.
"Me kia psole o ekeiptu," he whispered.
"So will I protect you always from the despoiler,"
said Patience. Her inflection was, as far as possible, a
perfect mirror of Prekeptor's.
22 orson scott card
"It was beautiful," said Lyra. "The song, and you to
save the bird."
"Iptura oeenue," said Patience, mimicking Lyra's
breathless delight. "Oeris, marae i kio psolekte."
"Oh, you sound just like me," whispered Lyra.
Prekeptor spoke again, and Patience translated. "I
have brought a gift for the Heptarch's daughter."
He reached out his hand. A servant placed a book in it.
"A copy of the Testament of Irena, the Starship Captain's
Daughter," he said.
He held the book out toward Patience. Patience was
annoyed, since it was More proper for the suitor to ignore
the interpreter and place the book directly in the hand of
his intended. But perhaps in Tassali a servant was used to
pass even intimate gifts between lovers. There were stranger
customs.
Lyra pretended to be thrilled when Patience gave her
the book. Quietly Patience pointed out to her that the
pages of the book were unfinished paperleaf, which had
grown in such perfectly uniform shape and size that no
trimming was needed to make a perfect book. "It took
great effort in breeding the paperleaf," said Patience.
She did not point out that it was about as stupid a waste
of time as she could imagine, since processed paperleaf
was much better for writing and lasted longer, too.
"Oh," said Lyra. And she managed to come up with a
gracious little speech of thanks.
"Don't think that I pride myself on my technique with
plant husbandry," protested the Prince. "It has often
been said that the plants and animals of Imakulata seem
to understand what traits we are trying to develop, and
they change themselves to cooperate. Even so I shall
gladly be and do exactly what the Heptarch's daughter
desires of me."
Patience was growing uncomfortable with the way
wyrms | 23
Prekeptor looked directly at her instead of at Lyra when
he spoke. The interpreter is furniture; every diplomat was
taught that. Except, obviously, Tassal princes.
Prekeptor came up with another gift. It was a small
glass rod, hollow and filled with flowing light. Even in
broad daylight it glowed; when he shaded it under his
hand, it was positively bright. Again he smiled modestly
and made a little speech about his own poor skill at
husbandry. "If there were any Wise left in the world, I
might have done this far More quickly, by altering the
genetic molecule, but as it is I turned the great shipeater
weed into something quite useful." He smiled. "You
can read the Testament in bed after your father has
commanded you to blow out the candles."
"I never read in bed," said Lyra, puzzled.
"It was a joke," said Patience. "At least smile."
Lyra laughed. Too loudly, but she was obviously trying to please the fellow. And for obvious reasons. His white
clothing showed his body to be lithe and strong; his face
could have been the model for a statue of Courage or
Manhood or Virtue. When he smiled, he seemed to be
making love with his eyes. And Lyra didn't miss any of
it.
Except that Prekeptor never took his eyes off Patience.
And. now she realized what a dangerous game the Prince
was playing.
"The Heptarch's daughter will find that the prophecies
of joy in the Testament will all be fulfilled in her life,"
said Prekeptor. Patience dutifully translated, but also
realized now that the Prince was saying every word to
her, the true Heptarch's daughter, with the meaning doubled.
The prophecies in the Testament no doubt included
some of the mumbo-jumbo about the seventh seventh
seventh daughter. He was urging Patience to accept the
prophecies.
24 | orson scott card
The Prince had still a third gift. It was a plastic sheath
that fitted over the glass rod. Within the sheath were
constantly shifting flows of bright-colored but transparent
animals. With the light inside, the display was fascinating
and beautiful. Prekeptor handed it to Patience.
"The Heptarch's daughter will see that it can be worn,
if she chooses, like a crown, for all the world to see and
admire," said the Prince. "It's like the future--you can
choose any color and follow it wherever it goes. If the
Heptarch's daughter chooses wisely, she'll take a path
that leads to the restoration of all that was lost."
Subtly, in mid-speech, he had ceased using double
meanings. Now he was clearly speaking only to Patience,
and offering her a restoration to the throne.
Patience could not possibly translate Prekeptor's last
sentence. Lyra would insist on an explanation. However,
Patience could not leave it out of her translation, either,
or change its meaning, because that would alert Oruc's
listeners that she was conspiring with the Prince to conceal
his treasonous offer.
So instead she stood silent.
"What did he say?" asked Lyra.
"I did not understand him," said Patience. To Prekeptor
she said, "I'm sorry my understanding of Tassalik is so
poor, but I cannot understand anything that is said on this
subject. I beg the Prince to converse on matters that this
poor interpreter can comprehend."
"I understand," he answered, smiling. His hands were
trembling. "I, too, feel fear, here in the heart of Heptagon
House. What you do not know is that all of our party
are trained soldiers and assassins. They are prepared to
penetrate to the deepest recesses of Heptagon House to
destroy your enemies."
Anything Patience answered could be her death sentence.
In the first place, she herself had been trained as
wyrms | 25
an assassin, and she knew that if Prekeptor's plan had
any chance of working, he had just destroyed it by saying
it out loud in the open garden. No doubt throughout
Heptagon House all the Tassal embassy was now being
placed under irresistable arrest, with the words of their
own prince as their indictment. That he did not know that
he would be listened to here in the garden told Patience
that Prekeptor was too great a fool for her to entrust her
life to him.
But there was nothing she could say to stop him and
clear herself. If she said, I have no enemies here in
Heptagon House, she was admitting that he was somehow
correct to call her the Heptarch's daughter. She had
to go on pretending that she had no idea of why he was
speaking to her, and to do that she had to pretend not to
understand the plainest-spoken Tassalik. It wasn't likely
anyone would believe it, but it was not necessary to be
believed. It was necessary merely to make it possible for
Oruc to pretend to believe it. As long as they could both
pretend that she didn't know she was the rightful Heptarch's
daughter, she could be allowed to live.
So she put on her most baffled expression and said,
"I'm sorry, I guess I'm out of my depth. I thought I
spoke Tassalik well enough, but I see that I don't."
"What is he saying?" asked Lyra. She sounded concerned.
As well she might be, since Prekeptor, far from
coming to marry her, had come to kill her father and, no
doubt, her as well.
"I'm sorry," said Patience. "I understood almost
nothing."
"I thought you were fluent."
"So did I."
"Mother of Kristos," whispered Prekeptor. "Mother
of God, why don't you see the hand of God in my
26 I orson scott card
coming? I am the angel that stands at the door and
knocks. I announce to you: God will fill your womb."
His words were frightening enough, but the fervency
with which he said them was terrifying. What role did he
have in mind for her in his religion? Mother of God--
that was the ancient virgin from Earth, and yet he called
her that as if it were her name.
Still, she showed nothing of the surprise she felt. She
kept the vaguely puzzled look on her face.
"Holy Mother, don't you see how Kristos has prepared
the path for his coming?" He took a step toward
her. Immediately she hardened her expression, and he
stopped, retreated two steps. "No matter what you think,
God is irresistible," he said. "He has devoted seven
times seven times seven generations to create you to be
the fit mother of the incarnation of Kristos on the planet
Imakulata. This is greater than the number of generations
down to the time of the Virgin of Earth."
She let the helpless, puzzled look return to her face,
even as she tried to plan a course of action. In a way, this
was just like one of Angel's favorite games. He would
give her a complex mathematical problem--orally, so
she had no written guide to help her concentrate--and
then immediately launch into a complex story. Five minutes
or ten minutes or half an hour later, the story would
end. At once he would demand the answer to the mathematical
problem. When she had answered it, he would
ask her to tell him the entire story. In detail. Over the
years she had become adept at concentrating on two
things at once. Of course, her life had never before
depended on the outcome of the game.
"They have not taught you, I see. They have kept you
ignorant of your true identity. Don't pretend not to understand
my language, for I know you do, I will tell you.
God created Imakulata as his most godly planet. Here in
wyrms | 27
this world, the powers of creation run fast and deep. On
Earth it took thousands of generations for evolutionary
change to take place. Here, in only three or four generations
we can breed major changes into any species. Those
trifles I brought as gifts--they are new species, and it
took only four generations to perfect them. It is as if the
genetic molecule understood what we wanted it to become,
and changed itself. This is as true of species that
came from Earth as it is for the native species. It is only
here on Imakulata, God's World of Creation, that every
creature's genetic molecule, which is the mirror of the
will, obeys the slightest command to change. Does giving
off More light increase the plant's chance of reproducing?
Then immediately every plant gives off far More
light--even plants that did not take part in the experiment,
plants as much as a half-mile away. Do you see
what this means? God had given us here on Imakulata a
taste of his power."
Patience toyed with and then rejected the idea of killing
the Prince. If he had been an ordinary subject of the
Heptarch, it would have been her duty to kill him for
what he had said already, if only because he represented
a clear danger to Lyra. But it was not the prerogative of
an interpreter to kill the heir to the throne of Tassali.
King Oruc might regard it as an unfortunate intrusion
into his foreign policy.
"But to himself God has reserved the breeding of
humanity. Alone of the life forms of Imakulata, human
beings remain unchanged. For God is performing the
creation of man. And the crowning achievement is you--
for God will cause you to give birth to Kristos, the only
perfect man, who is the mirror of God, just as the genetic
molecule is the mirror of the will, the cerebrum is the
mirror of the identity, and the limbic node is the mirror
of the passion. The Wise thought they could meddle with
28 | orson scott card
the genetic molecule directly, that they could alter the
plans of God by making your father incapable of bearing
daughters so the prophecy could not be fulfilled. But God
destroyed the Wise, and your father did bear a daughter,
and you shall bear the Son of God no matter what you or
anyone may do to try to prevent it."
Patience could not leave, either. She needed to show a
decisive rejection of what he had said, not just a desire to
run from it. Besides, she wasn't sure Prekeptor would let
her leave. The madness of his faith was on him; he
trembled, and there was such fire in him that it was
beginning to kindle a response in her. She dared not
listen to More, for fear she might begin to doubt her own
skepticism; she dared not leave; she dared not kill him to
silence him. Therefore she had only one choice.
She reached into her hair and carefully drew out the
loop.
"What are you doing?" asked Lyra, who had been
taught, as a child of me heptarch, to recognize all the
known weapons of assassination.
Patience did not answer Lyra. She spoke instead to
Prekeptor. "Prince Prekeptor, I believe I understand enough
to realize that you believe my very existence is somehow
a reason to bring down my noble Heptarch, King Oruc.
Now that I see what a danger my very life causes to my
King, I have no alternative, as a true servant of the
King's House, but to end my life."
In a quick motion she passed the loop around her own
throat, drew it tight, and gave a tiny jerk that caused the
loop to cut into the skin to a depth of about two millimeters
all the way around her neck. The pain was surprisingly
slight at first. The cut was not uniform--in some
places it cut quite deep. But it had the effect she intended.
Immediately blood streamed thick as a bright red
collar around her neck.
wyrms | 29
The look of horror on Prekeptor's face was almost fun
to watch. "My God!" he cried, "My God, what have I
done!"
Nothing, you fool, thought Patience. I've done it. And
silenced you, too. Then the real pain came, and dizziness
from the sudden loss of blood. I hope I didn't cut too
deeply, thought Patience. I don't want to leave a scar.
Lyra screamed. Patience felt her legs giving way under
her. Ah, yes. I must collapse as if I were dying, she
thought. So she let herself slump down to the ground.
She clutched at her own throat—carefully removing the
loop in the process—and was surprised at the great amount
of blood that was still flowing. Won't I feel foolish if I
cut myself too deeply and bleed to death right here in the
garden.
Prekeptor was weeping. "Holy Mother, I meant no
harm to you. God help her, 0 Lord of Heaven, who sent
away the Wise in their blasphemy, forgive now this Fool
who gave himself to your service, and heal the Mother of
Thy Son—"
The sides of the world closed up; she could only see in
a tunnel straight ahead of her. She saw hands come and
take Prekeptor and carry him away from her. She heard
Lyra's screaming and weeping. She felt gentle hands take
her and lift her up, and someone whispering, "No one
has ever been so loyal to a heptarch as to take her own
life rather than hear treason."
Is that what I've done? thought Patience. Taken my
own life?
And then, as they carried her out of the garden, she
thought: I wonder if Angel will approve of my solution to
the problem. As for the story, I remember every word of
it. Every word.
?
ASSASSIN

patience WAS ALREADY WEARY OF LYING IN BED AFTER THE
first day. Visits from people with nothing intelligent to
say made her even wearier.
"I don't think there'll be a scar," said Lyra.
"I wouldn't mind if there were," said Patience.
"It was the bravest thing I ever saw."
"Not really," said Patience. "I knew I wouldn't die.
It was the only way to silence him."
"But what was he sayingT'
Patience shook her head. "He wasn't the ideal husband
for you, believe me."
Lyra looked profoundly worried. Well she should be,
thought Patience. Maybe Lyra is realizing for the first
time that her dynastic rights might be in danger from me,
however loyal I try to be.
"Was he trying to--to arrange to--you know. With
you."
Oh. Of course Lyra wouldn't have dynastic worries.
She had never been taught responsibility. "I can't talk
about it," said Patience. She turned her face away,
31
32 orson scott card
though, so Lyra would convince herself that the answer
was yes.
"Right in front of me, wanting to--but why you? I
know you're pretty, everyone says so, but I'm the
Heptarch's daughter--and I'm not ugly, either. I'm really
not. I'm very objective about that."
"The only men who wouldn't be glad to have you as
their wife are the victims of terrible pelvic accidents,"
said Patience, smiling.
After a moment, Lyra understood and blushed. "You
mustn't talk that way." But she was flattered. And now
that Patience had succeeded in convincing her that she
didn't owe some debt of guilt for Patience's wound, Lyra
left.
At least I didn't come here yesterday as ignorant of the
truth as Lyra still is. Someday, though, someone will tell
her who I am, and why my father's ancient claim is seen
by some as a bit More valid than Oruc's. Then she'll
understand what was really going on today, and perhaps
realize that it was my survival I was working for, not my
death.
What worried her was not Lyra's reaction. It was King
Oruc's. He was the only audience that Patience's performance
was designed to please. If he saw her gesture as a
desperate effort to prove her loyalty, then she would
survive. But if he actually believed she was trying to kill
herself, he would believe her insane and never trust her
with anything. Her career would be over before it began.
The doctor had her wound clamped shut with the jaws
of hundreds of tiny earwigs. "Not like regular earwigs,
though," the doctor said. "These were bred to provide a
powerful and continuous pincer movement until I squeeze
their abdomens in a certain way. They respond to the
flexing of your skin and promote the healing process. Without excessive scar tissue."
wyrms 33
"Very clever," murmured Patience. Everyone assumed
she didn't want a scar. But she wasn't sure. It wouldn't
hurt to have a visible reminder, every time people saw
her, of how loyal she was to King Oruc. She was tempted
to squeeze off the earwigs herself, or readjust their position
so the scar would dimple and twist. But no, it would
be too obvious if she deliberately left a scar herself. It
would diminish some of the power of her act.
For it was a powerful act. Oruc gave her a room of
honor in Heptagon House during her convalescence, and
many adults stopped to wish her well. Few of them were
skilled at the diplomatic arts, and so she could easily see
that most of them were at once drawn to and repelled by
who she was. She was a young girl, after all, with only
the first bloom of womanhood on her, of an age that
often caused wistfulness in adults who ache for their
youth and beauty, even though they know perfectly well
that they were never really as young and beautiful as she.
She was also the true Heptarch's daughter, the legendary
seventh seventh seventh daughter of the Starship Captain.
Until now, they could never openly seek her out, for fear
of arousing King Oruc's suspicions. But who could criticize
them for paying their respects to a young girl who
had performed heroic service for the King's daughter?
So she received them as they visited in ones and twos,
to say a few words, touch her hand. Many of them tried
to touch her with gestures of respect that properly belonged
only to the Heptarch's family; she rejected those
gestures by subtly replacing them with her own. Always
she explicitly honored her visitor as being someone far
superior to her in rank. Some saw this as a clever disguise;
others as true humility; to Patience, it was survival.
For she noticed that Angel did not come to visit her,
and that Father did not seem to be hurrying home. It was
unthinkable that they would not come to her if they
34 orson scott card
could. Therefore someone must be forbidding them to
come. And the only one who could do that was King
Oruc. Something in her performance had bothered him.
He still wasn't sure of her.
At last the stream of visitors stopped. The doctor came
with two orderlies. Gently they lifted her into a litter.
They did not have to tell her where she was going. When
Oruc summons, there is no need for discussion in Heptagon
House. One simply goes.
They set down the litter in Oruc's chamber. His Consort
wasn't there, but three unfamiliar heads were. She
did not recognize them. And she had spent enough time
in Slaves' Hall to know all the faces there. So either
these were not former ministers of state, or they were so
important to King Oruc that he kept them out of Slaves'
Hall, so no one else could talk to them. Each head's
canister rested on its own table, with a dwelf seated
behind it to pump the air bladder.
"So that's the girl," one of them murmured when she
came in. Because the dwelfs weren't pumping right then,
he did not make a sound, but she saw his lips move. And
though she wasn't sure, another might have mouthed her
true name, "Agaranthemem Heptek."
The doctor fussed and preened, showing off his excellent
skill at healing her wound. Without, of course, a
scar.
"Very good, Doctor," said Oruc. "But then, I expect
my technicians to perform their tasks well."
The doctor was miffed at being called a mere technician,
but of course he tried to conceal his annoyance.
"Thank you, Lord Heptarch."
"No scar," said Oruc. He peered at her neck critically.
"None at all."
"But a string of bugs around her neck. I think it would
WYRMS | 35
be a hard choice, between a scar and a necklace of
earwigs."
"Oh, no," said the doctor. "The earwigs will come
off very soon. Now, if they displease you, sir."
Oruc looked weary. "What you heard. Doctor, was
not my stupidity, but my sense of humor."
"Oh, of course, I'm such a fool, forgive me, I'm a bit
tense, I--" and then, realizing his talking was making
things worse, the doctor burst into artificial laughter.
"Enough. Fine work. I commend you. Go away."
The doctor scurried out the door.
Oruc exhaled wearily. "Surely there has been a decline
in the quality of court life since the Flight of the
Wise."
"I wouldn't know, sir," said Patience. "I wasn't born
then. I've never known any of the Wise."
Oruc raised an eyebrow. "By heaven, neither have I."
Then he shook his head. "No, it's not true to say that.
I've known some Wise among the dead." He did not
need to glance back at the three heads behind him. "And
one wise man among the living, one man among all my
ministers who gives me counsel worth hearing, who
cares as much for Korfu as I do."
"My father," she whispered.
"A most unlucky situation, isn't it?" said Oruc. "Even
the wisest King needs good advice, and there's little of
that left in the world. I would give half my kingdom to
know what became of the Wise when they left here, and
how to bring them back."
One of the heads behind him spoke up. Apparently the
dwelfs were pumping again. "Oruc, you're likely to lose
half your kingdom because you don't know."
Another head gave a crazed old man's giggle. "So it's
a bargain for him, to give it up and get back the Wise in
the bargain."
36 orson scott card
"You know where the Wise went," said the third, a
grim face with no teeth. "Cranning. And there's no
bringing them back from there."
"It's the dilemma of our times," said Oruc to Patience.
"We're long overdue for another gebling invasion.
Twelve times in seven thousand years they havei poured out of their vast city Cranning, out of the caverns
of Skyfoot, and each time all of human civilization has
been broken under their onslaught. Then they go back to
their caverns or back to being somewhat pitiful merchants
and voyagers and wanderers through the world,
while human beings struggle back, rediscover what science
they can. Only one human institution has outlasted
it all, a single bloodline of power from the first moment
mankind set foot on Imakulata until it was time for the
thirteenth gebling invasion." He did not say it, but of
course she knew he was referring to the Heptarchy. To
her family.
"And then," said Oruc, "instead of an invasion, all
the Wise, all the men and women of learning--no, not of
mere learning, but of true understanding--all of them,
one by one, felt the Cranning call. An unbearable, undeniable,
irresistible urge to go somewhere. They were
never sure where, they said. But they were followed, and
they all went to Cranning. All of them. Statesmen, generals,
scientists, teachers, builders--all the men and women
that a King must rely on to carry out his rule, they all
left. Who could stand then, when the Wise were gone?"
"No one," whispered Patience. She was truly afraid
now, for he was speaking so frankly of the fall of her
family's ancient dynasty that she could not help but
assume he intended to kill her after this conversation was
over.
"No one. The Cranning call took them, and the Heptarch
wyrms | 37
fell. He wasn't much of a Heptarch, your great-grand-
father."
"I never knew him," said Patience.
"A beastly fellow. Even discounting the propaganda
my father put out, he was unspeakable. He used to
preserve the heads of his former lovers and put their
canisters around his bed, to watch him make love to his
latest creature."
"I should think," said Patience, "that was More of a
torture to the current lover than to the former ones."
Oruc laughed. "Yes. Though you're only a child, so
you shouldn't know about such things. There are so
many things you shouldn't know about. My personal
physician--who is not Wise, I suspect--examined you
before the earwig man sewed you up. He tells me you
could not possibly have done a More perfect job of
cutting yourself to draw the most possible blood without
causing any permanent or even dangerous damage."
"I was fortunate," said Patience.
"Your father didn't tell me he was training you in the
arts of murder."
"He has trained me to be a diplomat. He has often told
me of your maxim, that one well-placed assassination
can save untold numbers of lives."
Oruc smiled and spoke to the heads. "She flatters me
by quoting my own words back to me, and telling me
that the great Lord Peace repeats them often."
"Actually," said the dourest head, "I said those words
to you first."
"You're dead, Konstans. I don't have to give you
credit."
Konstans. Eight hundred years ago there had been a
Konstans who restored Korfu to hegemony over the entire
length of the Glad River, only ten years ater a
gebling invasion, and without a drop of blood being
38 | orson scott card
shed. If it was the same man, it would explain the
decrepit condition of the head. Few heads ever lasted as
long as a thousand years—this one was nearing the end
of its function.
"I still have my vanity," said Konstans's head.
"I don't like it that he has taught her how to kill. And
so deftly that she can create death's illusion on herself."
"She is her father's daughter," said another head.
"That's what I'm afraid of," said Oruc. "How old are
you? Thirteen. How can you kill besides the loop?"
"Many ways," said Patience. "Father says I'm not|
strong enough to pull the bow properly, and casting a
javelin isn't much use in our trade. But poisons, darts,
daggers—I grew up with them."
"And bombs? Incendiaries?"
"The duty of a diplomat is to kill as quietly and
discreetly as possible."
"Your father says."
"Yes."
"Could you kill me now? Here, in this room, could
you kill me?"
Patience did not answer.
"I command you to answer me."
She knew too much of protocol to be drawn into the
trap. "Sir, please don't toy with me this way. The King
commands me to speak about whether I could kill the
King. Whether I obey or not, I commit terrible treason."
"I want honest answers. Why do you think I keep
these heads around me? They can't lie—that's what the
headwonns do to them, they make sure that they can
never answer dishonestly, or even withhold part of the
truth."
"The heads, sir, are already dead. If you wish me to
behave as they do, it is within your power.''
"I want truth from you, and never mind protocol."
wyrms | 39
"As long as I am alive, I will never speak treason."
Oruc leaned close to her, his face angry and dangerous.
"I am not interested in your determination to survive
at all costs, girl. I want you to speak honestly to
me."
Konstans chuckled. "Child, he can't kill you. You're
safe to speak to him, for now, at least."
Oruc glared at Konstans, but the head was undeterred.
"You see, he depends on your father, and he believes
your father will never serve him faithfully unless you're
held hostage here. Alive. So what he's trying to determine
now is whether you can also be useful to him, or
whether you will remain nothing More than a constant
temptation to his enemies."
Konstans's analysis made sense, and Oruc didn't argue
with him. It seemed absurd to her, to have the most
powerful human being in the world treating her like a
potentially dangerous adult. But her respect for Oruc was
rising in the process. Many a lesser ruler would have
destroyed her and Father, fearing the danger of them More than any possible value they might have.
So she made the decision to trust him. It frightened
her, because that was the one thing Father and Angel had
never taught her: when to trust. "My Lord Heptarch,"
said Patience, "if the thought of killing you could live
for a moment in my heart, then yes, I could do it."
"Now?" There was an expression of veiled triumph in
his eyes. Had he won a victory, then, by convincing her
to trust him?
I have begun; I will not retreat. "Even now, even if I
told you I was going to do it, I could kill you before you
raised a hand to defend yourself. My father knows his
trade, and I have studied with the master."
Oruc turned to one of the dwelfs. "Go fetch my
guards and tell them to come arrest this girl for treason."
40 | orson scott card
He turned to Patience and calmly said, "Thank you. I
needed a legal basis for your execution. These heads will
be witnesses that you claimed in my presence to be able
to kill me."
It shook her, how calmly he betrayed her. And yet she
could not wholly believe the betrayal. No, this was just
another test, another move in the game. He really did
need Peace--he proved it by the fact that he took no
major action without consulting Peace first--and so he
really did fear to kill Patience. Nothing had changed that.
And if it was a test, she would win. She nodded
gravely. "If I can best serve my Heptarch by dying
through legal process, I'll confess to that or any other
crime."
Oruc walked to her, touched her hair, stroked her
cheek with the back of his fingers. "Beautiful. The
Mother of God."
She endured it placidly. He wasn't going to kill her.
That was victory enough for the moment.
"I wonder if someone is breeding humans, as the
Tassaliki claim. Not God--I doubt he bothers much with
the mating of humans on Imakulata--but someone. Someone
with the power to call the Wise." He took her chin,
not gently, and tipped her face upward. "If someone
wanted to breed magnificence, I could believe you as the
result of his work. Not right now, you're still a child.
But there's a translucence to you, a lightness in your
eyes."
Until this moment, it had never occurred to Patience
that she might be beautiful. Her mirror did not reveal the
soft and rounded features that were the fashion of beauty
these days. But there was no hint of flattery or deception
in Oruc's words.
"As long as you're alive," he whispered, "anyone
who sees you will want me dead, so you can take my
wyrms 41
place. Do you understand that? Me and all my family,
dead. Whether or not someone bred you to be what you
are, you are. And I will not have my children destroyed
for your sake. Do you understand me?"
"Your children have been my playmates all my life,"
said Patience.
"I should kill you. Your father even advised me to kill
you. But I won't do it."
But Patience knew that there was an unspoken word:
yet. I will not kill you yet.
"What maddens me is not that I choose to leave you
alive, for in truth I rejoice in you as surely as any
Vigilant. What maddens me is that I don't remember
deciding to leave you alive. I don't remember choosing.
The decision was simply--made. Is it you? Is it some
trick of manipulation your father taught you?"
Patience didn't answer. He didn't seem to expect her
to.
"Or am I being twisted as the Wise were twisted? The
decision made for me because whoever it is wants you,
wants you alive." He turned to the heads. "You--you
have no will anymore, only memory and passion. Do you
remember what it is to choose?"
"A dim memory," said Konstans. "I think I did it
once or twice."
Oruc turned his back on them. "I have done it all my
life. Chosen. Consciously, deliberately chosen, and then
acted upon my choice, regardless of passion. My will has
always been in control of my triune soul--the priests
know it, that's why they fear me, why there is no revolution
in your name. They believe that whenever I choose
to, I can and certainly will kill you. They don't know.
That on this matter I have no will."
Patience believed that he believed what he was saying.
But it was still not true. There would come a time when
42 orson scott card
he feared her More than now, and he would kill her. She
could feel that certainty lying beneath everything he said.' For that was the foundation of his power, that he could|
kill anyone when he chose to. "Father told me once,"' she said. "There are two ways to rule human beings.I
One is to convince the people that if they do not obeyJ
they and those they love will be destroyed. The other is
to earn the love of the people. And he told me where
these two ways lead. Eventually, the course of terror
leads to revolution and anarchy. Eventually, the course
of flattery leads to contempt and anarchy."
"So he believes no power can last?"
"No. Because there is a third way. It looks like the
course of love sometimes, and sometimes it looks like
the course of terror."
"Back and forth between the two? The people wouldn't
know you then, and none would follow you."
"No. It isn't back and forth between anything. It's a
straight and steady course. The course of magnanimity
Greatness of heart."
"It means nothing to me. One of the cardinal virtues
but the priests don't even know what it means."
"To love your people so much that you would sacri
fice anything for the good of the whole. Your own life,
your own family, your own happiness. And then you
expect the same from them."
Oruc looked at her coldly. "You're repeating what
you learned by rote."
"Yes," she said. "I will observe you, though, my
Heptarch, and see if it is true."
"Magnanimity. Sacrifice anything. What do you think
I am--Kristos?"
"I think you are my Heptarch, and you will always
have my loyalty."
"But will my children?" asked Oruc. "Can you tell
me that?"
wyrmsI 43
She bowed her head. "My lord, for your sake I would
die for your children."
"I know. We've had theatrical proof of that. But I
know better than you do. You are loyal to me because
your father taught you to be, and he is loyal to me
because he loves Korfu as much as I do. He's a wise
man, your father. The last of the Wise, I believe. I think
it's only because of his bloodline that he hasn't heard the
Cranning call. When he is dead--that old man, can see
death in him now already--when he is dead, how can I
trust you then?"
The guards he had sent for were waiting in the doorways.
He beckoned them in. "Take her back to the
physician and have those bugs removed. Then give her
back into the custody of her father's slave. Angel. He's
waiting in the garden." He turned to Patience. "He's
waited there for days, never stirring. A most devoted
servant. By the way, I've ordered a medal struck in your
honor. Every member of the Fourteen Families will wear
it for this week, as will the Mayor and Council of
Heptam. You handled the situation with the Tassali brilliantly.
Perfectly. I will have occasion to use your talents
again." He smiled gruesomely. "ALL your talents."
This had been her final examination, then, and she had
passed. He intended to use her as a diplomat, young as
she was. And as an assassin. She would wait now, as her
father had always waited, for the knock on the door in
the night, and the shadowy messenger with a note from
King Oruc. She would read the note, as Father did, to learn who it was who should die. Then she would burn it
and comb the ashes into fine powder. Then she would
kill.
She almost danced down the corridors of Heptagon
House. She needed no litter now. She had faced the
King, and he had chosen her as her father had been
chosen.
44 orson scott card
Angel took up her education where it had left off only
a few days before, as if nothing had happened. She knew
enough not to speak of these matters inside King's Hill,
where everything was overheard and reported.
Two days later, Angel recieved a message late in the
afternoon and immediately closed his book. "Patience,"
he said. "We will go down into the city this afternoon."
"Father is home!" she cried in delight.
Angel smiled at her as he put her cloak around her
shoulders. "Perhaps we could go to the School. We
might learn something."
It wasn't likely. The School was a large open place in
the middle of Heptam. Years ago, the Wise of the world
had come here to teach to all corners. Because of Crossriver
Delving and Lost Souls' Island, Heptam was known as
the religious capital of the world; the School made it the
intellectual center as well. But now, a generation after
the Flight of the Wise, the School was no More than a
gaggle of scholars who endlessly recited dead and memorized
words that they did not understand. Angel took
great delight in teaching Patience to go to the heart of an
argument and find its weak place. Then she would confront
the would-be philosopher and skewer him publicly.
She didn't do it often, but enjoyed knowing that she could, whenever she liked. Learn something? Not at the
School.
It wasn't learning she was after anyway. It was freedom.
Whenever Father was away, she was forced to
remain within the high walls of King's Hill, among the
same nobles and courtiers and servants. She had long
since explored every corner of King's Hill, and it held no
surprises for her. But whenever Father came home, she
was free. As long as he was behind the walls of King's
Hill, Angel could take her wherever he wanted in the
city.
wyrms 45
They used these times to practice techniques they could
never use in King's Hill. Disguises, for instance. They
would often dress and talk as servants, as criminals, as
merchants, pretending to be father and daughter. Or,
sometimes, mother and son, for as Angel said, "The
most perfect disguise is to change from one sex to another,
for when they are searching for a girl, all boys are
invisible to them."
Even better than the disguises, though, was the talk.
Switching from language to language, they could freely
converse as they walked along the bustling streets. No
one could stay near them long enough to overhear an
entire conversation. It was the only time when she could
ask her most difficult and dangerous questions and voice
her most rebellious opinions.
It would have been completely joyful, this trip down
the hill to Heptam, except for one constant sadness:
Father never came with her on these trips. Oruc never let
them leave King's Hill together. So all her life, all her
conversations with her father had been guarded, careful.
All her life, she had had to guess what Father really
meant, discern his true purpose, for as often as not he
could never say in words what he wanted her to know.
Their secrets could only be passed back and forth by
Angel. He would take her out into the city, and she
would talk with him; then he would leave her in King's
Hill and walk in the city with Peace. Angel was a good
friend, and both of them could trust him implicitly. But
in spite of Angel's best efforts, it was like conversing
through an interpreter all the time. Never in her life had
Patience known a single moment of true intimacy with
her father.
As they walked through King's Gift and High Town,
descending long sloping roads toward the School, Patience
asked Angel why the King forced them to be
46 orson scott card
separate this way. "Doesn't he know yet that we are his
most loyal subjects?"
"He knows you are, Lady Patience, but he misunderstands
why. In treating you and your father this way, he
says nothing about you, but much about himself. He
believes that by keeping one of you hostage at all times,
he can guarantee the loyalty of the other. There are many
people who can be controlled that way. They're the
people who love their families above anything else. They
call it a virtue, but it is nothing More than protecting
one's own genes. Reproductive self-interest. That is the
thing that Oruc lives by. He is a great King, but his
family comes first, so that in the final crisis, he could be
held hostage, too." It was treason to say such a thing, of
course, but he had split the sentence into Gauntish, Geblic,
and the argot of the Islanders, so there was little chance
of a passerby understanding any of it.
"Am I Father's hostage, then?" Patience asked.
Angel looked grim. "Oruc thinks you are. Lady Patience,
and any assurance Lord Peace gives him that he
would be loyal even if you were free seems further proof
to the Heptarch that your father is desperate to win your
freedom. And mark me well, little girl. Oruc thinks you
are obedient in order to protect your father's life, as
well."
"How sad, if he believes that everyone who says they
love and serve him willingly is a liar."
"Kings have found they live longer when they assume
the worst about their subjects. They don't live More
happily, but they tend to die of old age rather than the
abrupt disease called treachery."
"But Angel, Father will not live forever. Who will he
think is my hostage, then?"
Angel said nothing.
For the first time, Patience realized that there was a
wyrms 47
good chance she would not outlive her father by many
years. Patience was the daughter of his second wife,
whom he had married late; he was near seventy now, and
not in the best of health. "But Angel, all the reasons the
Heptarch has now for not killing me will still be in force
then. If all the religious fanatics think I'm to be the
Mother of Kristos--"
"Not just the fanatics, Lady Patience."
"What will it do to the legitimacy of his rule if he kills
me?"
"What will it do to the legitimacy of his children's
rule if he does not? He can keep you under control, but
when he dies, you'll be young, at the peak of your
powers. And now he knows that you are a dangerous
assassin, a clever diplomat, with a powerful will to survive.
It will be dangerous to Korfu, perhaps to the whole
world, if he kills you; it will be dangerous to his family if
he does not. Look for an assassin in the days following
your father's death. If all goes well, your father will
know he is dying soon enough to send me away. You are
expected to know how to deal with any assassins and get
out of King's Hill. At sunset on the day of your father's
death, meet me here, at the School. I will have a way to
get you out of the city."
They walked among clusters of students. The nonsense
being spouted by the sophists on every side seemed a
bitter contrast to the thought of her future after her father
died. "And where will I go?" asked Patience. "I'm
trained for the King's service. If he's trying to kill me, I
can hardly do that."
"Don't be such a fool. Lady Patience. Never for an
instant were you trained for the King's service."
In that moment, Patience's understanding of her whole
life up to now turned completely around. All her memories,
all her sense of who she was, what she was meant to
48 orson scott card
become, changed. I am not meant to advise and serve a
King. I am meant to be the King. They do not mean me
to be Lady Patience. They mean me to be Agaranthemem
Heptek.
She stopped. People walking behind them pushed past.
"All my life," she said, "I have learned to be loyal to
the King."
"And so you should be, and so you shall be," said
Angel. "Walk, or the spies who frequent this place will
overhear us, and we're speaking treason. You are loyal
to King Oruc for the very good reason that for the good
of Korfu and all human nations at this time, he should
remain as Heptarch. But the time will come when his
weakness will be fatal, and then for the good of Korfu
and all human nations, you will need to assume the
throne and bear the scepter of the Heptarchy. And at that
day. Lady Patience, you will be ready."
"So when Father dies, I go to Tassali and raise an
army? Invade my own land and people?"
"You'll do what is necessary for the good of the
whole people at that time. And by that time you will
know what that good must be. It has nothing to do with
what is good for you or your kin. You know that your
duty comes before any private emotion or loyalty. That is
why King Oruc does not really hold you or your father
hostage. If the good of the King's House required either
of you to take an action that would certainly result in the
death of the other, you would not hesitate. That is true
magnanimity, to love the whole, and therefore to love no
part greater than the whole. A daughter no More than a
stranger, where the good of the King's House is concerned.''
It was true. Father would let her die, if the good of the
King's House demanded it. Angel had first said it to her
when she was only eight years old. On the day of her
formal baptism, he took her out King's Creek to the
wyrms 49
Binding House on Lost Souls' Island--the King's private
and loyal monastery, not that nest of sedition at Heads
House in Crossriver Delving, where the priests prayed
openly for Oruc's death. As Angel rowed the boat, he
told her that Father would certainly let her die and make
no effort to save her, if it was for the good of the King's
House. It was a cruel thing, and she felt it like a knife
through her heart. By the time her baptism was over,
however, and they were again on the water returning to
King's Hill, she made her decision. She, too, would have
greatness of heart. She, too, would learn to love the
King's House More than her own father. For that was the
way of it. If she was to become like her father, she
would have to reject her love for the old man. Or,
perhaps, merely keep it in abeyance, to be discarded
easily if it were ever necessary for the good of the King's
House.
Despite that decision, though, she still longed, just
once, to have the opportunity to speak freely and fearlessly
with Peace. Even now, walking through the School
with Angel, speaking to him about her greatest fears for
the future, she was keenly aware that he was not her
father.
She did not want to discuss anymore what would
happen when Father died. So she rattled on for an hour
about everything that had happened in the garden of
Heptagon House, and later, in the King's chambers. She
explained how she had unraveled the puzzles. She even
repeated almost verbatim the strange doctrines that
Prekeptor had set forth about her destiny.
"Well, as far as it goes," said Angel, "he tells a
reasonably true story. The Wise were playing with genetics
in a way never before possible. They had developed
living gels that read the genetic code of foreign tissues
and mirrored the genetic molecule in slowly shifting
50 | orson scott card
crystals on the surface. It enabled the scientists to study
the genetic code in great detail, without any magnification
at all. And by altering the crystals in the gel, the
tissue samples could also be altered. Then they could be
implanted in the host's reproductive cells. It was a similar
technique that kept your father from having a daughter
for so many years. And a similar technique that
changed him back, so you could be born."
Patience answered scornfully. "So God didn't like
them meddling with the mirror of the will, and took them
away?"
"The mirror of the will, the triune soul--you shouldn't
scoff at it, even if you have decided to be a Skeptic. This
religion has lasted pretty well over the years, and partly
because some of the ideas work. You can live with the
triune soul as a model for the way the mind works. The
will, contained in the genetic molecules--why not? It's
the most primitive part of ourselves, the thing that we
can't understand, why we finally choose what we choose--
why not put it in the genes? And then the passions--the
desire for greatness on the one side, and all the destructive
desires on the other. Why not put them in the limbic
node, the animal part of the brain? And the identity, the
sense of self, that is our memories, the cerebrum, all that
we remember doing and seeing, and what we conceive it
to mean. There's a certain power in conceiving your own
self in that way, Patience. It allows you to separate
yourself from your memories and your passions, to impose
discipline on your life. We are never deceived into
believing that either our environment or our desires cause
our behavior."
"More to the point. Angel. What happened to Prekeptor,
with or without his religion?"
"He was sent home. Though I must tell you that you
put the fear of God in him."
wyrms | 51
"He was already trembling with it."
"No, that was the love of God. Fear was your contribution.
They had to wash his clothes after he saw you slit
your own throat. All his sphincter muscles released."
She let herself laugh, though it wasn't kind to be
amused. Still, he had been so fervent that she couldn't
help laughing to think of the crisis of faith he must have
had, to see the Mother of God apparently dying before
Kristos could make an appearance.
They stayed in the city for hours, talking and playing
until the sun set behind Fort Senester in Gladmouth Bay.
Then Angel took her home, to see her father.
Never before had he looked so old and frail to her. A
strange hollow look to his eyes, a sunken look to his
skin- He was wasting. She was only thirteen years old,
and her father was already beginning to die, before she
ever had a chance to know him.
He was stiff and formal with her, of course; deliberately,
so she would be sure to know that this was for an
audience, and not particularly for her. He commended
her, commented on her behavior, criticizing freely some
of the things she had done that she knew perfectly well
he approved of completely.
And when it was over, he handed her a slip of paper.
On it was the name of Lord Jeeke of Riismouth, a
marcher lord, one of the Fourteen Families. She was to
visit him with her tutor as part of an educational tour of
the kingdom. Lord Jeeke was to die no sooner than a
week after she left, so that no one could connect her with
his death.
It was surprisingly simple. The journey took three
days. On her first night there, she shared a wine glass
with Lord Jeeke, which was filled with a nonhuman
hormone that was, by itself, harmless. Then she infected
Jeeke's mistress with spores of a parasitic worm. The
52 orson scott card
spores were passed to Jeeke through intimate contact; the
hormone caused the worms to grow and reproduce rapidly.
They infested Jeeke's brain, and three weeks later
he was dead.
She was already back in King's Hill when the news
reached them. She wrote letters of condolence to Jeeke's
family. Father read them and patted her shoulder. "Well
done, Patience."
She was proud to have him say so. But she was also
curious. "Why did King Oruc want him dead?"
"For the good of the King's House."
"His personal pique, then?"
"The King's House isn't Heptagon House, Patience.
The King's House is all the world."
"For the good of the world? Jeeke was a gentle and
harmless man."
"And a weak one. He was a marcher lord, and he had
neglected his military duties. The world was More pleasant
because he was a good man. But if his weakness had
led, as was likely, to rebellion and border war, many
would have died or been left crippled or homeless by the
war. For the sake of the King's House."
"His life against the possibility of war."
"Some wars must be fought for the good of the King's
House. And some must be avoided. You and I are instruments
in the hands of the King."
Then he kissed her, and as his mouth rested by her ear
he whispered, "I'm dying. I won't live three years.
When I die, cut into my left shoulder, midway along and
above the clavicle. You'll find a tiny crystal. As you
live, cut it out and keep it, whatever the cost." Then he
pulled away and smiled at her, as if nothing strange had
been spoken.
You cannot die, Father, she cried out silently. In all
my life we've never spoken. You cannot die.
wyrms | 53
She performed four More assassinations for King Oruc,
and a dozen other missions. She turned fourteen, and
then fifteen. And all the while Father waited back in
King's Hill, growing weaker and older. On her fifteenth
birthday he told her she didn't need a tutor anymore, and
sent Angel away to be overseer of some lands he held
outside the city. Patience knew what it meant.
Not long after, Father woke up too weak to get out of
bed. He sent the nearest servant to fetch a physician, and
for a moment they were alone. Instantly he handed her a
knife. "Now," he whispered. She cut. He did not even
wince from the pain. She took from the wound a small
crystal globe, beautiful and perfect.
"The scepter of the Heptarchs of Imakulata," he whispered.
"The Usurper and his son never knew what or
where it was." He smiled, but in his pain his smile was
ghastly. "Never let a gebling know you have it," he
said.
A servant came in, realizing they had been left alone
too long; but she came too late and saw nothing, for
towels covered the slightly bleeding wound, and the tiny
amber-colored globe was in Patience's pocket.
Patience fingered it, pressed on it as if to squeeze
some nectar from it. My father is dying. Father is dying,
and the only thing I have from him is a hard little crystal I cut from his flesh, covered with his blood.
4
FATHER'S HEAD
the HEADSMAN STOOD OUTSIDE THE DOOR AS patience
waited for her father to die. He lay on the high bed, his
face grey, his hands no longer trembling. Yesterday, the
day before, as word of his final disease spread through
King's Hill and down into King's Gift and High Town, a
steady stream of visitors had come to say good-bye, to
receive a final benediction. They all murmured some
excuse to Patience as they left: We were friends in
Balakaim. He taught me Dwelf. But she knew why they
came. To touch, to see, to speak to the man who should
have been Heptarch. There was blessing in the breath of
the dying King.
Now Patience, who had heard nothing but wisdom and
brilliance from him all her life, watched the old man's
lips move in the forms of two dozen languages, babbling
the empty phrases of courtesy that had been his stock in
trade. It was as if Peace had to purge himself of all the
words of grace before he died.
"Father," she whispered.
The door opened suddenly. The headsman peered inside.
55
56 orson scott card
"Not yet," she said. "Go away."
But the headsman first waited until he saw Peace's
hand move a little. Then he closed the door again.
Father lifted his hand to touch his collarbone, where a
small wound was still unhealed.
"Yes," she said. His memory was going.
He murmured.
"I can't hear you," she said.
"Patience," he whispered. She was not sure if he was
saying her name or giving her a command.
"Father, what should I do now? How should I use my
life, if I can keep it?"
He murmured.
"I can't hear you, Father."
"Serve and save," he said in Dwelf. And then, in
Gauntish, "The King's House."
"Oruc will never let me serve him as you did," she
said in Geblic.
He answered in Agarant, the common speech, which
the headsman could surely understand. "The King's House
is all the world." Even as he died, he had to make sure
that the story of his loyalty reached Oruc's ears. Patience
saw what it was for: so Oruc would begin to doubt that
Peace ever was disloyal to him. Let him wonder if he
misjudged the both of us all along.
But Patience knew it also had another meaning for her.
Even though in her life she might never bear the title, she
nevertheless had the Heptarch's responsibility. She was
to serve the world. She was to have universal magnanimity.
"You taught me to survive," she whispered. "Not to be a savior of the world."
"Or a sacrifice," said his breathless lips.
Then his lips were still, and his body shuddered. The
headsman heard the squeak of the bed and knew. He
wyrms 57
opened the door and came in, the headpot in his left
hand, the long wire of the scalpel in his right.
"Miss Patience," he said, not looking at her, "it's
best you not watch this."
But she watched, and he could not stop her, since he
had not a second to lose if he was to have the head alive.
The scalpel was nothing but a coarser and stronger version
of Patience's own loop. He passed it around her
father's neck and locked the end of the wire in place.
Then he whipped left and right, severing all the loose
flesh and muscle instantly. It took a moment longer to
work the wire through the cartilage and nerves between
the vertabrae. Peace had been dead scarcely ten seconds
before the headsman lifted the old man's head by the
lower jaw and laid it gently in the headpot.
The headpot rocked a few moments as the gools that
lived inside jostled for position on the veins and arteries
of the open throat. They would keep the head alive until
it could be installed in Slaves' Hall.
Of course they did not leave her the body, either. Lord
Peace may have been the King's ambassador in life, but
in death his body was the corpse of the Last Pretender,
and if the priests of Crossriver Delving or Lost Souls'
Island got their hands on it, there'd be no end of trouble.
So the diggers took him away to the King's Boneyard,
and she was alone in the house.
She wasted no time--Father had told her long ago how
dangerous would be the moment of his death. First protect
secrets, he had always taught her. He had never kept
many written documents. She found them all in moments
and without hesitation she quickly burned them and raked
the ashes into dust.
Then she took the tiny amber globe that had dwelt in
her father's flesh and swallowed it. She wasn't sure
whether the crystal it was made of could survive the
58 | orson scott card
process of digestion, but she didn't know what it was or
how to implant it in her own body, and she didn't want it
found if she were searched.
She had already prepared her traveling bag. It was
filled with the tools of survival. Masks and makeup and |
wigs, money and jewels, a small flash of water, pellets |
of sugar. Not much, so it wouldn't encumber her. But |
enough. Her weapons were concealed in the open, where
she could reach them easily. The loop in her hair. The
glass blowgun in the cross that hung fashionably between
her breasts. The poison in a plastic pellet between her
toes. She was ready to survive, had been ready throughout
the deathwatch, knowing the Oruc would surely arrange
for her to die at the same time as her father, if not
of the same disease.
She waited. The house was empty, the servants gone.
They had been there, watching, spying all her life. If she
had harbored any hopes that Oruc would let her live, the |
absence of the servants dispelled them. He wanted no
witnesses, especially not witnesses whose tongues were
professionally loose.
There was a knock on the door. It was the bailiff. It
would be the bailiff, then--he was one of the many
King's slaves trained to kill at the King's command. He
apologized and presented her with papers of eviction.
"It's a house for a King's slave, Miss Patience," he
said, "and the King's slave is dead, you see." He stood
between her and the other rooms of the house; she would
not be allowed to take any of her belongings, he explained.
They had known it would be this way, of course.
Angel had taken everything of consequence with him
some time ago. She would get it when she left King's
Hill and joined him.
She smiled graciously and walked slowly toward the
door. The bailiff made no sound that she consciously
wyrms 59
heard, nor was there a shadow. Perhaps it was the faintest
trembling in the stone floor, or the slightest pressure
of moving air on her hair. Without knowing how she
knew, she knew that he was about to kill her. She
lurched to the right, shifted her weight, and twisted and
kicked all in a smooth motion. The bailiff had just begun
to lunge with the dagger he held in his left hand, and
now he had time only to show the surprise on his face as
her foot caught him in the knee, bending it sideways.
He gasped in agony and dropped the dagger. Some
assassin, she thought with contempt. Did Oruc think that
such an oaf could kill the daughter of Lord Peace? It was
not even a struggle. She left the dagger in his right eye.
Only when the bailiff lay on the floor with the dagger
sticking up like a jaunty decoration did she realize that
this was the first time she had ever acted against the will
of the King. It was surprisingly easy, and she enjoyed
thwarting him even More than she had enjoyed serving
him. King Oruc, you have made a foolish mistake by not
trying to use me in my father's place. I have a certain
flair for government work. And now it will work against
you.
Then she reminded herself that she was still not Oruc's
enemy, even if he had chosen to be hers. She was the
servant of the King's House, and she would do nothing
to weaken his reign unless she knew it would bring about
a greater good.
She went to the door and opened it at once. There
would be soldiers all around, of course, but it was likely
that they did not know she was supposed to be killed.
There was too much lingering support for the ancient
bloodline. So as long as she seemed calm, she could
probably get by. No, not calm. Grief-stricken.
She wept as she left the house. It was the cry that
Father had insisted she learn, the soft, feminine sobbing
60 orson scott card I
that roused the pity of men and made them feel strong]
and protective.
"Damned shame," one of the soldiers whispered as
she passed.
And she knew that all of them were thinking: She.
should be Heptarch. She should be in Heptagon House,;
and now they won't even let her stay in King's Hill. But
she was thinking that she would be lucky to live till
morning.
Angel had told her to go to Admiralty Row at once, as
soon as they tried to kill her. They had developed three
separate escape plans. But she did not intend to use any
of them. After all, she knew at least as much about the
ways in and out of King's Hill as he did. As a child,
permanently trapped within the walls of the King's quarter,
she had been free to explore as she liked, and she
knew ways over and under walls, through hidden passages
in buildings, and though she had grown too large to
fit through some of them now, she could still get from
here to there in many different ways. And she was not
going to leave King's Hill until she had spoken to her
father's head. He had been so distant, so subtle in his
life, but she would get some secrets from him now. He
would talk to her now as he had never talked to her in
life. It was a simple matter to dodge into the well-tended
gardens of King's Wood. The ground was soft, taking
footprints easily, but she was soon clambering from limb
to limb among the trees. These giants had been old trees
when her great-grandfather ruled in Heptagon House and
the Fourteen Families had offered their heads to him
forever. Now their leaves concealed her and their branches
were her highway to the south wall of the garden. They
could not follow her footsteps in the air.
She paused once in a safe cluster of branches to strip
off her women's clothing. Underneath it she wore the
wyrms 61
short breeches and long shirt of a common boy. She was
almost too large now to play the part, since boys took to
long pants or professional gowns as soon as they could
these days. At least her breasts were not too large yet,
and Father had been gracious enough not to die when it
was her time of month. She smudged her face, pulled off
her wig, and tousled her short hair. She decided to keep
the wig—it was a perfect match for her hair, and she'd
be hard put to find another. She stuffed it into her bag.
The dress she jammed into the crook of a branch. It was
black, of course, and it wouldn't be easy to see it from
the ground.
It was already dusk when she got to the wall and
dropped to the ground on Granary Row. No one saw her.
She appropriated one of the drawcarts and pulled it by its
rope to Larder Row. After years of practice with Angel,
her boyish stride was utterly convincing. No one took a
second look at her. She had no trouble leaving her cart
and walking, as so many servants did, to pay her respects
to the dead in Slaves' Hall. If those who saw her had
thought to examine her face, they might have known
her—the daughter of Lord Peace had the best-known face
in King's Hill. But the essence of disguise, Angel had
always said, is to avoid close examination. The clothing,
the walk, the dirt, the coarseness kept them from noticing
her at all.
The doorkeeper wasn't there. He rarely was, and would
have caused her no problem if he had been. He was
almost blind.
She wandered among the shelves of living heads. She
had spent many hours here, and knew most of the faces,
had talked to many of them. Long-dead ministers of
long-dead kings, they had once wielded vast power or
influenced monarchs or served as the King's voice in
hundreds of foreign courts. As usual, most of the eyes
62 orson scott card
were closed, since few of the dead took much pleasure in ' living company. Instead they dreamed and remembered,
remembered and dreamed, calling up with perfect clarity
all that they had ever seen and felt in their lives. Only a
few of them watched her pass; even if one of them had
been able to muster up some curiosity, he could not have
turned his head to see where she would go.
Father would not be here, of course, not upstairs among
the favorites. It would be too soon for that--his head had
to be trained and broken to the King's will first. So
Patience made her way to the place under the stairs
where a wooden louver in the heating vent was missing.
The weather was warm enough that none of the ovens
was alight; the air was cool in the stone passageway. She
climbed downward into the darkness. At the bottom she
turned--left?--yes, left, and crawled until she came to a
wooden grating on the floor. It was dark under her. They
had not yet started on Father, then.
So she lay near the grating, absolutely still, listening to
the sounds that tunneled through the heating system.
There were places all over Slaves' Hall where conversations
could be heard distinctly in these passages. A good
part of Patience's self-education in politics had taken
place here, as she listened to the cleverest ministers and
ambassadors pry for information from the dead or conspire
for power with the living.
To her surprise, they did come to Slaves' Hall looking
for her--she heard the soldiers ask the gatekeeper and
search the public floors. But they were searching in a
desultory way, not because they expected to find her here
but because they had been told to search everywhere.
Good. They had lost her in King's Wood and had no idea
where she had gone from there.
Later, the headkeeper came into the cellar room, lit the
bright oil lamps, and began to work on her father.
wyrms | 63
She had heard and seen the process often enough
before. It took less than an hour to link the headwonns
with the nerves in her father's spine. She watched coldly
as her father's face sometimes writhed in agony, for most
nerves caused pain when they were awakened by the
headwonns. Finally, though, the headkeeper dismissed
his apprentices. The physical process was finished.
His neck bones were attached to a rack, his windpipe
was attached to the breath bladder, and his neck was just
touching the gel that sustained the headwonns that clung
to his nerves and the gools that sent tendrils through his
blood vessels. They would keep his head alive, his memories
intact, for the next thousand years--or until a King
grew tired of him and had his head thrown out.
The headkeeper talked to him then, asking him questions.
He taught the headwonns by dripping certain chemicals
into the canister when Lord Peace's answers were
forthright, and other chemicals when he hesitated or seemed agitated. The headwonns quickly learned which
of the head's nerves caused pleasure and which caused
suffering.
In a short time they were ready, and needed no More
stimulation from the headkeeper. Now the headwonns
would be agitated by the increased tension of resistance,
of lying. Then they in turn would stimulate other nerves,
so the head felt extremes of urgent needs--the bowel or
bladder full, the belly famished, the throat dry with
thirst, the nerves of sexual pleasure on the edge of orgasm
but never quite there. When the head answered
truthfully, it got some measure of relief. When it lied,
the longings increased until they were agony. Isolated
from their bodies, heads never had much stamina, and
their will was usually broken in a single night, however
much they might resist.
Patience calmed herself, prepared herself to listen to
64 orson scott card
her father endure much before the worms broke him.
And at first it seemed his resistance might be long and
painful. Then to her surprise he began to whine. It was a
sound she had never heard before, and she thought she
knew all his voices.
"No matter what I do," he said. "You can always
make it worse and worse."
"That's right," said the headkeeper."The worms will
find the things you most long for, and you'll never be
satisfied until you learn to speak the truth."
"Ask me again. Ask me anything."
They did, and he told them. No resistance at all.
Intimate things, terrible things, secrets of state, secrets of
his own body. Patience listened in disgust. She had been
prepared for her father's pain, but not for his quick
capitulation.
They thought he was resisting them when he said he
didn't know where Patience was. But Patience knew that
he had held nothing back. Perhaps he had known he
would break this easily--perhaps that's why he had prepared
so well for her escape. He must have known his
own weakness, though he concealed it from everyone
else until now.
"I knew that you'd ask me, and so I made sure I
didn't know. I told Angel a year ago to make plans with
her, and tell me nothing of them. Then when I felt death
was coming on, I sent Angel away--I knew they'd kill
her bodyguard first. Patience is on her own until she can
meet him. But Angel and I trained my daughter carefully,
gentlemen. She speaks every language that I speak,
she is a More accomplished assassin than Angel himself,
and she is cleverer by far than any adviser to the king.
You will never catch her. She's probably gone already."
The headkeeper finally believed him. "We'll tell the
King you're ready now."
wyrms 65
"Will he come and talk to me?" asked the head.
"If he wants to. But no one else ever will. With the
things you know, there's no chance he'll put you in a
public room. Who knows? Maybe he'll install you in his
private chambers." The headkeeper laughed. "You can
watch every intimate moment of the King's life, and he
can get your advice whenever he wants it. There is
precedent, you know. Your grandfather--"
"My grandfather was a twisted wreck. King Omc is
not."
"You hope," said the headkeeper.
"King Oruc is a great Heptarch."
The headkeeper looked at him suspiciously. Then he
smiled. "You really do mean it. And all this time everyone
thought you served Oruc because your daughter was
a hostage. Turns out you really were loyal. A weakling."
The headkeeper slapped him lightly on the cheek. "You
were nothing, and now you're less than nothing."
He doused the lights and left.
As soon as he was gone and the brass key turned in the
lock. Patience lifted the grating and dropped into the
room.
"Hullo, Father," she said. She fumbled in the darkness
until she found his breath bladder. Then she pumped
air so he could speak.
"Go away," he said. "I already taught you everything
I know."
"I know," she said. "Now I want you to tell me
everything you fear."
"I don't fear anything now," he said. "Right now I'm
voiding my bladder, which I haven't done without pain
in three years. Go away."
"You have neither bladder nor urine. Father. It's just
an illusion."
"The only reality a human being ever knows, my
66 I orson scott card
darling girl, is what his nerves tell him, and mine are
telling me that--oh, you vicious and ungrateful worm of
a girl, the headworms are torturing me again because I'm
resisting you."
"Then don't resist me, Father."
"I'm not your father, I'm a piece of dead brain tissue
kept alive by the probing tendrils of the gools and stimulated
by trained worms."
"You never were my father." Was that a catch in his
throat? A tiny gasp of surprise? "You always made
speeches to me, for the servants to overhear. Angel was
the only father I had."
"Don't waste your time trying to hurt me. I'm past
hurting."
"Did you ever love me?"
"I don't remember. If I did, I certainly don't love you anymore. The only thing I desire now is to urinate forever.
I would gladly trade a daughter for a decent prostate.''
She found the matches where the headkeepers had set them
down, and lit a single lamp. Her father's eyes blinked in the
light. She smiled at him. "You're going to tell Oruc everything,
but you're going to tell me first. All my life you've
been able to keep secrets from me. But not anymore."
"You don't need to know any of the secrets. I saw to
it you knew everything. I thought you were intelligent
enough to know that every word Angel spoke to you
came originally from my lips."
"He told me that you would willingly let me die if it
would serve the best interests of the King's House."
"What would you rather? That I tell you that I thought
your life was More important than the whole world?
What sort of egomaniacal monster are you?"
"A human being," she said.
"The worst kind of monster," he said. "We're all
monsters, living in utter isolation, sending out words like
WYRMS | 67
ambassadors that beg for tribute, for worship. Love me,
love me. And then when the words come back, 'I love
you, I worship you, you are great and good,' these
monsters doubt, these monsters know that it's a lie.
'Prove it,' they say. 'Obey me, give me power.' And
when they are obeyed, the monster grows hungrier. 'How
do I know you aren't manipulating me?' cries the monster.
'If you love me, die for me, kill for me, give all to
me and leave nothing for yourself!' "
"If human beings are all monsters, why should I
sacrifice anything for them?"
"Because they are beautiful monsters," he whispered.
"And when they live in a network of peace and hope,
when they trust the world and their deepest hungers are
fulfilled, then within that system, that delicate web, there
is joy. That is what we live for, to bind the monsters
together, to murder their fear and give birth to their
beauty."
"That's as mystical as what the priests babble about."
"It is what the priests babble about."
"You have sacrificed the possibility of power, you
have made us strangers all these years, and all for some
invisible, nonexistent connection between human beings
you've never even met?" She tried to put as much
contempt as possible into her voice.
"You're fifteen. You know nothing. Go away."
"I know your life has been a deception and a disguise."
"And when I dropped the disguise and told you what I
have lived for, you mocked me. The babble of the priests!
Do you think that because something is invisible, it
doesn't exist? There is nothing but empty space between
the infinitesimal pieces of matter; the only thing connecting
them is their behavior, their influence on e^ch other,
and yet out of those empty, invisible connections is built
all that exists in the universe. Most of it empty, the web
68 orson scott card
insensible. Yet if for a single moment the web broke
down, everything would flash out of existence. Do you
think it's any different for us? Do you think that you
exist independent of your connections with other people?
Do you think that you can ever serve your own interest
without also serving theirs? Then I should have killed
you in the cradle, because you aren't fit to be Heptarch."
She saw in his face the same fervency she had seen in
Prekeptor. Father, too, was a believer. But she could not
believe that this was a belief that anyone could sacrifice
for. "Was this the secret you hid from me all these
years? Was this what you would have said to me if for
one single moment we could have been alone and honest
with each other? Was this v/hat I yearned for all my
life?" He had taught her how to show devastating contempt,
as a diplomatic tool. She used it now: "I could
have learned as much from any teacher in the School."
His face went slack again, went back to the neutral
expression that he cultivated when he wished to show
nothing. "If you don't get out of here at once, before
Oruc or his men get here, you're quite likely to be with
me in loving proximity for the next thousand years,
getting sucked out by gools in a bowl of soup. I don't
like you well enough to want your company. I used to
think you were a well-behaved child, but now I see
you're a sifish, inconsiderate brat."
"No," she said. "There are things I need to know.
Practical things, that I can use to survive."
"Survival I taught you from infancy. You'll survive.
Go away."
"What was it that you feared the most?"
His face took on a mockingly devoted expression.
"That you would die. I did all that I did to keep you
alive. Why else do you think I served the Usurper's Son
so faithfully? He had you hostage here."
WYRMS | 69
He wanted her to believe, that he was lying. But she
could also see that the headworms were not tormenting
him. He had told her the truth. He simply didn't want her
to know it was the truth. So she was asking the questions
that would give her the answers she wanted. "Why were
you afraid of my death?"
"Because I loved you. Back when I was alive. I
remember it dimly."
But this was a lie. She could see the trembling around
his lips; the headworms were in control of his nerves,
and tortured him in unconcealable ways when he resisted.
So it wasn't love. It was something else. And
thinking of that took her back to a time in her early
childhood, to the night that most haunted her nightmares.
There was something in his face now that reminded her
of his face that night. "You lied to me that night," she
said. "I realize now, you lied about something."
"What night?" he asked.
"What was it you didn't tell me, Father, the night they
brought you Mother's body in seven sacks?"
"You remember that?"
"For some reason it sticks in my mind."
He raised an eyebrow."! don't remember it."
"Now More than ever you remember."
"God help me, if I must remember that night, then
have the grace to take me from this rack and let me die."
"That night when you opened the first sack and saw
what it was, you shouted, 'I'll never go, I'll never let
you have her, not my daughter, not ever.' Who were you
shouting at? What was it that made you so afraid? You
trembled, Father. I never saw you tremble before or
since."
"I was afraid of King Oruc, of course."
"You never were afraid of him. And lying does you
no good--see what the headworms do with you?" ;
70 orson scott card
Abruptly he changed tactics. He smiled, and wryly
said, "Even the headkeeper had some mercy. Now I feel
like I've been constipated for a month and a diarrhea
attack is beginning. You have no idea how bad these
worms can be."
"Tell me now and have your ease."
Lightly he said, as if it didn't matter, "I feared the call
to Cranning. It was the caller that I shouted at, whoever
it was."
"Who else could it be but the gebling king?" asked
Patience.
"Oh, you think you've solved it?"
"Angel told me that the gebling kings have always
been able to command their people without a word. From
mind to mind."
"Did Angel tell you that this power of the geblings has
never touched a human being? We're deaf as a post when
the geblings cry out to each other.''
"The Cranning call—if it isn't the geblings, who is it,
and why do you fear it?"
"I don't know who it is, but I fear him. I fear what he
can do to people. The Wise of Grandfather's day were
brilliant and strong, the greatest minds in the history of
the world, working together, building on each other's
learning, until they did things that had never been done
on any world. Here, where iron is so hard to find that we
can never rely on the machines that have always made
humans powerful, they unlocked the powers of life. They
weren't just petty breeders, like the Tassaliki, like the
ancient scientists who created these headworms and gools
four thousand years ago—those were mountebanks by
comparison. The Wise of Grandfather's day had taught
the chromosomes to name themselves in crystals, atom
for atom, in patterns that could be seen and read by the
naked eye. They had found how passion fish mate with
WYRMS( 71
clams to make cressid plants. And when I was born, they
changed me so that I could never sire anything but
sons."
Patience thought about that for a moment. "They did
it so the prophecy wouldn't be fulfilled. So there'd be no
seventh seventh seventh daughter."
"That was the plan."
"Why did you change your mind? Why did you have
Angel undo what they did? Surely you didn't become a
Watcher."
"No, not a Watcher. The Wise did this to me when I
was still a child. As soon as they had made my body
incapable of siring girlchildren, the Cranning call began.
One by one, the best of them began to leave. They would
go off to teach somewhere. They would retire to a country
home. They would be sent as ambassadors or governors.
But they would never arrive at their destination.
Instead they would be seen along the rivers and roads
leading to Cranning."
"Your father was Heptarch then?"
"Not yet. My father watched what happened to the
empire, as all the able men disappeared. He went to them
and begged them not to go. The ones who hadn't yet felt
the Cranning call vowed most solemnly to stay. The ones
who had felt it, though--they promised anything but they
broke all their promises. And Grandfather did nothing to
stop it. It was a frightening time, with provinces in
rebellion, the army in disarray. Father finally had Grandfather
arrested and took over the government.''
"So the Usurper wasn't the first to overthrow a
Heptarch."
"For the good of the King's House, even treason.
Yes. But it was too late. Even when he tortured some of
them, even when he killed some as an example, they
went. Even when he cut off their heads and put them
72 orson scott card
here, in Slaves' Hall, the Cranning call was so strong in
their minds that the headworms had no power over them.
The Cranning call was More urgent than anything the
headworms could do to them."
"What were they wanted for?"
"Do you think Father didn't try to find out? But they
themselves didn't know. And no one ever knew what
became of them, once they got to Cranning. Father's
spies never came back. And after a few years, the empire
was lost. Twelve of the Fourteen Families were in revolt.
Oruc's father led it. But he wasn't called the Usurper
then. He was called the Liberator. He came, he said, to
restore Grandfather to his rightful place on the Heptarch's
throne."
"Ah."
"Father should have killed Grandfather."
"As Oruc should have killed us?"
"Grandfather wasn't the--seventh seventh seventh
daughter." Lord Peace closed his eyes. Patience knew
that if he still had his body, he would put his fingertips
together, then touch them to his mouth; she could almost
see his hands rise. She felt the grief for his death well up
in her for the first time, seeing him half-alive like this,
remembering him whole.
She shook off the feeling. "How was I born, Father?"
"My father lost the city of Heptam before I came of
age. I led one army, he led another. He lost and was
captured and killed. I never lost. I wandered the wilderness
with an ever-shrinking guerrilla band. One by one
my sons came to adulthood. One by one they were
killed. The enemy seemed to find my boys so easily--as
if some traitor led them. It was as if some terrible
invisible power guided them to destroy everyone but me.
Everyone but me. My first wife, my father, my children,
and I alone was alive."
wyrms 73
"So you could sire the daughter of prophecy."
"I studied the chronicles. I realized that my family's
fall began almost the moment they undaughtered me.
That was the crime for which the Wise were taken and
the throne was lost. You see, Patience, the prophecies
that these men of science had long thought were mere
superstition—someone or something of great power meant
to have them fulfilled. And we thought—perhaps if we
find a way to undo what was done. Perhaps if I could
have a girlchild, then the Wise would come home, and
all could be restored as it was. Peace could be restored to
the world. But how could we undo the work of the Wise,
so my daughter could be born? Who would know how to
do it, when the Wise were all gone?"
"Angel," said Patience. "I know this story."
"I was in my forties then. He came to me, a very
young man then, and said he had been studying the
journals of the great men, and he thought he knew a way
to refresh and revivify my woman-making sperm. He
explained, but I could not understand it—I know what
every educated man knows about genetics, but he was
deep in the chemistry and mathematics of it, catalysts
and countercatalysts and inducers and blocks. I said to
him, 'You know too much. You've become one of the
Wise. The Cranning call will come to you.' He only
smiled and said, 'Lord Peace, my Heptarch, if the caller
wants you to have a daughter, then he will leave me
here.' "
"So my birth . . . served the purpose of the Cranning
call."
"Angel and I argued over it. Better to be castrated
than to give in to what this enemy wants, I said. But it
came to this: We didn't know what purpose the Cranning
call might have for you, but we knew that as long as you
remained unborn, the world was in turmoil. We were at
74 orson scott card
Ilium at the time, under the protection of Lady Hekat.
She told us, 'The prophecies are ambiguous. The seventh
seventh seventh daughter is called the destruction of the
world, and the salvation of the world. Why not let her be
born, and then teach her to be a savior?' So I took Lady
Hekat as my second wife, and Angel made the change in
me, and you were born."
"Lady Hekat." Patience saw her mother's face as it
had been the last time she saw her. Weeping as the
soldiers took Patience away from her. Crying out, My
daughter, my daughter, my child, God be with you,
always with you; and then the knock on Father's door,
and the sudden cry of agony as father looked into the bag
that was delivered there. I saw his face. His face, Mother's
face, the same agony. "And you trained me to be an
assassin," she said.
"I taught you to serve the King's House. However
much you think you hate me now, I know you. You will
always act for the good of the King's House. You are the
hope of humanity. Not as the Watchers and Vigilants
believe, as the mere mother of some imagined god. You
yourself. I know it."
"I'm a child, fifteen years old. I'm the hope of nothing.
I have no great purpose."
"If you have no purpose of your own, then you will
fulfill the purpose of the Cranning call. It waits for you,
Daughter. But Angel and I have done all we could to
teach you what the Heptarch lives for. If you haven't
learned it, we could do no More."
"You don't know anything Father. You don't know
who is calling from Cranning, you don't know what he
wants me for, and you don't even know me."
"How could I know you, Patience? I felt the Cranning
call, too. Are you surprised? I never felt it until you were
born, but then it began. A terrible urgency to take you
wyrms 75
there, to carry you to Skyfoot and give you--to whatever
waits there. Whenever I was with you, all your life, I
have felt a longing worse than anything these petty worms
can do to me. So I have spent as little time with you as I
could, for fear I would break under the pain of it, and
carry you off before you were ready."
"Ready for what?"
"To face whatever waits there."
"Am I ready now?"
"How can I know? But you're as ready as I could
make you in my life. Trust Angel now. He is the last of
the Wise, the only one who can protect you from the
thing that calls. From Unwyrm."
"You know its name?"
"One prophecy says that you will take the world into
Unwyrm's lair and give it to him, and all mankind will
die and be reborn. It's the only prophecy that gives a
name."
"Who made the prophecy?"
' 'A prophet, I suppose. What matters is that the Cranning
call is proof that the prophecies are true--or some
undefeatable power wants to make them true, which
amounts to the same thing."
"There's no such thing as an undefeatable power,"
said Patience. "You always taught me that."
"Go now, Patience. I've told you everything. Now
don't let them find you here, or my whole life was for
nothing. And if they ask me, I'll have to tell them that I
saw you. It'll give them a fresh trail."
Almost she obeyed him. But then she realized that he
had not fully answered her. There was still a twitching in
his face, a sign that he was resisting, that he had not told
her all that she had asked for.
"One More story," she said.
"No More."
76 orson scott card
"The one you don't want to tell me."
The face grimaced as the head tried to resist the urging
of the worms. "Leave me in peace, child! Let my name
be something More than a terrible irony."
"Whatever you want so badly not to tell, that is the
thing I most badly need to know."
"You're wrong, you fool! If you needed to know I
would have told you! Leave me this one secret to take to
the grave."
"I'll have it from you, Father! I'll have it, or wait here
until Oruc takes me!"
Finally, sweating and weeping, the head spoke. Patience
pumped steadily, but the voice was high and strange.
' 'The priests say that the Starship Captain was taken in
the spirit by God, made some prophecies, and then disappeared
into heaven."
"I know the tales."
"I know the truth. The captain of the starship Konkeptoine went mad as our ancestors orbited the world. It's true
that he wrote the prophecy with his right hand in the
ship's log. He also drew the map of the world, showing
all the great deposits of iron and coal, the stuff that steel
is made of. Then he .used the ship's powers to destroy
those deposits. In that one act he determined the future of
the world. Imakulata is not naturally poor in iron. Because
of his insane act of destruction, we children of the
great engine builders are deprived of steel. We have no
great machines. We are weaker in this world than human
beings have ever been before."
"If he was insane enough to do that, why did anyone
think he was a prophet?"
"Because his map was More accurate than the one the
ship's own mind drew. He knew things about the world
that could not be known. They said at the time he seemed
to be possessed. I who have felt the Cranning call know
wyrms | 77
now that this was probably true. Whatever controlled him
in the ship, that compulsive power is still alive. He left
the ship in a landing craft and was never seen again. His
craft was never found."
"If something like this happened, why isn't it in any
of the histories?"
"There are stories passed from Heptarch to Heptarch
that none of the historians know. I meant you to know
this much, anyway; I told Angel, and he was to tell you.
The priests know only of the map he drew with his right
hand, and the words he spoke with his mouth. The words
that his possessor wanted us to believe. Words about how
Kristos would come to Imakulata and make the human
race new and perfect. But his daughter Irena, the first
Heptarch, she saw something that only the Heptarchs
know: As he spoke the prophecy and drew the map with
his right hand, his left hand slowly tapped out into the
mind of the ship, 'Save my daughter from the lair of the
wyrms, or they will devour all mankind.' "
"His daughter--"
"Not Irena, child. You. His distant daughter. At first
they didn't know how distant. There were prophecies that
it would be the seventh seventh daughter. Magic numbers.
Only in the last thousand years have there been
prophets who said that the Daughter of Prophecy, the
Mother of God, is to be the seventh seventh seventh
daughter of the Starship Captain."
"Then there's no reason to believe that the prophecy is
anything More than the raving of a Vigilant.''
"Of course. Except that the Cranning call obviously
intends to fulfill that prophecy. I have no doubt that you
are the daughter that needs saving, as the Starship Captain
warned."
"But what is the lair of the worms--this? The head-
worms?' '
78 orson scott card
"He wrote a word that in Star Speech, the most ancient
of languages, means 'monster,' and not just any ' monster, but the most dangerous and cunning and powerful
of enemies. An enemy powerful enough to take control of the Starship Captain's mind while the Konkeptoine |
still orbited Imakulata. An enemy powerful enough to '>, call all the Wise to Cranning. Do you understand the danger of the world, Patience? We are facing an enemy |
that formed its plans seven thousand years ago, when we
first arrived here. Whatever ruled Imakulata before humankind
came here wants to rule again."
"A gebling then. They were the highest native life, as
intelligent as humankind--"
"Were they? Then why is Geblic merely another corrupt
form of Star Speech? And Dwelf and Gauntish, why
did they have to take their language from mankind? They
rose to where they are when humanity arrived; there was ,
something More powerful, an intelligence older than they.
I meant for Angel to warn you of this. I didn't mean for
you to be ignorant of it. But that's all now. That's all,
now go."
But even now, there was More, she could see what the
headwonns told her, that he was hiding still another
secret from her. The headkeeper hadn't broken him. His
power of resistance was still strong. But she would do
what the headkeeper had failed to do. She would break
him and have from him the tale he didn't want to tell.
"I know you better than that, Father," she said. "If I
am such a danger to the world, you would have killed me
in my childhood."
"The Starship Captain didn't say to kill his daughter.
He said to save her. And even if he had not said so, I
could not have killed you. Anyone else could die, child,
anyone at all, but you would live. To destroy mankind or
WYRMS I 79
to save the world, I cannot guess, but you would live,
whatever the cost."
"Why! Not because I'm your daughter--so why!"
His face twisted in agony. She had asked him the
unbearable question, and the headworms would torture
the answer from him. But even as she realized this, she
also remembered something else. This was the expression
on his face the night of Mother's death. This was the
mask of pain he wore. "In all your talking, Father, you
never told me what you meant when you cried out on the
night they brought Mother's body to you."
His mouth opened wide to form a scream that never
sounded.
"The Cranning call. For me, the need wasn't for me to
come. It was to bring you. Whole and alive. When I
wasn't with you, I felt no call at all."
"That doesn't answer my--"
"Your mother was always with you. She was also
called. She was weaker than I was. She tried to take you.
That's why I carried you away from her. She vowed she
would never rest until she had you back, that she would
do anything to get you away from me."
Even now, though the dread was thick within her, she
could not bring herself to understand what he meant.
"Listen, foolish girl! Didn't Angel and I teach you
how to listen? My father was weak enough to let Grandfather
live, when he should have died. I was stronger
than my father was. Hekat meant to take you to Cranning.
I had no strength to kill you, against the Cranning call,
but I still had strength."
Patience stopped pumping breath for him.
"You," she whispered. "You told me it was a group
of soldiers trying to curry favor with Oruc. You told
me--they were even executed for it--but it was you."
His lips formed words as he ran out of air. I never
80 orson scott card
meant to tell you. His eyes accused her. You made me
tell you, and you didn't need to know.
It was More than she could bear.
"Why didn't you let her take me to Cranning. I would
rather have suffered anything, and have her live." ;
"The King's House is all the world," said his lips.
"You weren't the Heptarch! You didn't have any responsibility
for the whole world! You didn't have to kill |
my mother!" And she swept him from the table, spilling
him to the floor, i
At once she rushed to him, to lift the head back to the
table, restore the gel that would keep his gools alive.
But he looked at her steadily as she knelt over him,
and his lips moved and said, Let me die.
So she did the only thing she could do. She took Lord
Peace by the jaw and tore the head away from the rack
that held it. The headworms wriggled in the open air and
the gools slid off and slopped onto the floor. All the time
her father's eyes looked at her in gratitude and love.
Then, gasping with grief and fury, she tossed the head
through the open grate in the ceiling and climbed up after
it. She carried it with her for ten minutes as she scrambled
through the heating system to the vent by the garrison
barracks. By then it was dead beyond reviving, and
she thought of leaving it at the barracks door. Let the
soldiers explain to King Oruc how she got it there without
being seen.
No. She could not leave his head like the carcass of a
cat in the street. Not that he would care--he was beyond
such concerns as respect and dignity. It was herself she
was concerned for, Patience who could not bear to treat
even this fragment of her father's body with disrespect.
What she could not understand was why she did not
hate him.
He had killed Mother. All his weeping when they
wyrms | 81
showed how she had been mutilated, all his grief, all his
embraces as he tried to comfort his daughter--and he
was the one who killed her. All because of some madness
about an ancient prophecy. Seven thousand years
ago their ancestor went mad, and a few hundred thinkers
took unlicensed trips to the gebling city, and for that her
mother was murdered by her own husband.
Yet it was this monster who had made her what she
was. For her own honor, if not for his, she could not
shame him in death. Not because she loved him. She
certainly certainly did not love him.
As she made her way along the ledges of the cliff
outside the wall of King's Hill, she filled her father's
throat and mouth with rocks and tossed the cold, misshapen
thing into the sea.
5
HEPTAM


angel WAS SUPPOSED TO BE IN DISGUISE, LECTURING ON
astrophysics in the School. But he wasn't there. It didn't
surprise her. She was supposed to have arrived almost as
soon as word first reached the city that Peace was dead.
Every minute she delayed made it More dangerous for
Angel, who was not unknown and might be recognized
despite his disguise.
Perhaps he had stayed until nightfall--but he would
certainly not have dared to stay the night inside the city.
There were too many tongues paid well to wag, too many
eyes that would see and remember the new teacher who
had not been seen or heard of before. Perhaps, though,
he would return in the morning. So, still passing as a
boy, she passed the early hours of day like the many
students searching for a teacher whose haranguing was
particularly pleasing. She was tired, after a night without
sleep. But part of her regimen had been sleeplessness,
from time to time, staying awake and alert against the
urging of her body. Angel and Father had stretched her
limits so far that she no longer knew where they were.
83
84 ( orson scott card
She quickly recognized the spies circulating through
the crowd. They had not been trained by Father or Angel;
they were not subtle, and Patience knew she was not the
only one who could tell they were not earnest seekers
after truth. Many a teacher became tongue-tied when a
spy came near, and tried to purge his doctrine of anything
that smacked of sedition. Patience also knew that
the spies she saw were not the dangerous ones. It was the
spies she could not discern who frightened her.
So she made her way into Kingsport, the warehouse
and shipping district that had once been a separate town
and still had its own council and made some of its own
laws. Great Market, only a short way up from the docks,
stank of fish and sausages, alcohol and spice. It would
not do to linger too long without buying--the merchants
hired their own spies to search for thieves. So she made
her way to the tonguing booths. She stopped at the
canopy of a man whose sign promised he could translate
Agarant to Dwelf, Dwelf to Gauntish, Gauntish to Geblic,
and then back to common speech without a word changed.
It was so extravagant an impossibility that she liked the
man at once. She leaned on his writing table. He looked
up at her from heavy brows and thick moustaches and
said, in Agarant, "Take your hands off my table or I'll
cut them off."
Patience answered in Panx that she knew was accent-
less. "My hands for your mealbag, it's a fair trade."
He squinted at her. "Nobody ever needs Panx," he
said. "Don't speak it myself."
She spoke now in Gablic. "Then perhaps you can use
my services somewhere else."
"Didn't you understand me? I don't need Panx."
Now she spoke in common speech. "The last thing I
said was in Geblic. So much for your sign."
"I've never known a gebling merchant who couldn't
WYRMS I 85
speak Agarant, so no one needs it anyway. How did you
learn Panx and Geblic?"
"I'm a gebling," she said.
"Your barber is very good." He smiled. "Listen,
boy, as long as you're here, I could use a scribe. How's
your hand?"
"Good enough, as long as I can sit there in the shade,
with something to keep sun off my neck."
"And the common gaze off your face, is that it?"
"I'm not afraid of the common gaze, sir."
"Ah. It's the uncommon gaze you dread. Come, sit,
what do I care whom you're hiding from, as long as you
don't steal from me? Though by the grandmother of
Kristos, there's not much to steal. My name is Planner.
At least that's what my merchant's license says."
So she sat through the day, writing out in her trained and
beautiful hand what Planner had scribbled. Often she corrected
his tendency to translate idioms literally, giving the
sense instead of the words; if he noticed, he didn't say. He
sent a streetboy for dinner at noon, and shared the food with
her. At day's end, when all the clients had come by and
there was no work left except a book that wasn't due till
spring, Planner stood up and rubbed his hands together.
"Still an hour till full dark. What do you plan to do
now?"
"Help you pitch your canopy."
"And then?"
"Ask you for six coppers for my day's work."
"Let's start with the canopy." They took down the
awning and the four posts. It all collapsed into sticks and
cloth that fit inside his table; two of the sticks became
axles, and the table was now a cart. "Now, boy, it
occurs to me that three times today I had to step over
there to the pisspit, and you not once."
"Some have larger bladders than others," she said.
86 orson scott card
But she knew he would not give her the money, and he
was perilously close to guessing who she was, if he
hadn't already. So she reached into her hair and took out
her loop. She flipped it down across his wrist, caught the
ends to form a circle around it, and smiled. "Twenty-
five coppers with the other hand," she said, "or you lose
this one."
He saw the wire More than felt it. With only slight
pressure it had cut into the skin and blood was forming
droplets. His other hand took a purse from his belt. "So
you're a thief after all," he said.
"I did an honest day's work," she said. "But I charge
extra when people try to cheat me. Spill the purse."
He poured out the coins on the tabletop.
"A silver and five coppers, count them out and put them back in the purse."
He did it, being careful not to move the caught hand
any More than necessary. When he had pulled taut the
string of the purse, she snatched it with one hand, letting
the loop dangle from the other. He did not try to catch
her, just held his bleeding wrist and panted in relief.
"And remember that pleiok can be future tense as well
as past. It gets you into More trouble." She dodged away
into the gathering dusk.
Another day was ending, another day of putting herself
at terrible risk in a public place, and Angel hadn't found
her. No doubt the rumor of the boy who could speak four
languages and had almost cut off Planner's hand would
reach his ear before morning--it was the kind of tale that
spread fast through the taverns. Unfortunately, the King's
spies would also hear it, so she couldn't wait for Angel
to find her from the tales.
Her purse bought her passage on an upriver boat. All
the outbound boats were being watched closely, but the
ferries that carried gamblers and gamers to the Cuts
wyrms 87
needed no supervision, apparently. The porter who took
her three coppers looked at her with squinting eyes.
"You know they put cutpurses in the river in three
pieces," he said.
Patience looked at the planks to avoid his gaze. So she
looked like a thief in this company. Shouldn't be a
surprise. Only the well off could play the Cuts, and she
didn't exactly reek of money. But as Angel left, he had
jokingly said that he figured to spend his time getting
rich in the Cuts, because he was mathematician enough
to control the odds. It was the only hint she had of where
he'd be, and so she acted on it.
She paid the extra copper to use the privy house on the
boat. It was a long pole upstream when the tide was out,
and there was a queue. A very fat, foul-breathed woman
got in line behind her. Her belly and breasts kept bumping
into Patience, as if to urge her forward. She didn't
want to make a scene, though, and so bore it patiently.
But when the man before her got out, to her horror the
woman pushed her way into the privy behind her.
Patience had never pictured herself having to kill someone
quite so grossly fat. How deep would a weapon have
to pierce in order to touch something vital? It didn't
matter--a throat was a throat. By the time the fat woman
had the door closed. Patience had her loop out and easily
cast it about the woman's neck.
"Make a sound and you're dead," said Patience.
The woman made no sound.
"I don't want to kill you," Patience said. "I don't
know if you meant to rob me or what, but if you keep
silent and say nothing, I'll let you finish this voyage
alive."
"Please," the fat woman whispered.
Patience tightened the loop. A sudden slackening of
88 orson scott card
resistance told her that it had bitten flesh. "I said silence,"
Patience said.
"Angel," the fat woman squeaked. ;
She hadn't expected that. She was keyed up against
enemies, and hadn't thought the woman might be a
friend. "What about Angel?"
"He's coming on the next boat. In the name of Cleanliness
and Holiness and all the Sweet Smells, take that
thing from around my neck. He said you were dangerous
but he didn't say you were insane."
"Who are you?"
"Sken. I own a boat. I think I wet myself."
"Good. Then you don't need the privy house. I do.
Get out."
"You're all heart. And what will they think, when I
come out with my throat bleeding?"
"That you made an indecent offer to a young man in
the privy, and he turned you down with vigor. I'll meet
you at the railing--now go."
"You're a little turd," said Sken. She left, holding her
neck.
Patience barred the door and finally relieved herself. It
had been a long day. Now she understood why the heads
gave in so easily when the worms tortured them with
these body urges. Angel had found her after all, apparently,
had been watching her until he had a chance to
send word to her. Whoever this woman was, Angel
trusted her. No doubt the fact that she owned a boatJ
played some part in his plans. I
But will it play a part in mine? Patience wondered
what Angel was to her now. Father's slave, and so now
hers, technically. But she knew he didn't really belong to
her. It wasn't just because she couldn't take him intoB
court to enforce her claim. He had served her father, not| from fear, but from love and loyalty. One of the lessons
wyrms 89
of statecraft, Father often told her, was that loyalty could
not be transferred or inherited; it had to be earned by
each new lord in turn. Angel might now feel no loyalty at
all, or believe that he was still bound to carry out whatever
Father's last instructions to him might have been.
Patience, though, didn't feel bound to obey Father.
She obeyed him for the last time when she tore his head
from the rack and cast it into the sea. His desires were
not to be added into the balance anymore. She was not a
child, now. She could decide for herself what to do with
the burden of prophecy and doom that had attended from
her birth, that had unthroned her grandfather and killed
her half-brothers.
And killed her mother, too; dear Mother, who had died
so cruelly at Father's hands, and for my sake, all for my
sake, Mother, if I could have, I would have died for you
but now your death has bought for me all that it could
buy--the years to become dangerous, too, in my own
right. Haven't I killed in the name of the King? Didn't I
leave my own assassin with a dagger in his eye? Didn't I
steal Father's head out of Slaves' Hall though all the
soldiers in King's Hill looked for me? I am not a little
child or a helpless Heptarch whose servants have made
her soft. I will not refuse the path that prophecy has
declared for me, but I will not be half so meek as
prophecy thinks I'll be. I will be More than a match for
Unwyrm, whoever or whatever Unwyrm is.
So she leaned on the gunnel of the boat as the oarsmen
below decks swept the river, pushing the waves westward
toward the sea. Glad Hell's high prison wall loomed
in the gathering night; then the island was past them, and
the lights of Heptam were visible far to the south, across
the marshes. I am outside the prison walls now, she
thought. I am outside King's Hill, and I'll never go back
there, except as Heptarch. Inwardly she laughed at the
90 orson scott card I
j
thought. Whatever else she might be or do in her life, the
Heptarchy was the thing furthest out of reach. She would
set herself to other tasks, and let the Heptarchy come to
her if it would.
King's Hill was not the only prison she was free of. i
Those walls had always been the least of her jails. The
training regimen was over. The constant tests and problems
were ended. Never again would others determine
her present and future according to their own desires.
Instead she would go where she was born to go. To
Cranning, the great Skyfoot city at the center of the
world. How could she, for a moment, think of going i anywhere else? '.
She felt a tingling of her skin at the thought of Cranning, '
a trembling in her loins, a hunger deeper than any she had felt before in her life. Cranning. All roads go there, ;
all rivers flow there, all time bends there, all life ends
there.
It became a pounding rhyme in her head.
All roads go there.
(But Father killed Mother--)
All rivers flow there.
(--to save me from someone--)
All time bends there.
(--who waits there, calling, calling--)
All life ends there.
Over and over the rhyme, the need, filling her with a
passion she had never felt before. She knew what it was.
No one needed to explain it to her. The Cranning call.
6
GLAD RIVER
they SPENT NO TIME AT ALL IN THE CUTS .though PATIENCE
was fascinated by the glittering clothing and everyone's
passionate urgency to spend themselves all in one night,
Sken led her at once to a small riverboat, the kind with a
mast to help upstream when the wind was good, or to go
out to sea on short runs, if there was a need. The heavy
oars explained why the fat woman's arms were thick and
muscular. Patience began to suspect, as Sken pulled them
away from the island, that there was less fat on her than
she had supposed at first.
"We wait out here in the dark," Sken whispered,
"until his boat comes. Then we go back in and get him."
It was only a few minutes later; this early in the
evening, there was a lot of traffic from Kingsport up the
Glad River to the Cuts. Angel's disguise was good enough
that Sken recognized him before Patience did. She was
looking for an aging scholar, or the gracious old woman
he sometimes had mimicked in the past. Instead, he was
an obvious male whore, slightly drunk, painted till his
face fairly glowed in the torchlight.
01
92 ( orson scott card I
"I thought the essence of disguise was to be inconspicuous,"
Patience said. The oars dipped into the water
without a splash--Sken knew the river and had the strength
to glide upstream without seeming to strain.
"The essence of disguise is to be unnoticed," said, Angel. He dipped his hands into the river to wash his
face. "You can do that by being so nondescript that no
one notices you, or being so embarrassing that no one
can stand to look at you. Either way, your disguise
remains unexamined, and so you remain unrecognized."
"Why did you leave me in the tonguing booths all
day?" Patience said. She didn't like it when Angel proved^ that he still knew More than she did.
"Where were you yesterday, little fool, when I stood! there in the School with my face hanging out for any of
the King's asses to see me?"
"Talk softer," Sken whispered. "The King's patrol
are known to anchor their boats on the river and listen in
the darkness for fools who think they're alone."
They fell silent then. They passed the eastern edge of
Cuts Island and began to pass among the pilings on
which houses perched precariously high above the water.
It was a district called Stilts--the town of the river
people, who it was said were born and died without ever
setting foot on land. It wasn't true, of course, but they
did spend most of their lives on the water. The story was
they got seasick on land. If they had liquor in them, they
couldn't even walk unless there was a shifting deck under
them. Patience had always suspected they made up the
stories themselves.
"At high tide," said Sken, "the water comes up to
there." She pointed to a level on the nearest piling about
a meter above the water. "But in spring flood, there are
weeks when we live in the attics, because the water on
the first floor is three feet deep."
wyrms | 93
Patience marveled at that--the houses were all a good
four meters above the water level. The land on the left
bank, where the new town was rising, was high enough
that it might not flood in the spring. But the marshland of
the right bank must be under water for a good long time.
Patience began to understand how the river controlled the
way human beings lived here. Korfu had risen and fallen
many times in seven thousand years. Heptam had been a
provincial town and the center of the world. Yet in all
that time, the river still worked its will in this place.
As if he read her thoughts, Angel said, "There was a
levee on the right bank for a thousand years, and the
marshland was heavily populated. But about five thousand
years ago it was breached and no one rebuilt it.
Within fifty years it was as if it had never been there.
Time is against us."
The boat bumped up against a large piling. A house was built on this single massive stilt, with stabilizing
boards angling off to triangulate with the great beams.
"Here," said Sken. She tied the boat to the piling and
climbed with surprising ease up a series of boards that
made a sort of irregular ladder into the house. Then,
before Patience could walk to that end of the boat to
climb up, a net dropped down like a heavy spider.
"She's going to lift us up?" asked Patience.
"I brought some luggage with me," said Angel. Patience
recognized his small trunk. Of course. Her things
he could leave somewhere in hiding, but his little trunk
was never long out of his sight. She knew he kept his
disguises in it, but there were other things, too, which he
showed to no one.
The trunk rose quickly upward into the house. Then
Angel motioned for Patience to climb.
The house swayed slightly when they walked from one
end to another. To someone who lived on the river, it
94 orson scott card
probably felt fine, but to Patience it was unnerving. It
was like living in a constant earthquake, she thought.
And when Sken moved from place to place, her great
mass tilted it even More. She seemed not to notice it, and
Patience said nothing.
"I'm sorry I didn't meet you on time," Patience said.
"I had some questions I had to ask Father. Questions I
could only ask him when he was dead."
"I guessed as much," said Angel. "Did you leave
him there when you were through?"
"Oruc had enough use of him when he was alive,"
said Patience. "He'll have no use of him now."
Sken was horrified. "You killed your father's head?"
"Shut up and tend to the food," Angel said softly.
Sken glowered but obeyed.
"He asked me to," said Patience.
"As any sane man would," said Angel. "Just because
we can preserve them doesn't mean we should. Just one More abomination we'll have to answer for someday."
"To God? I don't think he cares what we do with our
heads."
Sken couldn't keep her silence. "If I'd known you
were blasphemers I would have put you at the bottom of
the river."
It was Patience who answered this time. "And if I'd
known you were unable to keep your mouth still I would
have left your head in the privy hole."
Angel smiled. "So you did have your loop on you?"
"I needed it twice. I wasn't very subtle, either."
"God knows," muttered Sken.
"Well, what did your father tell you?"
Patience looked at him coldly. "He told me what he
said you were going to tell me."
"What is that?"
"Tell me what you're supposed to tell me, and I'll see
if it agrees."
wyrms | 95
"Patience, I know More games than I ever taught you. If you tell me what secrets he told you, then I don't have
to go on lying to you for the next thirty years."
"Did you know about how mother died?" asked
Patience.
Angel grimaced."! see you didn't ask him easy
questions."
"He broke in two hours. I thought he had More strength
than that."
"He had More strength than anyone."
"He whined and whimpered--and when the worms
punished him, he even wept."
Angel nodded gravely. "Of course."
"What do you mean, of course! He was the one who
taught me endurance, who taught me that the emotion I
showed should never be the emotion I felt, and there he
was--''
She stopped, feeling stupid.
"Yes?" asked Angel.
"There he was, showing emotions and I fell for it."
"Ah. So perhaps he didn't break at all."
"He wasn't lying to me. I saw when he was lying, and
I saw when he stopped. He can't hide everything. Can
he?"
"No. I think he told you the truth. What else, besides
your mother's death?"
"Wasn't that enough?" '
"The prophecy?"
"I knew a little about that anyway. He told me what
the Starship Captain did with his left hand."
"Mm."
"Angel, I've decided where I want to go."
"Your father left me strict instructions."
"My father is dead now, and you belong to me."
Sken was surprised. "You mean you're a slave? I've
been taking orders from a slave?"
96 | orson scott card
"I am the slave of a Slave of the King. That puts me
so far above you that you're unworthy to inhale one of
my farts. Now will you shut up, woman?"
Actually, thought Patience, I'm the Heptarch now.
You're Slave to the King herself. Her only Slave. Much
may it profit you.
- "So," said Angel. "Where do you want to go?"
'' Cranning," said Patience.
Angel was angry, though he answered with humor.
"Stiff as steel, the girl has lost her mind."
Now Sken was livid. "Girl! Girl! You mean this snip
of a boy is a female? It is an abomination for the woman
to wear the clothing of the man, and the man to wear the
clothing of a woman--''
"Shall I kill her to get us some silence?" Angel asked.
Sken fell silent, stuffing hardbread into sacks and spiced
sausages into watertight pouches.
"Child," said Angel, "that is the one place you can
never go."
"I'm sure of it," she said. "But it's the one place I:
have to go. I was born for it, don't you see?" I
"You were born for something better than to go off
fulfilling mad prophecies."
"How will you stop me. Kill me? Because it's the'
only way you ever will."
"It's the Cranning call. That's what makes you want
to go. It comes this way, an insane determination to go
there, for no reason at all, against all reason--"
"Don't you think I know?"
Angel chewed on that for a moment. "So you think
that whatever it is, you're stronger."
"I think that if it can call the wisest men out of the.
world and force my mother to want to sacrifice her daughter, then someone needs to stop it. Why not me?|
Don't the prophecies say that mankind will be reborn?"
wyrms | 97
"When Kristos comes," muttered Sken.
' 'The prophets were given their visions and prophecies
by whatever it is that calls," said Angel. "They might be
lies, to entice you."
"Then I'm enticed. If you're so wise. Angel, why
haven't you felt the Cranning call?"
Angel went cold, his face a hard-set mask. She had
always had the gift of goading him. "No one ever proved
that every wise one heard the call."
There was no need to hurt him; she was using diplomatic
tricks on a man whose honest words she would
need again and again. So she smiled and touched his
hand. "Angel, you spent your life making me as wise and
dangerous as possible. When will I be readier? When
you're too old to come with me? When I've fallen in love
with some cod and had three babies that I have to protect?"
"Maybe you'll never be ready for whatever waits."
"Or maybe now. When I'm willing to die. When I've
lost my father for the first time and my mother all over
again. Now, when I'm willing to kill because of the rage
that burns in me for what has been stolen from me and
my father and my mother, now is the time for me to face
whatever waits for me there. With you or without you,
Angel. But better with you."
Angel smiled. "All right."
Patience glared at him. "That was too easy. You
intended to be persuaded all along."
"Come now, Patience. Your father warned us both
that the worst thing in the world was waiting in Cranning.
As well as we knew him, and as well as he knew us,
don't you think he knew we'd come to this moment?"
Patience remembered her father's head. Was he scheming
even then, letting her force from him the very truths
that he most wanted to tell her? "I don't care if he was,"
she said. "Even if my father really wanted me to go, I'll go."
98 orson scott card
"Good. Tonight then. We don't want another day
here." He took a purse from his belt and took out two
large steel coins. "Sken, do you know what these are
worth?"
"If they're real, then you're a damned fool for carrying
them without a bodyguard."
"Are they enough to buy your boat?"
Sken squinted at him. "You know it's enough to buy
ten of my boats. If they are steel."
He tossed them to her. She bit them and weighed them
in her hand. "I'm not a fool," she said.
"You are if you think they aren't real," said Angel.
"I won't sell you the boat unless you buy me, too."
"Buy you! That's enough to buy your silence, and
that's all we want of you."
"I said I'm not a fool. This in't the price a man offers
for a boat if he means to leave the money behind. You
plan to kill me before you go."
"If I say I'm buying, I'm buying."
"You've let me hear enough tonight that you daren't
let me live behind you. A girl traveling in disguise with a
man who tosses steel about as if it were silver? Her father
recently dead, and them both afraid of the law? Do you
think we of the river haven't heard that Lord Peace died
today? And that the King looks for his daughter Patience,
the rightful Heptarch, the daughter of prophecy? You
didn't care if I figured it out because you knew I'd be
dead."
Patience knew Sken was right--she knew Angel well
enough for that. "I thought you were talking so openly
because this woman was to be trusted, not because she
was to die."
"And what if you're right?" asked Angel. "What if I
did mean to kill you? Why should I change my mind
now, and take you along?"
wyrms | 99
"Because I know the river and I'm strong enough to
row."
"We can hire a rower if we feel the need."
"Because you're both decent folk who don't kill people
who don't deserve it."
"We're not that decent," said Angel. "We leave justice
up to the priests."
"You'll take me along because she's my rightful
Heptarch, and I'll serve her to the end of my life. I'd die
before I let any harm come to her."
The fervency of Sken's speech was convincing. Schooled
in guile, they knew naivete when they saw it. Sken
hadn't the art to lie to them even if she wanted to.
"Well?" asked Angel.
Patience was willing. Sken's loyalty appealed to her. It
hadn't occurred to her until now that she might have More friends with her identity revealed than she could
ever have in disguise. "I almost cut off her head before.
It's the least we can do now."
"Until we have no More need of you, then," said
Angel. "And your parting wages will be a good deal
better than death."
"What about these coins?"
"Keep them," said Angel. "They're an earnest of rewards
to come."
It took only a few minutes to load the boat. They sang
ribald songs together as they passed among the guardboats,
and Sken roundly cursed the guards by name. They knew
her well, and let her pass. They rounded a bend and
passed into the forest, where the river ran cool and deep.
Heptam was behind them, and they had begun the long
road to Cranning.
7
TINKER'S WOOD

patience DID NOT ENJOY THE RIVER TRAVEL. not THAT
the water made her sick--she had crossed seawater often
enough between King's Hill and Lost Souls' Island that
the river seemed calm. There were many things that
contributed to her malaise. The death of her father,
the loss of all that was familiar to her, and, on top of
that, the ever-present Cranning call, urging her on; she felt
she had lost control of things, and it made her anxious.
What made it worse was that she had genuine physical
discomfort as well. Sken and Angel were frank enough
about handling the elimination of waste; they hung over
the gunnel and everyone discreetly looked away. But
Patience had swallowed the scepter of the Heptarchs, and
wasn't about to let it vanish in the depths of the River
Glad. So she could only relieve her bowel on land, and
they didn't stop every day, or even every other day. And
when they did, she took no pleasure in searching for the
crystal. Many times she wished it had been smaller, or
that she hadn't swallowed it. Since no one searched her,
it hadn't been necessary after all, and now all this annoyance
was for nothing.
101
102 | orson scott card
But she found it at last, and tucked it safely away,
hoping she would never have to resort to her own alimentary
system as a hiding place again.
They left the Glad River at Wanwood, where it bent
north and west. They bought a half-open carriage with
four horses; they wouldn't need to keep out the cold,
only the rain. The roads alternated between ruts and
mudholes, depending on the weather. On the worst roads,
Sken climbed off the carriage and walked.
"I thought you were well enough padded to withstand
a little bouncing," said Angel.
"Padded! This is all meat, and tender as veal today,
after this pounding."
No doubt they seemed an odd family, if anyone on the
road took them for father, mother, and son. Patience,
still disguised as a boy, publicly referred to Angel and
Sken as uncle and aunt, which annoyed them both. But
on the highway, few people commented on oddities, not
to their faces, anyway; and their money won them admirers
wherever they went.
The roads were not as safe as the river, not for travelers
without armed escort. They were careful to stop for
the night well before dusk, and in every inn they stayed
at, the three of them shared a room. More than once
Angel had to persuade burglars to abandon their life of
crime. Removing a few fingers usually did the trick.
At last they reached Cranwater, the great river that
flowed from Skyfoot in a single stream to the sea. They
reached it at Waterkeep, an ancient castle that once
marked the northest boundary of Korfu. Now the castle
was in ruins and the city had shrunk to a fair-sized
market town. Two dozen inns and taverns, what with the
intersection of the river and the road.
They chose an inn and stabled the horses. At supper,
with bread and cheese and pea soup at the tavern table,
WYRMS | 103
and Sken's mug filled with warm ale. Angel and Patience
discussed their plans for the morning.
"It's time we left the road," said Angel. "The river is
here, our highway northward."
"The river's narrow here," said Sken."The current's
strong. I'd need two strong men to help me row against
it."
Angel had already thought of that. "The prevailing
wind in these latitudes at this time of year is from the
west, and usually the southwest."
"You're going to buy a windsucker?" asked Sken.
"Do you know how to pilot one?"
"I was wrapped in sailcloth the day I was born," said
Sken. "Long before I settled me on the river with my
second husband, my family was a seafaring family. Left
our stilts every spring with the floods and a cargo of such
stuff as Heptam makes, then home again before summer
with the earliest fruits from the islands. Never got rich,
as I recall it, but we got drunk a lot."
"Then you know how to handle a sailing vessel."
"Never done it on a river this narrow. But no reason it
can't be done. Just have to do things faster, that's all.
Don't buy too big a boat, that's all. You'd better let me
choose it, too."
"Is that all?"
"That's all. Are you two made of money?"
A dwelf stood by their table with a pitcher of ale.
"More?" he asked.
"No," said Angel.
"Yes," said Sken, glaring at him.
"Are you two made of money?" asked the dwelf. He
had Sken's intonation exactly.
"Now look what you've done," said Angel. "We'll
have the dwelf repeating it all over the tavern."
"Repeat repeat," said the dwelf. Then he giggled.
104 orson scott card
I
Angel put a couple of coppers in his hand, turned him
around, and pushed him toward the kitchen.
"Sorry," said Sken.
"Even if dwelfs have no brains, they still have ears,
and they can repeat anything." Angel let his annoyance :
show. It could be intimidating, and Sken was silent. I
"Dwelfs are a puzzle," said Patience. "They do have
their own language. They must have some kind of brain,
to hold a language."
Angel shrugged. "I never ponder the mental capacity
of dwelfs. I just think of them as exceptionally stupid
geblings." 3
"But they aren't geblings, are they?" I
"Another indigenous species. Imakulata needed humans,
whether the geblings and dwelfs and gaunts thought so or not."
The innkeeper came out of the kitchen carrying bread
to another table. But when that job was done, he came
over and pulled up a chair beside Angel.
"Everything is excellent," said Sken. She was beginning
to be drunk. "Everything is perfect. More ale,
please."
The innkeeper was not amused. "I don't know where
you people are from--probably Heptam, since you seem
to think nothing can harm you."
"There are plenty of things that can harm us in
Heptam," said Angel.
"There isn't a tavern in Waterkeep where you can ;
safely show as much money as you've shown, and talk as
freely. I hope you aren't planning to travel from here by
road."
"Shouldn't we?" asked Angel.
"Better hire a trustworthy guard. Preferably by arranging
with the townmaster for some of the local police.
Otherwise you won't get ten miles from here alive."
wyrms | 105
"What is the unbearable danger?"
"Robbers."
"Is that all?"
"All? There's plenty of trade through here, and not
much protection. Officially we're part of Pankos, but we
haven't seen a royal officer in thirty years. So the
townmaster makes the law in Waterkeep, and Tinker
makes the law in the woods."
"Tinker?"
"He used to be a royal governor, or maybe just a royal
governor's son. They say he was caught sleeping in the
wrong bed. That was fifteen years ago. He lives in the
forest north of here. They say he has a whole city of
robbers living in treehouses. We call it Tinker's Wood."
"Sounds like children playing," said Angel.
"If you go south or east or west they'll stop you, and
as long as you give them everything you own without a
fight, they'll usually let you keep your clothes and your
lives. If you have enough money, even your horses and
carriage."
"And if we go north?"
"Then take an army. A very large one. Or go by boat.
Tinker figures anyone headed north by road has decided
to die. And he believes that death can be a long and
satisfying spectator sport."
"You've convinced us,"said Angel. "And thank you
for taking the risk of angering him, by warning us."
"Oh, he doesn't mind if we warn people. There's
always plenty of fools who figure if they buy a few extra
arrows they can go where they like."
"I can go anywhere," mumbled Sken. "I'll cut em in
half, every last bastard of em."
"Go by boat," said the innkeeper. "And don't go
anywhere near shore for at least thirty miles upriver. It's
good advice. People who take it live to thank me."
106 orson scott card
The innkeeper went back to the kitchen.
"Back to the water," said Sken. "About time." She
lifted her mug to salute the others and sloshed ale on
Angel. They enlisted the help of the four household
dwelfs to get her to her room.
On the dock the next morning they found a good many
boats for hire, but not many for sale. "Doesn't matter,"
murmured Angel. "Any boat is for sale when the price is
high enough."
"Our money isn't infinite," said Patience."We may
want some next year."
"Do you want to get to Cranning or not?"
Yes, she wanted to get to Cranning. Wanted to More
than anything else in the world. The Cranning call was
with her now as a constant hunger. As long as she was
moving toward Cranning, it eased, and she felt satisfied.
But when there were delays, like now, as they walked on
the wooden wharf of the riverport, the need became quite
intense.
Today, though, she noticed a subtle change. It wasn't
just that she needed to get to Cranning. Now she felt a
longing to be on the water, to travel up the river. The
morning sunlight dancing on the water looked magical,
the curve of the river enticed her.
And it occurred to her that she had never felt such
feelings before. She hadn't particularly enjoyed the journey
on the Glad River. Why should she long for water- home travel now?
She thought of last night, when the innkeeper had
come to them. Perhaps he advised everyone to avoid
Tinker's Wood, but she doubted it. The people of
Waterkeep had to have some working arrangement with
the local highwaymen, especially since they had no protection
from a larger government; If the innkeeper was
free to warn away travelers, then the robbers must not be
wyrms 107
very dangerous after all. And if the robbers were as
dangerous as he had said, then how did he dare to risk
his life to warn a trio of rich and foolish strangers away
from the road?
What could it be but the Cranning call, prompting the
innkeeper and now making her long to go by water. For
some reason, Unwyrm--whoever he was--wanted her
not to travel on the forest road. Was it simply to keep her
safe? Or was it because there was something in that
forest, along that road, that she must not discover?
Am I not a trained killer? And Angel? Sken, too, looks
like she could be dangerous enough. Even if the robbers
are as vicious as the innkeeper said, we could probably
get through. And if Unwyrm wants us not to go that way,
then that is the way I will go.
In the moment she made that decision, she felt an
agony of regret. How could she even have thought of
doing such a stupid thing? Risking the lives of all three
of them on some stupid whim. When the water looked so
inviting, was so easy, just to sail upriver--
And now she knew, through the cloud of these passions,
that Unwyrm wanted desperately for her to stay off
the forest road. She also knew that regardless of the cost,
she would travel by land. The gnawing hunger for Cranning
and for the river only got worse, but hadn't she been
schooled all her life in putting off her ease? Hadn't she
gone without sleep, without food, without water, in order
to stretch her limits, to toughen her resistance? She could
ignore any of her body's hungers, especially when she
knew that it was an illusion sent into her mind by an
enemy.
Or was it an enemy? It didn't matter. She was determined
not to succumb to the Cranning call in every
particular. She would go to Cranning, but she would take
any route she pleased. She would not be controlled.
108 orson scott card
"This one," said Sken. The boat was small, compared
to some of the sailing vessels, but it looked clean and
sturdy.
"All right," said Angel.
"No," said Patience.
Sken was annoyed. "What's wrong with it?"
"Nothing. Except that I'm not going by boat."
Angel drew her away from Sken. "Are you out of
your mind?" he whispered.
"Probably. But I'm not going by boat. I'm taking our
carriage through the forest road."
"It's suicide. Didn't you hear the innkeeper?"
"I heard him very well. I also hear the Cranning call.
He wants me to go by water. Wants it badly. I'm going
to find out what it is that he doesn't want me to find in
the forest."
"Death, that's what he doesn't want you to find,"
"Are you sure? I think he's a little too eager to get us
off the road. This isn't the best place to begin a sailing
voyage upriver--the current's too swift. Sken said so
herself, didn't she?"
"It's better than dying."
"Since when have you been afraid of a few highwaymen,
Angel?"
"Since I thought of dozens of them dropping out of
trees onto our heads. I'm trained to kill unsuspecting
people in subtle ways, not fight with a bunch of unmannered
thieves."
"You haven't met them. You know nothing about
their manners."
"Did it occur to you that maybe this is just what
Unwyrm wants you to do? Maybe the creature knows
that you're stubborn and rebellious. Maybe it wants you
to go into the forest, and figured this was the way."
"A little far-fetched, Angel."
wyrms 109
"Maybe it wants the robbers to get rid of your traveling
companions."
He was as much as confessing that he feared for his
own life. The Cranning call resonated with his words.
The feelings welled up in her. How can you endanger
them? What kind of person are you? Selfish, arrogant.
Go by water, for their sake.
But the More the Cranning call pressed her, the More
she resisted. "Go by boat, then. I'll meet you in the first
riverport village upstream. I can handle the carriage alone.
You can even take all the money--I trust you."
"No," said Angel. His hands were trembling. "No, I
won't leave you."
He really is afraid, thought Patience. Almost she decided
to give in, for Angel's sake. But the moment she
thought that, the Cranning call redoubled its force, as if
her thought of yielding had opened a floodgate. She
winced from the pain of it. Then the longing subsided, as
if it had taken a great effort from Unwyrm to call her
with such power. Good, thought Patience. Wear yourself
out with trying. I didn't go without comfort all that time
in my childhood just to give in and take the easy way
now.
"Good. We go by land."
Sken was no happier than Angel had been.
"You don't have to come with me," Patience said.
"You've served me well and earned your passage home."
"We need all the help we can get," Angel said. "I'll
double your payment, if you come with us."
Sken looked at him with contempt. "I'll come because
of who she is, not what you offer."
Angel smiled. Patience knew perfectly well that Angel
had expected Sken to react that way. The art of diplomacy,
as Father had always said: to provoke your opponent
into wanting to do what you planned. Angel was a
110 orson scott card
diplomat. Unwyrm wasn't. Unwyrm was very blunt about
what he wanted, and Patience was just as blunt about
rejecting him. There was no subtle byplay in this battle.
They left the dock and went to the stable. Their horses
had been well groomed--Angel had paid for the service,
since he was expecting to sell them.
Patience prepared her blowgun with three dozen wooden
darts. They were More visible than her glass darts, but
they flew farther and carried as lethal a close of poison.
Angel grumbled about being an old man as he took a
shortbow and a packet of arrows from his trunk. "I'm
not very good with this," he said. "I'm better with
knifework in close."
"From behind, too, no doubt," said Sken.
"I can poison them all, too," said Angel. "Provided
they invite us to supper."
"Poison and a knife in the back. What a man."
"Enough," said Patience. "This will be dangerous
enough without a stupid quarrel over nothing." She spoke
sharply, letting her voice carry away some of the ever-
increasing punishment the Cranning call was inflicting on
her. Just climbing into the carriage made her feel ill; she
was trembling and nauseated as Angel snapped the reins
to start the horses out onto the cobbled lane. The stones
were ancient and worn even and flat by years of traffic,
but Patience felt the tiny breaks between them like ruts
that jarred her until her head ached.
But she had learned all her lessons well. She kept her
demeanor calm, managing to look slightly amused at
moments that were far from amusing. She would not
break under Unwyrm's twisting grip. She would not let
Angel see that she suffered. If she could fool Angel, she
knew she was still in control of herself.
The town was not very big, and soon the highway
passed between fields of vegetables and orchards, where
WYRMS 111
farmers hoed or harvested among the ruins of old mansions
that had once been the pride of Waterkeep. It was
part of the cycle of things, in the years of human life on
Imakulata. Waterkeep had once been great; it would be
great again, or it would disappear entirely, but nothing
stayed. Even the religions had their changing fashions,
the Keepers and the Brickmakers, the Rememberers and
the Watchers, and, only in the last century, the Vigilants
in their little hermit huts. They would also fall to ruin.
Nothing lasted.
Except the bloodline of the Heptarchy, which had gone
on unbroken, the only institution that endured through all
the millennia of mankind on Imakulata. It was a thing
unknown in human history. She tried to remember anything
comparable. The Romans were only a thousand
years by the most generous count; the Popes only lasted
some 2500 years. Even the patriarchate of Constantinople
was gone now, though it had lasted long enough in a
perverse and polluted form to send this colony to Imakulata.
The colonists on Imakulata were supposed to keep Greek
religion alive, though none of them spoke Greek or cared
much, in the end, about maintaining the forms of the old
Greek church. Nothing lasted except the Heptarchy.
Until now, thought Patience. Now this distant being,
this enemy, this Unwyrm tears at me. It is the end of the
Heptarchy if he conquers me. And if I keep resisting
him, it is the end of me.
Orchards began to give way to stands of wood. Here and there a tiny village interrupted the growing forest,
with a few cows on the commons, a few farmers in the
fields, and children who shouted at the carriage and ran
alongside until they couldn't keep up any longer. Sken
cursed them loudly, which delighted them, and Patience
pretended to enjoy it, though she was beyond anything
112 orson scott card
' i
but the imitation of pleasure now. Angel, however, stayed
glum, urging the horses on at a brisk pace.
Finally, in early afternoon, the trees won out entirely,
as the road become closed in with thick underbrush and
old giants ten or twenty meters round. It was a perfect
place for ambuscade, and Patience felt a new wave of shame at having led them into such danger. '
They came to a long straight lane through the densest
part of the woods. At the far end of the lane they could
plainly see a thick rope stretched across the road, at such
a height that it would catch the horses' necks.
"Brazen, aren't they?" said Sken. "They give us
plenty of time to see what's coming."
"I'm turning around," said Angel.
At his words Patience felt grateful assent well up
within her. But she had learned discipline. And her
resistance to Unwyrm had become a madness in her now,
as the pain of it became greater. "Go back if you want,"
she said. "I'm going on."
She had her glass blowgun in the cross beneath her
shirt; it and the loop were her weapons of last resort if
she were captured. She carried a longer, More accurate
wooden blowgun. The darts, all heavily poisoned, were
in a pouch. She could handle them safely enough; her
father had seen to it she was inured to the most useful
poisons before she was ten years old. She swung down
from the carriage and strode out boldly toward the waiting
rope. i
Sken cursed, but followed her with a hatchet in each
hand. And Angel grimly brought the carriage along after.
"They can kill us whenever they want," he said.
"Watch the trees," said Patience. "The innkeeper
said they liked torturing people. They'll try to take us alive."
"Now I feel better," said Sken.
WYRMS 113
"The rope is yours," said Patience.
"It's as good as down."
Patience scanned the underbrush, the trees overhead.
The leaves were sparse enough to allow plenty of light;
there was a slight breeze, too, which concealed any signs
of movement by the robbers. Patience saw only a couple
of men high in the branches. Bowmen, no doubt. But it
was not an easy thing to aim a bow to shoot almost
straight down at a moving target; if the archers in the
trees hit any of them, it would be More by chance than
design.
What worried her were the men on the ground, no
doubt dozens of them hiding behind trees. They could
swarm out from any direction. She slipped a dart into the
blowgun and held three in her right hand.
They were still a few meters from the rope when four
men stepped out from behind a tree and stood in the
middle of the road, behind the rope. They swaggered,
they smiled, they knew their victims had no chance. One
stepped forward, preparing to speak. Patience knew that
as he talked, others would come out and surround them.
So there would be no talk. She blew a puff through the
pipe. She had aimed for the throat, but the dart went high
and entered his mouth. He stood, transfixed, the dart
invisible to his companions behind him. So she had time
to load again and shook before they realized what was
happening. The second dart struck its victim in the forehead;
the first man finally gagged and choked and fell
over, writhing from the poison that was already reaching
his brain. The other two men backed away, surprised for
a moment that the initiative had been taken from them.
Sken moved slowly, but with great momentum, and
one blow with her hatchet split the rope. Immediately
Angel urged the horses forward, Sken swung up onto the
carriage, and Patience jogged alongside, then caught hold.
114 orson scott card
The carriage bounced over the bodies in the road. She! heard a voice in the underbrush saying, "The boy got'" Tinker. With his mouth." :
For a moment it seemed they might be allowed to
pass. Then the men began to shout, to scream, and |
arrows began striking the carriage from behind. Angel |
urged the horses on, shouted at them, and then suddenly I
gurgled and choked. An arrow stuck out of the side of his I
neck. Many hands clutched at the horses; the carriage
came to a stop.
Patience had no time to worry about Angel. Fortunately
the robbers wasted time cutting the horses loose.
Patience ignored the horses and shouted for Sken to do ;
the same. Sken took the left side of the carriage, swing- ':
ing her hatchets and spattering blood in every direction. ,
They backed off from Sken, perhaps hoping an archer
would take care of her, but Patience kept blowing darts
with deadly aim--at this range, she could hardly miss--
and those who weren't killed outright screamed in such
agony at the poison that the robbers began to lose heart.
After all, their commander had been killed, they had
already lost a dozen men, with some vicious injuries
from the hatchets, and every dart that hit home meant
another death. They cried out terrible threats and oaths,
but broke and ran as the darts kept coming.
Sken had a deep cut in the back of one arm. "I'm all
right," she said. "We've got to get out of here. They'll
be back, they'll follow us, we've got to keep moving."
"Can you pull the carriage?"
"Better to run; what good will all your money do you
if you're dead?"
"Angel's still alive. The only way to bring him is in
the carriage."
Sken looked at the arrow in his throat, grunted, then
WYRMS I 115
took her place at the front of the carriage. "Just keep a
good lookout," she said.
Angel's wound wasn't bleeding much, and Patience
knew to leave the shaft in place until they had time to try
surgery. Unless they could find a good-sized town with
an expert physician, though, there wasn't much hope for
him. She should go back, hurry back to Waterkeep,
where there would be a physician. And they could continue
their trip by water, after Angel was better.
But she recognized this thought, too, as coming from
Unwyrm. Or did she? Maybe it was common sense,
maybe what she was doing with this determination to
resist was killing Angel. How could she push on, not
even knowing if there was a village ahead, when this
loyal man, her teacher, virtually the only father she had
ever really known, lay dying in the carriage?
On. She held that single thought in her head, go on.
Go on. She scanned the road ahead and behind, watching
for robbers or for one of the horses. Once a man stepped
into the road behind them, armed with a bow; he died
before he could get off a shot. There were no others.
Perhaps they had given up. It didn't matter. For Angel's
sake there could be no slackening of the pace.
She tried to join Sken in pulling the carriage. "Go
away," said the woman. "You break up my rhythm.
Keep watching."
And finally the trees thinned, and there was an orchard,
and after the orchard, a field; villagers shouted to
each other and began to gather.
"Tinker let you through?" asked a child.
"Have you a healer!" called Sken.
"Not a village healer," Patience said.
"They sometimes know More than the town physicians,"
she answered. "And if they have one, so much
the better for the old man."
116 orson scott card
"We have a healer," said a man. "A gebling. But a
fine healer all the same."
"Can you pull this carriage?" asked Sken. "Can you
pull this to the healer? We can pay."
"Tinker left you with money?"
Patience was tired of hearing his name. "Tinker's
dead," she said. "Take us to the healer."
"The boy's a pretty one," said one of the girls, a
snaggle-toothed wretch who was trying to flirt. Patience
sighed and climbed onto the carriage. Angel's eyes were
open now. She held his hand to ease the fear he no doubt
felt. "We're with friends," she said.
The villagers took hold of the carriage leads, and some
pushed from behind. Sken gratefully climbed aboard. A
strange feeling came over Patience as soon as the carriage
started to move again, a feeling of sweetness, of>;
peace. All the resistance from Unwyrm was gone. And
now the Cranning call was back again, a yearning to go
on, to go north, to Cranning. Where her lover waited for
her, with gentleness and tender kisses, her lover waited
to fill her womb with life. Patience forced these new
feelings into the background, just as she had done with
the old, More vicious ones. Unwyrm now wants to hurry
me on. So apparently I'm right where he didn't want me
to be. Heading for a gebling healer in a village hidden
from the world by a band of robbers. Unwyrm couldn't
have guided her here More surely if he had given her a '
map. Have I done, after all, what my enemy wanted? Or
have I defeated him?
"There," cried some of the villagers. It was a good-
sized house at the far end of town.
"He lives there with his sister," said a villager.
"And a human, a giant."
"They say the geblings sleep together," said another. '
"Filthy beasts."
wyrms | 117
"But he's a healer, a true healer."
"What is his name?" asked Patience.
"Ruin," said a man.
Sken snorted. "That's a promising name."
Smoke curled from the chimney. Pass it by, said the
Cranning call. Hurry on. Angel will be safe. Go on, pass
it by, pass it by.
The door opened and a gebling woman emerged, covered
with fur. She was clean, not filthy at all, beautiful
by gebling standards. There was an intelligence in her
eyes that made Patience decided to be wary with her. No
sense in letting her know that she could speak Geblic.
This house was important enough that Unwyrm didn't
want her there. So she would enter it as an ambassador,
and learn all she could before committing herself to
anything.
And in the meantime, she hoped against all likelihood
that Angel could be saved. Blood oozed from the arrow's
root as the villagers carried him in. Patience thought of
scattering copper coins for them, but instead took a steel
coin and handed it to the old man who seemed to be the
village headman. "For the whole village, for your kindness
to us." The old man smiled and nodded, and people murmured their thanks. It was More money than the
whole village earned in a year.
6
THE GEBLINGS' HOUSE

reck HEARD THE VILLAGERS COMING WHEN THEY WERE STILL
well away from her little house. There was an excitement
in the murmur that the wind brought. She cocked her
head to hear better. Could it be a gobbing? No, there was
no anger in it. This wasn't a village that was given to
letting the priests stir them up against the geblings. Which
was not to say that it wasn't always a possibility. One
never knew when humans would get religion and start
killing.
But why the excitement, if they were coming for a
healing? Someone important needed physicking, then,
someone unusual or powerful. A stranger, of course,
since no one unusual or powerful had ever lived anywhere
near Waterside Village--one of a hundred villages
by that name along the shores of Cranwater alone. The
stranger must also be injured, not sick, for disease never
drew a crowd for long. Fear of contagion.
Reck went to the door and called to Will. He was in
the field, hoeing out the potatoes. He heard her, waved,
tossed the hoe onto the sledge and pulled the heavy
119
120 I orson scott card
burden along the ground toward the barn. He was a tall
man, a giant even by human standards; to a gebling he
was almost double size. He had once been an owned
soldier, a slave in the service of a general officer in one
army or another. He was an accomplished killer, and
stronger than any other man Reck had heard of.
But Reck had no fear of him. She had found him as a
runaway slave many years ago and offered him protection
and a place to farm. It was enough for him. He and
Reck made a pleasant enough life of it. Neither said
much to the other, because neither had much to say. Both
did their work dependably and well, and took pleasure in
the labor.
Still, they were wise enough to be discreet. After all
these years it was no secret in the village that there was a
giant man living with the geblings near the forest's edge.
But they didn't enrage the villagers by flaunting it, just
kept Will out of sight when people brought their sick and
injured to be healed. It was not a problem with them.
Will got the sledge in the barn and no doubt climbed into
the loft to sleep until the people went away. Will had a
remarkable ability to sleep whenever he wanted, for as
long as he wanted. Reck often wondered if Will was ever
haunted by the dreams that kept her sleepless so many
nights. She wondered, but did not ask. Dreams were not
a subject that a gracious gebling asked about.
She saw the people drawing a carriage toward her
house. No horses. That meant that the owners of the
carriage had fallen afoul of the robbers--Tinker's men,
no doubt. That was no surprise. The surprise was that
anyone came out of it alive. Tinker was usually More
careful.
She sniffed the air. Blood, but no bowel smell. Perhaps
only a superficial wound, something she could clean
WYRMS | 121
and bind up without waiting for her brother to come
home.
There was a young boy in the carriage, sitting up and
conversing with the villagers. He seemed to be in charge
of things. An old man lay with his head in the boy's lap.
A coarse-looking fat woman rode in the driver's seat,
calling to the villagers who drew the carriage, urging
them on with curses and promises and taunts. It was the
old man who was injured, then. Only the one? And a
young boy like that--Tinker always had his eye out for a
catamite. Something strange had passed in the forest.
Unlikely that Tinker was alive, with an outcome such as
this. Whatever they were, they must be More formidable
than they looked at first. That was all right; Reck understood
that. She, too, was More formidable than she seemed.
She met them at the gate. "Carry the man in, if he
can't walk," she said. "Leave the carriage there, and the
rest of you go home."
"They killed Tinker," one of the villagers said.
"And half his men."
The fat woman was feeling boastful. "I killed half of
em myself, and you can trust there was a mark or two on
every one!" Could be bluster, but no. Reck saw bloodstains
halfway up her arms. Some of the blood was her
own. "You can wash in the basin outside here. Get that
wound clean."
The fat woman washed as the villagers brought in the
old man and laid him on the physicking table. The boy
and the fat woman came in to watch; Reck paid no
attention to them. The man had an arrow in his throat,
lodged well in. It had passed behind the windpipe, so he
had pain but no blood in his breath.
Blood was still welling slowly from the base of the
wound. Reck leaned down and sniffed it, then put forth
her long tongue to lick it. She heard the fat woman grunt
122 | orson scott card }
in revulsion. The boy said nothing. There's something
wrong with the boy, thought Reck. But she couldn't
place it. More important was the taste of the old man's
blood.
"Poison," Reck told them. "A nasty one. This wound
won't heal. The blood won't stop flowing."
"Then we don't take the arrow out?" asked the fat
woman.
"You were right to leave it in."
"What will you do?" asked the boy.
"Nothing." Reck turned to the villagers. "Go away, I
told you. You've done all you can!"
"You'll do nothing!" said the boy. "Then we'll go on
to the next village, thank you." The boy spoke in a voice
that said that he expected to be obeyed.
Hum, the blacksmith's boy, answered on the way out
the door. "Oh, this one's the girl goblin. It's the brother
that's the healer."
"A girl!" cried the fat woman. "How can you tell,
with goblins?"
"When you see the brother, you'll know. He's got
him a tine this long. Never wears nothing but his fur."
Reck was used to the way humans ridiculed geblings
to their faces. If geblings had been larger than two-thirds
the average human height, they might have refused to
bear it. But as long as geblings wanted to live away from
Cranning, out in the world of men, they had to accommodate
the empty-minded cruelty of humans. Her brother,
Ruin, had a harder time bearing it than most. He lived in
the woods most of the time, to get away from them, and
refused to wear clothing at all, as if to say that he'd
rather be the animal they thought he was than pretend to
be like them.
"When will your brother come back?" asked the boy.
Reck didn't answer the question. Instead she studied
WYRMS 123
the boy's face, then sniffed the air again. That's what
was wrong. The boy had no ridge of bone above the eyes, like most human males. And there was the smell of
menstrual blood on him; the living blood from the old
man's wound had masked it. But there was no lying to
Reek's nose.
The door closed behind the last of the villagers.
"I said, when will your brother come back?"
"First," said Reck, "tell me who you are, and why
you're pretending to be a boy."
Suddenly she felt a strong hand gripping her wrist,
twisting her around. It was the old man. She had thought
him unconscious, but now he held her like the jaws of a
purweck. She might have hit him in the groin and made
him let go, but she saw no reason to add to the pain he
already had.
"You can fool humans," she said, "but not a gebling
with half a brain. What the eye can't see, the nose can
smell."
"Let her go," the girl said. "It's my time of month,
remember? I forgot that geblings could smell it. It's a gift
I wish I had."
The old man's grip relaxed. Reck did not move until
he pulled his hand away.
"The old man's name is Angel. He's my tutor and my
friend. This magnificent woman is Sken. She included
herself with the purchase price when we bought her boat
to leave Heptam." The girl smiled. "I was going to tell
you my name was Adam, but now that you know my
sex, I won't tell you my name at all."
"How do you propose to pay us, if Tinker robbed
you?"
"Tinker didn't rob us. He only proposed to rob us.
His men ran our horses off, but we gave them More than
124 orson scott card
they expected. We thought to buy More horses here. But |
it seems no one has horses to sell." ;
"The army takes them," Reck said. "To humans,
they leave one horse for farming. Geblings get no horse
at all." "I don't want your horse. I just want Angel healed."
"My brother is coming." |
"You haven't even sent for him." '
"I don't have to send for him. He knows the animals
of the forest. They see all that happens here, and tell
him."
The girl looked over at Sken, as if to say. What kind
of superstitious nonsense have we got caught up in here?
The old man murmured, "We aren't villagers. We
know that geblings can call each other. You don't have
to tell animal stories to us."
"It's the animals of the forest," Reck said. "But I
learned long ago never to argue with a man who thinks
he's a scientist."
"I'm a philosopher. This arrow in my throat hurts like
bloody hell."
"I'm sorry. My brother may be far away. He may be a
while in coming. There's nothing we can do."
"I'm thirsty."
"The arrow may pass right through your swallowing
throat."
"It does."
"Then you don't get a drink, either."
The girl and Sken both sat, then, the girl on a stool
and Sken on the floor, leaning against the wall. Reck
went back to her work, feathering the arrows she had
made yesterday. It was a fine and tedious job, made no easier by the labored, painful breathing of the man on the
table.
Will came in soon after, carrying water. He did not
WYRMS | 125
^
look at the visitors, except for a glance at the man on the
table. He set one bucket of water by the fire, and poured
the other into a large jar by the table. Only then did he
face the visitors.
"Will," he said, introducing himself.
"Sken," said the fat woman.
The girl said nothing.
"You live here?" asked Sken.
Will nodded.
Sken looked from him to Reck and back again. "Abomination,"
she said.
Will grinned. "I'm her slave," he said.
Sken relaxed a little. "It's foul for a gebling to own a
man, but as long as she doesn't get the pony ride--"
"I'd say it's none of your business," said Reck, "and
that you have a strange way of talking when you want
this man to live."
"I speak my mind," said Sken.
"Then your mind is manure," said Reck.
Sken took only one step toward her. Both Angel and
the girl cried out for her to stop. Will cried out also, but
to Reck. Despite the cries, however, it was no sound that
stopped Sken. It was the sight of Reck with her bow
already in place. Only a moment, and she was ready to
put an arrow wherever she wanted.
"No, Reck," said Will.
"They come as beggars to my door, and then accuse me of letting a human mount me. Though if any human
ever tried, you're the only one that might live through
it."
Angel spoke weakly from the table. "Forgive this
woman. She was raised on the river, and never learned to
speak civilly to anyone."
Reck let the bow relax. Sken tugged at the neck of her
dress and sat back down, looking into the fire. Goblin126 orson scott card
baiting had never brought her so close to death before.
The gebling merchants that bought river passage in Heptam
were meek and never answered back. This wasn't the
first time Sken had had to revise her understanding of the
way the world worked. But she never liked it.
Will set about making supper, and Reck resumed her
fletchery. Angel breathed ever More shallowly. The girl
sat silent in the corner. They remained that way, wordless
and wary, until dusk, when Ruin came home.
THE HEALER
ruin FELT THE PRESSURE OF UNWYRM'S HATRED LIKE A WIND
in his face. He fairly leaned into it, and grimaced at the
pain of moving on. Had there been anyone to see him, he
would have looked ridiculous, a naked, filthy, ungroomed
gebling struggling to move through flat and grassy meadows
in bright sunlight, torturing himself to stagger between
trees whose branches easily bent out of his way.
But always, whenever Ruin set his face toward Cranning,
there was a hurricane of resistance. He was the only
gebling of all geblings who could not go home.
It was after two grueling days of this--pushing forward,
stopping to rest, pressing on again--that he felt Reck's call to him. That loving touch that seemed to
press like gentle fingers on his spine--Ruin had never told
her how her call affected him; no other gebling had such
power over him. Especially now, after days of Unwyrm's
shout of rage: The whisper from Reck was unbearable.
Ruin stumbled to his knees and wept. Wept in anger--
furious at Reck for calling him, furious at himself for not having the strength to ignore her call and fight on.
127
128 I orson scott card
But he could not fight on. And after he lay in the grass
by the stream for a few minutes or an hour, he crawled to
the water and drank, then arose. For a moment he faced
Cranningward; but the thought of another step in that
direction was More than he could bear. He turned and
went the other way. His feet were light under him. He
loped through the woods and meadows, covering in minutes
the ground that he had struggled through for hours.
All the while his sister was like a song in his mind,
comforting him, calling him back to her.
Calling him, but not calling him home. There was no
gebling alive who could call any of their humanlike
houses "home." There was only one home for geblings;
The great city in the cliff, the mapless tunnels and delvings
that reached a mile deep from the face of Skyfoot.
Cranning, a city with More inhabitants than most nations,
peopled with men and dwelfs and gaunts but ruled by
geblings, for only geblings held within their minds the
indelible, unwritable memory of every turn of every
tunnel in the place. Every stone in every cavern was
familiar, even to geblings like Ruin, who had never set
his foot on the stone, never tasted the cold water that
flowed through the tunnels from the glacier above, never
slept under the arch of darkness that was infinitely More
comforting than the sky. Where Reck was. Ruin could be
at peace; but outside Cranning, he could never be at
home.
And while Unwyrm lived, how could Ruin ever get
there? It was the quandary of his life, ever since he was a
child and his mother explained who he was and what he
had to do. "You are the most excellent of excellent
blood, you and your sister, with the seeds of mastery in
your souls. There is nothing you cannot learn, nothing
you cannot do, no thought that cannot come into your
mind like light out of the storm. You were born to be the
WYRMS 129
best answer of the geblings to the terrible hatred of
Unwyrm, our only hope to slay him, the two of you."
"Where do I find him?" asked the child Ruin.
"He lives at the heart of Cranning, where the lifeblood
flows. He lives in the very womb of the geblings, the
viper in our womb, to devour our babies as they are
born."
"Then teach me the way to Cranning, Mother, so I
can go and kill him!"
Then Mother wept, her long tongue hanging dejectedly
from her mouth, its twin points glistening with her tears.
"How can you, of all geblings, not already know the
way? Ah, Ruin and Reck, my son, my daughter, we
made you to be the downfall of our enemy, but already
he knows you and hides Cranning from you in your own
mind."
When Mother died, Ruin and Reck wandered aimlessly
in the world for a time. Each of them at once
rejected and prepared for the work their mother had
taught them they must do. Reck learned the arts of
archery and could kill anything that she could see--but
she refused to search for Cranning, denying that the place
meant anything to her. She mocked Ruin for his endless
effort to reach the place. "All dreams and visions," she
said, "all foolish prophecies." But still she practiced
with the bow in all her spare hours, and studied all the
lore of Unwyrm that she could find among the geblings
who traveled the river and came to take the hospitality of
her house.
Ruin, in turn, would not become a killer. Instead he
learned the arts of healing. He wandered in the woods,
testing the herbs that grew there, using them to heal the
sick and broken animals, the wounds caused by men and
other beasts. When an herb was promising, he grew and
nurtured it, taught it More of what he wanted it to do,
130 orson scott card
and soon he had herbs that could drive away infections,
root powders that could cure disease, berries that took
away all pain. And he knew the inward shape of every
body just by looking at its outward lines. The lizard and
the lyon, the rubin and the grouse, he knew them, could
cut them open and set them to rights. He could never
have set his knowledge down in books, like humans did.
Poor humans--they lacked the othermind, the secret memory
in which geblings hid their great learning even from
themselves. If you asked Ruin what was wrong with one
of his many patients, he could not tell you, for his
manmind, his wordmind--it knew nothing of healing.
His wordmind could only speak, could only remember
sights and sounds; he had no use for it. It was his
othermind that he trusted, his othermind that he let rule
him, and his othermind that held all his greatest gifts.
Except it was also his othermind that Unwyrm had
found and forced away from Cranning. Only his weak
and hated manmind could drive him forward, again and
again, struggling for control of his legs and arms, in the
endless vertical climb to meet his enemy. And when I
meet him, what will I do? What am I fit for, except to be
the first of my people to be devoured?
It was near nightfall and Ruin was bitter with failure
when he reached the house he shared with Reck. He
knew from the smell that there were humans inside,
knew also that it was the old man who was injured and
the young woman who most loved and feared for him.
The fat woman was just a pile of sweat; he disregarded
her. There was also the smell of Will, but Ruin disregarded
him, too. If his sister wished to keep a human
instead of an ox, that was her prerogative. Ruin never
spoke to Will, and Will returned the favor.
Reck greeted him without a touch or a smile. There
wyrms 131
had been anger here. Ruin questioned her in Geblic.
"Why do you let them stay, if they offend you?"
"The girl," said Reck. "Tell me you can't feel it,
what she does to Unwyrm, being here."
Ruin strode to the boy-dressed girl, sitting on the floor
in the corner. Yes, he could feel it too, like prickles on
his spine. Near her, Unwyrm was not driving them away
at all. He was calling. It was something Ruin had never
felt before, though he had heard of it: the Cranning call.
It was unbelievably strong, like the promise of sexual
pleasure, like a mother's love for a child. Ruin knelt and
put his face close to the girl's face. He ignored her
revulsion, ignored the hand that went up to her hair.
The fat woman shouted from by the fire. "Keep that
filthy beast away from her or I'll kill him myself!"
"Quiet," murmured the girl. "He has More to fear
from me than I from him." Ruin felt her breath on his
cheek, and it seemed to be a warm breeze from Cranning,
which called him now for the first time in his life.
"A naked gebling coming at a girl like that," grumbled
me reeking old dunghill. "Time was when goblins
knew their place."
Reck called him back to duty. "The fat woman who
loves geblings is Sken. The man who is dying is Angel."
Ruin pulled himself away from the girl. It was almost
a physical pain, when the Cranning call receded. Standing
well away from her, though, it still had power over
him, for the constant pressure of Unwyrm's hate was
slackened. Ruin had never realized how much of his othermind Unwyrm had been using up. Now as he examined
the wound, the understanding of it came so quickly
and clearly that he could almost--not quite, but almost--
bring it into his wordmind and explain it to himself. For
the first time he realized what he might become if Unwyrm
were dead.
132 orson scott card
Angel was unconscious. It meant Ruin would not have
to waste time drugging him to sleep. He tasted the wound,
which was still oozing blood. He knew the poison--one
of the childish weeds that the woodland robbers were so
proud of. It was the arrow itself that worried Ruin More.
It had done some tearing on the way in and would do More coming out. The man's eating throat would not heal
well, and he might starve to death before he could swallow
again.
"I'll have to cut him," said Ruin, again in Geblic.
"To let him heal inside. You tell the humans." He knew
enough Agarant to make himself understood, but it was
easier to let Reck deal with the humans. He much preferred
communicating with the animals that didn't think
themselves intelligent.
While Reck told the others what Ruin would do, he
found the fungus spores that would undo the poison,
chose a thin brass knife from his toolbox, and gently
drew a long, fine strand from the wireweed in the window
planter. There had been no metal in the soil, so it
was all organic, and would eventually dissolve inside the
body. He put the blade and the wireweed in his mouth
with a sprig of claffroot, to sterilize them. Then, in a
swift motion, he cut deeply in the man's throat, above
and below the arrow. Ruin dipped his tongue in the
fungus spores and then inserted his tongue in the incisions,
deep within the wound, where the arrow's poison
still prevented the clotting of blood. It would take only a
few minutes for the spores to do their work, feeding on
the poison and then producing their own bloodbinder to
help in the clotting of the blood.
While he waited, he talked to Reck--in Geblic, of course, so the humans wouldn't understand. "The girl--
who is she, and why is Unwyrm calling her?"
"How should I know?" asked Reck.
WYRMS 133
"You're the one who knows all the wyrmlore. She's
too young to be one of the Wise."
"Maybe she's wise beyond her years. I think she's More dangerous than she looks. She isn't afraid of anything.
She said nothing of it, but I think she's the one
who killed most of Tinker's men."
"With her bare hands?"
"You know the human woman that Unwyrm wants.
The Vigilants tell everyone the prophecy of the seventh
seventh seventh daughter--"
"I pay no attention to humans, least of all to their
religions."
"The seventh seventh seventh daughter was born fifteen
years ago, to the deposed Heptarch of Korfu, which
claims to rule the world. She could be of that age."
"It's too much to believe that of all the ways to
Cranning, he would lead her right to us."
The spores had done their work; the bleeding stopped.
Ruin took hold of the arrowshaft and jerked it out. The
man cried out in his sleep. More blood flowed, but again
the spores sealed off the wound. Ruin hooked his finger
around the tattered esophagus and pulled it to where he
could see it. Then he deftly made vertical cuts, removing
the torn edges.
While he sewed the wounds with the wireweed, he
spoke to Reck in Geblic. "It doesn't matter if she's the
one or not, though, does it? She won't go to Cranning
without us."
"I have no interest in Cranning," said Reck.
"You're as much in this as I am," said Ruin. "He
presses you away as much as me."
"Except I don't try to go there, so it doesn't hurt me.
You shouldn't try either, Ruin. Why do you think our
family has stayed in exile all these generations, if not to
be far from Cranning at just this time?"
134 orson scott card
"But he wants us to stay away. That changes everything.
Every other time, he wanted the king to be there
with him."
"So we go just because he doesn't want us to? Then
he controls us as surely as he ever did."
"Every other time, Sister, he wanted to use the geblings
to destroy whatever it was the humans had been building.
He hasn't the strength to compel us all, but he compelled '-"";; the king, and the king called the others to the common "; : task. This time, though, it's all different. He doesn't plan to have the geblings act together. Perhaps he plans for us not to act together. And that's why we have to go."
-< , "Give up the governing purpose of our ancestors, on a guess?"
"The ancestor who first made this plan had been in
~"h| Unwyrm's control. That's why he decided on exile. But
r"
how can we be sure our exile wasn't what Unwyrm
' wanted him to decide?"
£,," "There's no way out of that circle, Brother. Who
('.„" : knows if anything we do will play into his hands?"
^.". "You see? So we decide for other reasons. And here is
A one: without Unwyrm's breath in my face, Sister, I can
- finally breathe. Whether Unwyrm means it that way or
not, she can take us through to him."
"Until the moment he stops calling her."
"It all depends on whether he wants her More than he
fears us."
"So you believe she's the one."
"Maybe fortune smiles on us." Ruin finished with the
esophagus and put it back in place. "Tell her that his
throat will heal in a few days. It'll be tighter than it was.
He'll have to chew his food."
Reck turned and, in Agarant, gave the news to the
others. Ruin was still sewing up the outside wound, this
WYRMS | 135
time using common thread, when Reck finished and
touched his shoulder.
"Does it make a difference to you whether the girl
knows our plans or not?"
"How would she know?" asked Ruin, tying off the
thread.
"Because I just discovered that she understands Geblic."
Ruin turned and looked at the girl. Her face was blank.
"What makes you think so?"
"Because she was already relieved about Angel before
I told her he would be all right. And then she pretended
to be relieved again after I told her. But her sweat was all
wrong."
Ruin grinned at the girl, letting his tongue hang out a
little. He knew how the slender forked tongue of a
gebling unnerved human beings, though in fact she showed
no sign that it bothered her. He spoke to her in Geblic.
"Never try to deceive a gebling, human. You're the true
Heptarch's daughter, aren't you?"
The girl answered as smoothly and easily as if they
had been conversing all day, and Ruin noticed that she
spoke Geblic without a trace of the awkwardness humans
often had in trying to form sounds with their blunt and
stubby tongues. "No, sir. I am the Heptarch."
So her father was dead. Ruin felt no sympathy for the
death of a human. Humans put on a good show of
grieving, but they didn't really understand the bonding of
a true family. They had no othermind, and could speak
only in words. They remained strangers from each other
all their lives. What was the life of a creature like this?
So he offered no commiseration. "You know the payment
that I want for your friend's life."
"He's my slave, not my friend," she said.
"You'll take me with you. You'll make no effort to go
without me."
136 orson scott card
"Maybe I'm not going where you think I'm going."
"You're going to Cranning to destroy my people, and
I'm going to save them."
"Then why not kill me now, and save us both a good
deal of trouble?"
"He wants you, but if I killed you he might make do
with someone else. At least we know who and where you
are. So when Unwyrm brings you to his nest, we'll be
there, too. I think that means that we're friends." He
smiled at her and let the tips of his tongue show.
Reck stood by the stewpot, the tasting spoon in hand.
"Why do you keep saying we, when I have no intention
of going?"
Ruin did not look at her. "Because you'd never let me
face Unwyrm alone."
Reck shrugged. "Will's stew is ready."
Ruin leaned closer to the Heptarch. Though she was
sitting and he was standing up, he did not have to bend
far for their eyes to meet. "Will you give me your word?
In payment for your slave's life?"
"You have my word, but not in payment for anything.
Angel's life is his own to repay, and my word is my own
to give."
Ruin nodded solemnly. "Then come join us at table."
Reck laughed aloud. "It was worth all this trouble just
to see this moment--you, Ruin, inviting a human to eat
with you."
"But she's not a human, is she. Reck? She's Unwyrm's
woman and the mother of death."
"I am no one's woman," said the girl. "And my
name is Patience."
It was Ruin's turn to laugh. "Patience," he said in
Agarant. "Come and eat. Patience."
The table was designed for the comfort of geblings. It
was too low for Patience to sit on a chair, so she sat on
wyrms | 137
the floor. She was the only human at the table. When
Sken took a step toward them. Ruin's look was enough
to drive her back to her stool near the fire. Will made no
effort to sit. He served them, then took a bowl to Sken.
Ruin noticed that Patience observed all the proper
forms of respect. She had been well enough taught that it
seemed as natural to her as to a gebling, to offer every
few bites from her dish to him or to Reck, and to nibble
at the bites they offered her. On those rare occasions
when humans were invited to share a gebling meal, they
usually showed what a great effort and sacrifice it took to
eat from a gebling spoon. But Patience showed nothing
but deference and grace. Unwyrm's woman should be
loathsome, not gracious, thought Ruin. But it makes no
difference. Before all this is over, I'll probably have to
kill her after all. What's the death of a human, if it might
save my people?
When the food was finished off, they drank hot water
from the pot by the fire. Ruin offered to take them
through the forest, but Patience would have none of it.
"I take my people with me," she said. "When Angel is
strong enough, we'll take him in the carriage. If we can
find horses to buy."
Reck shrugged. "Buy? Ruin can find your horses
tomorrow. He can find anything in the woods."
"Not to pull the carriage, though," he said. "We'd
spend all our time dragging it out of mudholes. We'll go
to the next human town and sell it and by a boat. The
wind is out of the west, and Cranwater is wide and flat.
The roads are the worst way to Cranning."
So it was agreed. The only argument came later, in the
darkness, when Ruin lay beside his sister and she told
him she meant to bring Will along.
"What is he to you?" asked Ruin for the thousandth
138 | orson scott card I
time. "Is he your lover, now? Do you want to bear his
little monsters?"
She never answered such accusations. She only said,
"He is my friend, and if I go, he goes too."
"So the giant comes with us. We'd better buy a large
boat. There are too many of us already. And too many
humans altogether." Then he fell to making obscene
suggestions about what Will and Reck did whenever Ruin was away. She didn't answer, and he only stopped < when her breathing told him that she had fallen asleep. It was hardly worth trying to make her angry anymore.
CRANWATER
they WERE NOT THE HAPPIEST PARTY EVER TO SET OUT FOR
Cranning. Angel was too weak from hunger and loss of
blood to do More than endure the jolting of the road.
Though he could, painfully, drink milk from the farmhouses
they passed, it would take time for him to come
back up to strength, and even when he was conscious, he
listened to the conversations of the others and almost
never tried to speak. When they stopped at inns along the
way. Patience fed him gruel in his room while the others
ate at the common table. And the geblings slept in his
room through the night, taking turns watching over him
when, asleep, he clawed at the pain in his throat.
If Angel was silent, then Sken seemed never to stop
speaking. She grumbled about everything that went wrong,
and though she never said a word to or about the geblings
if she could help it, she made it plain that she loathed
them. She had a way of sniffing the air when Ruin was
near. And whenever Patience and the geblings spoke
"that jabbering noise," she grew sullen and threw nutshells
at the horses' backs with particular vehemence.
139
140 orson scott card I
Not Sken's surliness, not even Angel's misery ever
engaged Patience's attention for long, however. She was
caught up in other concerns. The Cranning call grew
stronger in her every day, often distracting her from
whatever she was doing or thinking. And the call was
changing form as well. It was no longer just an urgency
in her mind. Now it was a hunger in her body.
Night, in an inn not far from the river Cranwater. She
dreamed a deep and powerful and terrifying and beautiful
dream.
"Patience," whispered Sken.
Sken was shaking her. It was still dark. Was there
some danger? Patience reached for the loop in her hair.
"No!" Sken tried to push her back down onto her
mat.
Sken's push, the physical restraint, gave Patience a
new fear, that Sken herself meant her harm. Patience was
trained to protect herself against just such an attempt at
murder in the night. For a moment, because she was not
yet fully awake, her reflexes controlled her, and she
lashed out; then she came to herself and stopped, her
fingers already hooking behind Sken's ears, her thumbs
poised to gouge out the riverwoman's eyes.
"Sweet lass," said Sken. "Just what your mother
hoped you'd grow up to be, I bet."
The condemnation in Sken's words, the residue of
momentary terror in her voice, the loathing revealed by
the scant light that crossed the woman's face—This is
how they see me, thought Patience. The common people,
the people who play with their children, dance at the
festival until they're drenched with sweat, scream and
whine and accuse each other in the market. To them, a
child my age should be a virgin at heart. If I were wise in
the ways of love, that would sadden them, yes, as it does
all adults when a child's body comes awake. But to see a
wyrms 141
child so young already ripe in violence and murder--I
am a monstrous thing to Sken, like the deformed babies
who are strangled and burned by the midwives.
Almost she said this: I was trained to be what I am,
and I'm the best at what I do.
Then Sken would accuse her: This is the second time
you tried to kill me. Or perhaps ask a bitter question: Do
you murder even in your sleep?
Then Patience would say: How do you think a king
keeps the peace, if not with tools like me?
But she would not defend herself. She might sometimes
wish that she were not her father's daughter, but
wishing wouldn't change the past. She had no More need
to defend what she was than a mountain had to defend
itself for being tall and craggy, or worn down and knobby,
or whatever other shape it might have. What I am is what
was done to me, not what I chose.
So instead of answering Sken's ironic words. Patience
lived up to her name, and quietly asked, "Why did you
wake me?"
"You were crying out in your sleep."
"I don't do that," said Patience. Hadn't Angel schooled
her to be utterly silent in her sleep? She remembered all
too well the cold water dashed in her face to wake her
each time she made a sound, until she learned habits of
sleep that kept her still.
"Then it's a miracle, a voice coming out of the air
above your bed, and sounding just like you."
"What did I say?"
"From your cries, girl, I could think only one thing.
That a lover was prying at you as vigorous as a fanner
rooting out a stump in a field."
Only then did the memory of her dream come back
to her, and with it the Cranning call. "He does it to
142 | orson scott card i
me," she whispered. "He sends me dreams. Waking,
sleeping--"
Sken nodded knowingly. "You dream until your whole
body's ready for him, but he never comes to you."
"I have to go to him."
"The curse of women," said Sken. "We know how
they mean to use our love for them, we know the whole „ price of it is ours to pay, but still we go, and still we fc' stay."
v "This one's no ordinary lover," said Patience. ^f' Sken patted her head. "Oh, true. True, the one you ;*, love is never ordinary."
«>>:. >>„
"x^ What, did she really think Patience was lovesick like "'ft some village maiden, pining for the handsome farmboy? (,^ Because Patience had never had such a girlish feeling, 'W she wondered for a moment if Sken might not be right.
L^ But that was absurd. Patience had seen young girls in
C11"" many noble houses, had heard them gossip about their IF " real and would-be lovers. Unwyrm's relentless calling (.'I was far stronger. Even now it stirred within her; it took
^ effort not to get up from her mat, leave the shabby inn, ^i; and walk, run, ride, or swim to Cranning. ^;;;,, Still, Sken's ignorant assumptions were harmless enough. """i In other times. Patience would have seemed to accept i Sken's attempt at consolation. But she was too weary,
too edgy from the Cranning call to care to play the
diplomat. So she answered with the nastiness she felt.
"And if I wait long enough, will I get over it?"
Sken, of course, had no diplomatic instincts. "You
are a little bitch. A body tries to be nice--"
Patience answered, as if to explain everything about
herself, "I've faced death More times this month than
you have in your life."
Sken was still a moment, then smiled. "But you don't
know boats like I do."
wyrms 143
"We're not on the water now," said Patience.
"Nor are we assassinating anybody," Sken answered,
Patience lay back on the mat and smiled icily. Sken
had made her point. "Death and the river, we each know
our trade," said Patience.
' 'This lover who makes you sweat and cry out in your
sleep--''
"Not my lover," said Patience.
"He wants you, doesn't he? And you want him?"
"He wants me like a jackal hungers for a lamb. And I
want him like--''
"Like a fish wants water."
Patience shuddered. That's how it felt, even now, like
needing to take a breath, a deep long draught of air. But
if she took that breath, it would be her last.
"Sken," said Patience, "I'm made of paper."
Sken touched her gently, stroked the cold damp flesh
of her arm with a single dry finger. "Flesh and bone."
"Paper. Folded this way and that, taking whatever
shape they give me. Heir to the Heptagon House, daughter
of Peace, assassin, diplomat, give me a shape, I'll
wear it, I'll act the part, fold me again, again, I'll be his
lover, the one who calls me, and if he ever gets me, he'll fold me down so small I'll disappear."
Sken nodded wisely, her whole body jiggling just a
little with the movement.
"What if someone unfolded me all the way? What
would I be then?"
"A stranger," said Sken.
"Yes, even to me," said Patience.
"Just like everybody else."
"Oh, do you think so! Do you think something like a
normal woman lives inside this lovely delicate murderer's
body?"
"Don't take on such airs," said Sken. "We're all
144 I orson scott card
folded up, and nobody knows what we really are. But I
know. We're all identical, blank, empty pieces of paper.
It's the folding that makes us different. We are the
folds."
Patience shook her head. "No, not me. Probably no
one starts out blank and smooth, but certainly not me.
I'm More than what they've done to me. I'm More than I
the roles I have to play." ^,,,,, "What are you, then?"
(' "I don't know." She rolled over, faced the wall to end
C i the conversation. "Maybe I won't find out until just
»,„, before I die."
I*.'":,;;, "Or maybe just after, when they take your head." ^! Patience rolled back, caught the folds of Sken's robe
.,!;: in her tight-clutching fingers. "No," she whispered
».;,",. harshly. "If they ever do that to me, promise you'll split
my head in two, you'll pour out the gools, something--"
"I won't promise, that," said Sken.
"Why not?"
oki
r1"
«"<.„,
c'"
E^ "Because if you're in such a state that they could take
t'y, your head, Heptarch, it means I'm already dead."
I^-i Patience relaxed her grip on Sken's clothing, lay back
3fe down. The knowledge of Sken's loyalty was a comfort. wii But it was also a burden. Patience was so tired. """' "Go to sleep," said Sken, "and don't dream of love."
"What should I dream of, then, since you're the master
of sleep."
"Dream of murder," said Sken. "Knowing you, you'll
sleep like a baby."
"I don't love death," whispered Patience.
Sken patted her hand. "No, I didn't think so."
"I didn't want my father to die. Nor Angel to be
injured, I didn't wish for it."
Sken looked puzzled. Then she understood. "I know
you didn't wish for it, girl," she whispered. "But it
WYRMS | 145
means you're on your own now, doesn't it? For a time at
least. So of course that feels good."
"Exciting, sometimes. Scary."
"And knowing you face the strongest enemy in the
world, alone--"
"Doesn't make me feel good."
"Don't lie," said Sken. "You love it, sometimes."
"I hate him for what he's making me want--"
"But to stand alone against him, you want that, you
want to face him alone and win."
"Maybe."
"It's perfectly natural to feel that way. It's also perfectly
natural to be an idiot."
"I can kill anybody."
"Anybody you want to."
The words sank in. "You're right," said Patience.
"How can I kill him, if he makes me love him?"
"You see? You can't do this alone," said Sken. "You
need Angel. You need the goblins, disgusting as they
are. Their pet giant, too. You may even need me."
"Even you," whispered Patience.
"Sleep now. We're all with you, you're at the center
of everything, we're all with you. Plenty of time to
unfold yourself when this is over, and your lover's plow
is hung on a wall somewhere."
Patience slept. She never spoke of the night's conversation
again, but things were changed between her and
Sken. They bickered as always, because Sken hadly
knew another way to deal with people, but things were
changed. There were ties between them, ties between
sisters, strange sisters indeed, but good enough.
In the morning they traveled again, a queer caravan.
But Sken's words had made a difference in the way
Patience saw the others, too. She looked at them with
new eyes, thinking, How can I use him, Why do I need
146 orson scott card i
her. What is the strength he has that makes up for ai weakness in me? They were all dangerous--to her, but' also to Unwyrm. The geblings especially, they were a
mystery. The More Patience watched them, the More she
realized that they did most of their communicating without
speech, each seeming to sense when the other was in ;
need. She was jealous of their closeness; she even tried ;
to imitate them, going to Angel now and then, whenever
she felt he might need her. Sometimes he did. More
often he didn't. Whatever the geblings had, she lacked it.
No special sensitivity. Geblings are too different from us.
This power of theirs is something of this world, not from
ours. They're like Unwyrm. Both part of this place, and
I'm a stranger here.
Then the days of land travel were over. The river
stretched before them again, this time with a busy town
along its bank. It was no trouble finding a merchant to
buy the carriage and horses. This close to Cranning, all
the buyers were geblings, of course. So Patience dressed
herself as a wealthy young man, took Will with her so no
one would try to rob her, and did all the bargaining
herself, without Ruin or Reck present to foul the deal.
Geblings had a way of giving gifts to each other instead
of making a profit, and though Patience knew that Angel's
small treasury had money enough to buy as many
boats as she liked, she didn't want to waste their resources.
When what he had was gone, it could not easily
be renewed.
The carriage gone, the money in hand. Patience--still
looking for all the world like a cocky young man--took
Sken with her to buy a boat. Sken was a riverwoman,
after all; who else could judge a boat's fitness for their
upstream voyage? ;
"Not that one," said Sken, time after time. Too small,
too deep a draft, in bad condition, doomed to sink, not
wyrms | 147
enough sail for upriver travel, too hard to steer--reason
after reason to reject boat after boat.
"You're too picky," said Patience. "I'm not planning
to live the rest of my life on it."
"If you buy the wrong boat," said Sken, "that's exactly what you'll do."
As they walked the bustling wharf, Patience noticed
that the boats were all being sold or hired out by humans.
"It was a gebling who bought our carriage," she said.
"Don't they travel by water?"
"Don't ask me about goblins," said Sken. "I hope
those two don't travel by boat."
"They saved a life that's dear to me," said Patience.
"And if they do sail with us, I hope they remember
who's captain of the ship."
"I'm captain of the ship," said Patience.
"Not any ship Til sail on, nor any sane person neither,"
said Sken. "You've got the money, that makes
you owner. I've got the knowhow, and that makes me
captain."
"Supreme authority?"
"Not quite."
"Oh? Who's higher than the captain?"
It wasn't Sken who answered. The voice came from
Patience's other side, and it belonged to a man. "Pilot!"
he said.
Patience turned--and saw no one, just a monkey jumping
up and down as it pumped at a bellows. The bellows
was connected to a tube that ran down into a thick glass
jar, then up into the windpipe of a head whose eyes just
peered over the top.
"Pilot?" asked Patience.
Sken had not yet turned. "Yes, a pilot. Someone who
knows the river. Every river is different, and different
from year to year, as well." Then she saw the one who
148 orson scott card
had spoken, the head perched in a thick glass jar. Sken
wrinkled up her face. "A dead one," she said. "Lot of
good he'll do."
"Been up and down Cranwater every one of the last
two hundred years," said the head.
"Heads don't learn," said Patience. "Heads don't pay
attention, and they forget too quickly."
The monkey kept jumping up and down. It was
distracting.
"I pay attention," said the pilot's head. "I know this
river. Some pilots, the river's like an enemy, they wrestle
it up and down. Some, it's like a god, they worship,
they pray, they curse. Some, it's a whore for them, they
think they're in charge but she plays them for fools.
Some, it's a lover, a wife, a family, they live and die for
it. But me--"
"Come along, young sir," said Sken. But Patience
stayed to listen.
"For me, the Cranwater's not like anything else. This
river is myself. That's my name, River, as God gave it to
me that's my name, the stream is my body, my arms, my
legs."
The monkey stopped to pick a louse. The head grinned,
but because the mouth was lower than the lip of the jar,
the thick glass transformed the smile into a hideous leer.
The monkey tasted the louse, swallowed, and went back
to work. Again the breath came through the pilot's throat.
"My boat's good," said River.
"Your boat's a rotten old canoe," said Sken.
"So. You're the captain, you get a good boat, but you
come back and buy me for pilot."
"We'll get a live pilot, thanks all the same," said
Sken.
"That's right, walk away, you've got legs, you can
just walk off, what's that to you?"
wyrms 149
A hawk swooped low, circled, came back and landed
on a small platform atop the pole where River hung. It
held a squirming rat in one talon. It raked open the belly,
spattering blood, snatched the guts into its beak, then
dropped the rest of the carcass into River's jar. The jar
lurched as the gools and headworms attached themselves
and fed.
"Pardon my lunch," said River. "As you see, I'm a
self-contained system. You don't have to feed me, though
I'm glad if you can keep my jar full of Cranwater, and
it's nice if you now and then wash my jar. Monkey's apt
to smear it with a bit of his stuff.''
"Where's your owner?" asked Patience.
Sken was irate. "You're not thinking of--"
"Go buy a boat, Sken. You have fifteen minutes.
Choose the best, and I'll come negotiate the price."
"I won't have this thing as pilot!"
"If Ruin and Reck have to put up with you as ship's
captain, you'll learn to live with River as pilot. Weren't
you the one said the pilot was most important?"
"You're enjoying this," said Sken. "You're making
sport, and I thought we were friends."
"You're not making a mistake, young master," said
River. "A pilot has to know the sandbars, the currents,
the fast places, the slow places, the shallow channels, the
spring rises, I know them all, I'll get you through,
provided you do as I tell you, up to and including that
Queen of Grease you have with you, what do you do,
harvest her sweat and sell it as lamp oil downriver?"
Patience laughed. Sken did not.
"Buy the boat," said Patience. "I want this pilot, for
reasons that are good enough."
River cheered her on. "For reasons of wisdom, for
reasons of--"
150 orson scott card
"Shut up," said Sken to River. Then to Patience:
"Young sir, you don't know this man--"
"I know from how his face has aged and cracked that
he's at least two centuries, in hard sunlight and bad
weather much of the time,"
"Ah, it's the truth, the torture of my life written on
my face," said River.
"So he's old," said Sken.
"He's been a head at least a century," said Patience.
"Plying the river all that time. And in those many voyages,
he's never failed a customer. He's never broken up
a boat on a sandbar or a rock."
"How do you know that?" Sken demanded.
"Because the young master's got the spirit of discernment
of truth in him," said River.
"Because he's here," said Patience. "If he'd ever let
an owner down, his jar would have been broken, and he
would have been poured out into the river long ago."
Sken glared, but had no answer. So she went farther
along the dock, examining all the boats with an even More skeptical eye.
"You've got wisdom," said River. "I hope that among
the hundred sons I conceived when I could still do the
mattress hornpipe, there's one as well-favored and intelligent
and--"
"And rich."
"As your most gracious self. Though I could wish a
son of mine might have More of a beard on him."
"As he would no doubt wish his father to have More
limbs."
River giggled, an artificial-sounding laugh because it
all came from his mouth. There could be no belly laugh,
with the monkey pumping the bellows with the same
steady rhythm. "Ay, there's something lacking on both
of us, I can't deny it."
wyrms 151
"When will your owner come back?" asked Patience.
"When I send the monkey to fetch him."
"Then send."
"And miss out on conversation with such a likely
young man? I buggered a few as fair as you in my time,
I'll have you know, and they thanked me afterward."
"As I'll thank you for mislaying your practical buggery
tools before we met."
River winked. "Nothing shocks you, does it?"
"Nothing that lives in a jar, anyway," said Patience.
"Send the monkey. If you want to talk, I can read your
lips."
River made three sharp kissing noises. Patience realized
that it was a sound he could make without the
bellows. The monkey immediately dropped the bellows
and clambered around to perch on the lip of the jar, pressing his forehead against River's. A few More chirping
sounds, tongue clicks, lip pops, and the monkey
dropped to the wooden dock and ran off through the
crowd.
River made a single clicking sound, and the hawk took
off and flew away.
Patience stood, reading his lips as he made jokes, told
stories, and studied her with his eyes. All the while,
Patience felt Unwyrm calling her. Come faster, I need
you, you love me, I'll have you. Not in words, it was
never words, it was just the need. Fly to me now.
I'm coming, said Patience silently, trying hard not to
think consciously of the murder in her mind.
The head named River babbled on and on, looking less
and less like her father the longer she watched. Good.
She didn't need the distraction.
Once they were on the water, Sken was in her element,
and lorded it over them all. Never mind River
152 | orson scott card
muttering commands from his jar, which dangled from a
pole near the helm; Sken was glad enough to follow
River's orders about where to steer, once he showed that
he really did know the river. Steering was the pilot's
business--everything else about the boat was Sken's to
decide. Only Angel, lying in comfort at last, without the
bouncing of the road, only he was exempt from her
orders. All the others, Sken kept them hopping with the
business of a boat making the tricky upriver passage
under sail and oar.
She took particular pleasure in ordering Reck and Ruin
to climb the mast and fiddle with the two sails--she
watched with unbearable satisfaction on her face as they
dangled over the water doing her bidding. The height
didn't seem to bother them, nor the work, but the water
itself seemed to make them uncomfortable. And credit
Sken with this: she did not abuse her authority. Like any
good captain, she knew that the geblings would obey her,
but only as long as she ordered them to do what was
clearly needful.
Patience did her part as well, a full share of work, like
any of the others. At first Sken was uneasy ordering her
about, but if she left Patience without labor. Patience
would come and ask, until Sken barked out commands to
her as easily as to anyone. Patience was grateful for
anything that engaged her mind. The Cranning call was
relentless, but it was easier to live with when she was
busy. So she spent many an hour braiding lines, raising
and lowering sail, or leaning on the helm as River ordered
their way upstream, tacking across the current to
keep the wind, easing into deep channels with oars or
poles to get past the tricky places--it was a vigorous,
hardworking life, and Patience came to love the river,
partly because of the peace it brought to her, partly for
WYRMS | 153
the life itself. Sken's coarseness and crudity became
vigor and strength, when seen within the river life.
For all that Sken was a good captain, though, she was
not perfect. Patience noticed within a few days that Sken
tyrannized Will without mercy, perhaps merely because
he let her do it. No doubt they weighed about the same,
but she was a good meter less in height. It was comical,
watching him pull on a rope or haul something above or
below deck, his massive muscles rippling along his body
as he worked, while all the time the jiggling fat woman
scolded and cursed him. Poor Will, thought Patience. All
the pangs of marriage, and none of the conveniences. But
he bore it well and didn't seem to mind. It became part
of the equilibrium. Patience let it go.
It was early morning. Will was drawing up the anchor
while Reck was raising the sail. Ruin sat in the bow,
staring glumly ahead. Sken sent Patience to secure a line
when Reck threw it down, and the task brought her near
to Ruin, who was not working this shift.
She saw him shudder at her approach. "Is it that
strong, when you feel him calling me?" she asked.
He nodded, not looking at her.
"Who is he, this Unwynn?"
"Unwyrm. Himself."
"But what does he look like?"
"No one has ever seen him."
"Where did he come from?"
"He was born from the same belly as the geblings."
This was a religious language, of course, and Patience
mentally deciphered it into her own version of reality.
"He's agebling, then?"
Ruin shrugged. "He might be. Only More powerful
than any gebling. And he hates us. That's all we know
about him." He raised a lazy hand to point at the river.
154 orson scott card
"This water--he fills it with hate and sends it down to
freeze us."
"The call--does it work like the way that you and
Reck call to each other?"
"We can't control each other, if that's what you mean,"
said Ruin. "We feel it, and that's all. We feel it best
between siblings. The closer your blood. Reck and I are
twins."
& N "But Unwyrm does it at will?"
^' "He even does it to humans. None of us can do that."
w "So he's like a gebling, only More powerful."
*,,",' Ruin seemed angry. "He's nothing like a gebling."
S!'! "Then why do you call him he? How do you know
I he's a male?"
C;,,,, "You know he is, too. Because he's looking for the
EX .'„' seventh seventh seventh daughter, and not the seventh
^"' seventh seventh son." Ruin turned slowly to face her. He
£**"1; was smiling, and it wasn't pleasant.
C" "" "What good would it do him to mate with a human?
K" ,; The offspring would never be viable. Starbome and na-
I;,;;; tive life can't interbreed.'"
s1;
^. "You humans put such touching faith in your myths."
^ He was just trying to torment her. Patience had seen
»»,ii,,;; him do the same with Reck, and she refused to pay any
' attention to it. "Is he one of another species, then?"
"Perhaps. Or maybe he's the only one of his species
that ever lived."
"That's impossible. Species don't come out of nowhere.
They have parents. There are generations. I know
enough science for that."
"The best thing about science," said Reck, walking
up behind Patience, "is that it keeps fools from ever
discovering the truth, or even discovering that they don't
have the truth already."
Ruin frowned at her. "Maybe human science," he said.
wyrms| 155
Reck grabbed the fur of the back of his hand, then
slapped his hand away. "Ow," he muttered. He cradled
the hurt hand in the other, as if it were a deep injury.
Reck smiled sweetly. "You're no better a scientist
than the humans are."
"I've seen what I've seen, and not what I wanted to
see or expected to see, which is More than you can say
for any of them." His gesture toward Patience was fluid
with contempt.
Reck tossed her head. "If you asked the Wise among
the humans, they'd say the same to you. You never see
anything that you aren't prepared to see, and when you
do, you name it with the old names and pretend you
understood it all along. And then everybody tells everybody
else what everybody has already agreed to say, and
everyone feels reassured about the world."
"You're so wise," said Ruin nastily. His anger. Patience
saw, was not all pretended.
"That's what Mother commanded me to be, when she
named me. 'Reck, child, it means think, it means calculate, it means wonder about the causes of things.' "
"Your names are commands?" asked Patience. "Then
your parents had sweet plans in mind for you. Ruin."
Ruin and Reck both looked at her as if they had
forgotten she was there. They had shown her More of
their private relationship than a human was supposed to
see. Patience was ashamed of herself for making them
feel embarrassed. She, too, had forgotten that she had to
be diplomatic. A diplomat is always the wary stranger,
never the intimate friend. To the surprise of all and the
liking of none, they had forgotten, for a moment, that
they were not and never could be friends.
Patience smiled ruefully and walked away, feeling
their eyes on her back like knives. But not so sharp as the
yearning that almost immediately swelled in her. Cranning.
156 orson scott card
Was this great need the torture that Father's head
endured, when the headworms sparked all his longings?
Did he break under this pressure, or was his much worse?
Will I come before this Unwyrm, who wants a woman,
not a man, and break under this need like a disbodied
head tftat has lost all will to resist? Will I be so hungry
then that whatever he wants me to do, I'll mindlessly do,
with no thought of resistance?
With that thought in mind, she spent the morning
making something for herself from the things she found
in Angel's strongbox. A pellet of poison, which she
could take if things went wrong.
"What a clumsy solution."
It was Angel's voice. At once she closed his box, like
a little girl caught by her father.
"It belongs to you," said Angel, "because / belong to
you."
"I don't feel like it does," she said. "Or you. I've
never really owned anything."
"It's a very subtle thing. Most people think they own
many things, and don't. You think you never owned
anything, and yet you do."
"What do I own?"
"Me. This box. All of mankind."
She shook her head. "I may have responsibility for all of
mankind, but I never asked for it, and I don't own them."
"Ah. So you think duty and ownership are different
things. The mother and father care for the baby and keep
it alive—do they own it? And if they don't care for it, is
it truly theirs? The child obeys the parents, serves them,
and as they depend on its service, the child comes to own
them, also. Yet he deceives himself that he is owned."
"You're very subtle, but if you're trying to say that I
owned Father, you really have no hope of being one of
the Wise."
wyrms 157
"In my way of thinking, what I said is true. But I
confess that most people think of ownership another way.
They think they own what they make part of themselves. Like Sken, with this boat. She feels its parts as if they
were part of her; she feels the wind on the sail as if the
sail were her body and the wind tilted her forward; she
feels the rocking of the boat as if it were the rhythmic
beating of her own heart. She owns this boat, because this boat is part of herself."
"The way River owns Cranwater."
"Yes," said Angel. "He doesn't feel the loss of his
body, because currents and flows, banks and channels,
they're his arms and legs, his gut and groin."
Patience tried to think of something she owned as Sken
owned the boat. There was nothing she felt was part of
herself. Nothing at all. Even her clothing, even her weapons
were not her own, not in that sense. To herself, she
was always naked and unarmed, and therefore no stronger
than her own wit and no larger than the reach of her own
arms and legs. "If that's ownership, then I own nothing,"
said Patience.
"Not so. You own no one thing, because you have let
nothing become part of you, except a few weapons and
languages and memories. But you also own everything,
because the whole world, as a whole, it is part of you,
you feel the face of the globe as if it were your own
body, and all the pains of mankind as if they were your
own pains."
Let him think what he wants, but I know it isn't so. I
don't feel all mankind as mine, though Father taught me
often that that was what the Heptarch ought to feel. I am
solitary, cut off from everyone and everything. But believe
what you like, Angel. She changed the subject.
"Are you sure you're well enough to be up? And walking?''
158 orson scott card
"I'm not walking right now, am I? I'm sitting. Actually,
though, I've felt much better for days. I just enjoy
being lazy."
"I've needed you so much, these weeks--"
"You haven't needed me at all, and you've rather
enjoyed finding out that you could do things on your
own. But I'm glad you didn't decide to jettison me. I can
be useful to you, you know. For instance, you don't need
that poison."
"I might."
"You have something better."
"What?"
"The globe you took from your father's shoulder after
he died."
Father had told her that no one else knew he had it.
"What globe is that?"
"For More than a week on the Glad River, every time
we slept ashore you spent fifteen minutes sifting through
your nightstools. There's only one thing you could have
swallowed that was worth performing such a repugnant
task."
"I thought you were asleep."
"Child, who could sleep through a stench like that?"
"Don't be foul. Angel."
"I assume you found it."
"Father told me to take it, but never what it did, or
how to use it."
"Your father never used it. Or at least, not to its full
capacity. To be fully useful, it must be placed somewhere
else in your body. In the deepest place in your
brain." Angel smiled. "And right now you have a very
good surgeon."
"Father told me that I should never let a gebling know
I have this."
"One must lake risks in this world."
wyrms 159
"What is it?"
He switched into Gauntish. "Your scepter, my beloved
Heptarch. But few of your recent predecessors
have had the courage to wear it in their brain."
She answered in the same language. "You're saying
Father wasn't brave enough for such an operation?"
"The operation is safe enough. But it's had such
varying effects on different Heptarchs. Some have gone
quite mad. One of them even murdered all his children,
except one. Another started simultaneous wars with all
his neighbors and ended up with the kingdom reduced to
Heptam itself and a few islands to the west. Other
Heptarchs have said it is like seeing the world for the
first time, and they ruled brilliantly. But the odds are
against you. Still, planted in your brain, it responds to
your desires. Once it was there, if you ever truly wanted
to die, you would die. So you might want to take the
risk."
"What if it drove me mad?"
"Then you would probably become obsessed with going
to Cranning to face the enemy of mankind, unprepared,
uninformed, and unlikely to do anything but fail,"
"In other words, what I'm doing now?"
"How could you do anything More insane? Unless you
decided to take along two geblings who no doubt mean to
kill you as soon as you've got them safely to Unwyrm."
She remembered what he had said about geblings a
moment ago. "Why am I forbidden to let a gebling see
that I have this jewel?"
"Because it isn't a jewel."
"It isn't?"
"It's an organic crystal taken from the brain of the
King of Cranning in the fifth generation of the world."
"The gebling king. What did he use it for?"
"The geblings were reluctant to discuss it with us. We
160 orson scott card
know how it works on humans, but who knows what it
did for him."
Patience nodded. "If it was stolen from the gebling
king, I suppose by right it belongs to Reck and Ruin."
An expression passed suddenly across Angel's face,
then vanished. Not a grimace that anyone else could see,
for Angel was skilled at keeping his face blank. But
Patience saw it, and knew that he was surprised, perhaps
even frightened. What had surprised him? Didn't he
know that, together, the brother and sister were king of
the geblings? Of course he didn't know. Ruin had been
sewing Angel's wound when Patience overheard the
geblings' conversation that revealed to her who they
were. Angel had been unconscious, and no one had
spoken of it since.
"I'm sorry," she said. "Didn't you know they were
king? It's something I overheard when you were not yet
healed."
"No, I had no idea. I'll have to think about that," said
Angel. "That might change things. It might indeed. It
gives me pause." He smiled and patted her hand, looking
mildly nonplussed.
But Patience was even More confused than before. For
Angel was lying to her. She knew what he would look
like if his words were sincere and he were hiding nothing.
But he was hiding something--all he showed right
now was his mask. He had not been surprised at all, and
he did not have to think about anything or change any
plans. He had known all along who the geblings were.
And if that was so, then what he hadn't known was that she knew who they were.
There are two things to do with a lie: pretend you
believe it, or confront the liar with your knowledge of the
lie. The first is what you do with enemies; she could only
wyrms 161
think of Angel as a friend. "How long have you known?"
she asked him.
He was preparing to lie to her again, then stopped
himself. "No," he said. "You're the Heptarch now, and
I can't hold back from you. Your father told me their
names, many years ago, their names and where they
lived. The Heptarchy has made it a point to keep track of
the gebling kings."
"So you knew all along that they were in that village."
"Your father knew, and warned me. They add just one More uncertainty to the equation. It would have been
better to pass them by. And I wouldn't have had an
arrow in my throat, either." He chuckled. "But I don't
mind."
She smiled at him, but he was still lying to her.
Something was wrong with what he said. Perhaps he
hadn't known who they were. Perhaps Father hadn't
warned him. It was impossible to guess, and she couldn't
very well ask him now. With his first lie, he might still
be a friend. With the second lie, she could only treat him
as an enemy. Let him think his lie has succeeded. Father
taught her, and your enemy won't be driven to More
desperate measures.
What bothered her most was that never before in her
life had she thought of Angel as her enemy. "What did
Father fear they would do, when he warned you?"
"I don't know. I thought at the time he feared another
gebling invasion. But I don't think it's human blood
these two are thirsting for. The other kings called the
geblings to Skyfoot with a cry of war on their lips. These
two are almost in disguise. No gebling king has ever
traveled in the company of humans. Living humans,
anyway."
The More she listened to him, the More obvious it
became that it was all lies, and Angel was growing More
162 orson scott card
and More confident that she believed him. Angel had a
plan, no doubt something he and Father had worked out
some time ago, and part of the plan required him not to
tell her all he knew. She was still a child in Angel's eyes,
still not to be trusted with the knowledge to make an
intelligent decision on her own. Angel was determined to
keep her blind and force her down the road he and Father
had chosen for her. Well, Angel, you may find I'm not
quite the helpless babe you think I am. I can't force you
to confide in me, but when the time comes, you'll wish
you had, because I'll do as I have decided for myself,
whether you like it or not, and if you try to stop me,
Angel, even you might find that I'm too much for you.
She didn't believe it, though. Her bravado was a sham.
Never before had she felt so childish and weak as now. I
am not Heptarch yet, she realized. I have no kingdom
and no power, just the destiny that you and Father and
Unwyrm and the geblings and the priests all have in mind
for me. You have so many plans for me that no matter
what I do, it's what someone wanted me to do. A single
puppet with a thousand strings, and I don't know who is
holding any of them.
Her face showed none of this to Angel. Instead she
smiled wickedly, the way she did when she teased him.
"So you think I'd be safe to let Ruin know I have the
scepter that should be his, and then ask him to cut open
my brain and put it in?''
Angel held out his open hands. "I didn't say it was
without risks."
She poked him playfully. "Go back to spending the
days asleep. You were More helpful then."
She could see his tension ease, as she pretended to be
the lighthearted, trusting girl she had always been with
him in private. He believed her. "I think Ruin wll agree,"
he said, "that the scepter is More human than gebling
wyrms | 163
now. The Heptarchs have had it for More than three
hundred generations. Still, I'm not saying you should up
and tell him right now."
"It's impossible to know what to do," she said. "All
the prophecies hint at disaster, but they don't tell me
what causes the disaster. Anything I choose might destroy
the world or save it, and I don't know which is
which. And you aren't even going to help me decide."
He smiled. "You knew you might be leading the
world to disaster when you decided to go to Cranning.
I'm just going along for the ride. Been lots of fun, so
far." He got up and walked weakly back to his pallet
under the canopy.
Patience sat and watched the water for some time. Just
when she had begun to feel confident, Angel turned out
to be playing his own game. There was no one she could
trust completely.
Yet she couldn't brood for long. For whenever her
attention was not closely engaged with work or conversation,
her mind turned back to that constant, nagging need
to go north, to go upriver, to find relief from the urgent
pressure of her body's desire.
River's hawk circled, swooped down to the boat. She
turned to watch as it tore open a dove, ate its gut, and
dropped the body, feathers and all, into the jar. The
monkey was playing with itself; this was a calm, slow
reach of the river, so the pilot didn't need a voice for a
while.
The balance of River's ecology was a marvel and a
mystery to her. River himself, he was fairly easy to
understand; like all heads, he was somewhat insane,
living for the journey up and down Cranwater. As long
as the boat was sailing, he was well rewarded. But the
monkey and the hawk--what did they get? The n key
ate with the humans, and seemed content enugh. Be164 orson scott card I
sides, he had nowhere else to go. Monkeys were a
species humans had brought with them to this world; they |
had no natural habitat here, and could survive only as
pets. So maybe, at some primitive level, the monkey ;
knew that his slavery at the bellows was the only way i
that he could live. |
But the hawk--she could not understand the hawk. It :
could provide for itself. It needed no one. What did it
gain from its service to River? Why did it stay? River
had no hands to restrain it, no power to reward or punish
it. The hawk seemed to live for pure generosity.
Perhaps the hawk conceived River to be part of itself,
feeding the head out of the same instinct that made
parents feed their children. Or perhaps the hawk had
been trained, folded into a pattern in which it could not
conceive of leaving River to die. Perhaps the hawk did
not long for freedom. Or perhaps, being free, this was
what the hawk freely chose to do. }
When Will called them to dinner at noon, Patience did
not want to come. It was Reek's hand on her shoulder
that brought her. "Whatever Angel said to you," whispered
the gebling woman, "you're still the heart of all
our futures. Come, eat."
Yes, thought Patience. Come, puppet. Come, folded paper. Dance your dance, hold the shape we gave you.
Until your usefulness is over. Then someone--the
geblings, Unwyrm, perhaps some mad Vigilant along the
way--someone will burn you up.
HEFFUFS HOUSE
late ONE AFTERNOON THEY WERE TRIMMING SAIL AS THEY
rounded a bend through a narrow channel between sandbars,
when River clicked his tongue twice and the monkey
began to screech. By now everyone knew this meant
River wanted a quick change in course. They stopped all
conversation and listened--River's voice was never loud.
"Hard port!" he said. Will, who was at the helm,
heeled the lever toward the starboard side, and almost at
the same moment Sken grabbed Patience and a gebling
and ran to the left side of the boat. Patience only had
time to catch a glimpse of what they were avoiding--a
large buoy, big enough that if they had collided head on,
with their speed from such a brisk wind, it would have
done real damage to buoy and boat alike. As it was, they
still bumped into it, but side-on and slower.
"That's supposed to be two mile upriver," said the
pilot. "Last flood season must have dragged her anchor
down here so far. Cast a line."
Sken didn't hesitate. She knotted a rope onto a grappling
hook, swung the hook above her head, and cast it
165
166 I orson scott card
against the buoy, now bobbing some dozen yards behind
them. The hook caught on the first throw, but Patience
didn't know whether that was remarkable or just what a
competent riverwoman would be expected to do.
"What are you doing with that!" demanded Ruin.
"Putting it back where it belongs," said Sken, as if it
were-a fact that should be obvious even to a child.
"None of our affair," said Ruin.
"There's too many on the river feels that way already,"
said Sken. "But River and me, we feel the same
on this. When something's out of place that you can fix,
then you fix it, so next pilot won't risk what almost got
us."
They got back on course through the channel and then
it was clear sailing for a while. Long enough to take a
better look at the buoy. It had a sign on it, at such an
angle that you could just read it if you leaned out from
the stern on the starboard side. In Geblic, Gauntish, Dwelf, and Agarant--the language all traveling humans
used, regardless of their native tongue--the sign advertised
a single thing for sale:
ANSWERS
Angel laughed aloud when Patience told him what it
said. "When have you seen such arrogance before?"
"Maybe they're not selling," said Reck. "Maybe they're
buying."
Patience did not laugh. It was too ironic. If there was
anything she needed right now, it was answers. And here
they were, offered hi trade.
Two miles on, they dropped anchor and hauled in the
buoy. Sken and Will lashed it to the boat, then hauled up
the buoy's anchor and added a bag of ballast to it. It was
an hour's work at most, but Patience took no part in it,
wyrms | 167
so she had time to look for the place on shore where the
answers might be found. It wasn't a heavily settled area,
so it could only be the house well up on a hill, perhaps a
quarter-mile walk from the river.
If the house had been one of the common inns along
the river, preying upon travelers with rigged games,
indigestible food, and bug-ridden beds, Patience would
not have had them put ashore. Instead, though, it was old
and modest, and far enough back from the water that it
couldn't be a money trap for travelers. If they hadn't
anchored to fix the buoy, it would have been visible only
for a moment in a gap between trees along the river's
edge. To Patience, this suggested that the sign was sincere
enough. It was a place for people who wanted truth
enough to work to get it--out of the way, hard to reach,
with only a single sign to tell them what it was, and only
a single sight to tell them where.
Of course, the moment she thought of stopping. Patience
felt the pressure of the Cranning call within her,
urging her to go on, faster, faster. It was no stronger now
than before; Unwyrm was not trying to get her to avoid
this place in particular. But because the need to hurry on
was so great, and because she knew that someone else
was producing that need within her, she resisted for the
sake of resistance, the way that she had deliberately
endured extra suffering as a child, to inure herself to
hardship.
When Will and Sken climbed aboard the boat and
began unlashing the buoy, Patience spoke her decision.
"Bring the boat ashore."
"At that place!" said Sken. "I will not! We'll pass a
dozen better inns before nightfall."
Patience smiled and spoke to River. "The pilot sets
the course, the captain rules the life aboard the ship, but
168 orson scott card
the owner says what ports the ship will visit. Am I
right?"
River winked at her.
Sken cursed, but instead of raising sail again, she and
Will poled the boat to shore.
They touched the ragged-looking pier that ran out into
the river and tied the boat fast. Leaving Sken to keep
watch over Angel, Patience led Will and the geblings
ashore. Angel demanded to be taken along. Patience
ignored him. She didn't feel the same need to defer to
him that she had felt before he started lying to her.
There wasn't much of a path up the hill. Patience let
Ruin lead the way—he could find a trail on bare rock in a
rainstorm, or so it seemed. Reck and Will fell into place
behind her. It was as though she were truly Heptarch,
with an escort before and behind; or a prisoner, with
keepers to cut off all escape.
The hilltop house was even shabbier than it had looked
from below. The windows were unglazed and unshuttered,
and the smell of the yard out back made it plain that the
pigs were responsible for washing themselves. "Could it
be that no one lives here now?" asked Patience.
Ruin grunted. "Fire's lit."
"And there's fresh water in the kitchen," added Reck.
Patience turned to Will. "Is there anything they can't
find out with their noses?"
Will shrugged. Not too bright, thought Patience. But
what could you expect of the sort of man who'd live with
geblings?
Their knock on the door brought a quick shout from
inside. A female voice, and not a young one. "I'm
coming!" The cry was in common speech, but the accent
told Patience that it was not her native tongue. And sure
enough, it was a dwelf, smaller than the geblings, with
wyrms I 169
the half-size head that made them look spectacularly
repulsive.
"From a dwelf we're supposed to get answers?" asked
Ruin, with his usual tact.
The dwelf frowned at him. "To a goblin I'm supposed
to give them?"
"At least she speaks in complete sentences," said
Reck.
But it was Patience who reached out her hand for the
dwelf to lick her fingers. Custom satisfied, the dwelf
invited them in, and immediately led Patience to what
was obviously the seat of honor near the fire. Will, as
always, hung back to stand by the door. He never seemed
to consider himself to be part of what was going on.
Only a watcher, a listener. Or perhaps not even that,
perhaps an accessory, like a horse, to be brought forward
only when needed.
The dwelt brought them boiling water and let them
choose the leaves for the tea. Patience inquired about the
possibility of getting rooms with closable windows for
the night.
"That depends," said the dwelf.
"On what? Tell us the price."
"Oh, the price, the price. The price is good answers
for my questions, and good questions for my answers."
"You can never communicate with a dwelf," said
Ruin impatiently. "You get More intelligent conversation
from trees."
He spoke in Geblic, but it was obvious that the dwelf
had at least caught the gist of what he said. Patience
suspected that she actually understood Geblic, which
would make her much brighter than usual for her kind.
"Tell us," said Patience, "what sort of question you
have in mind?"
"Only the Wise stay here," said the dwelf. "The
170 | orson Scorr card
Wise from all lands, and they leave behind their wisest
thoughts before they go."
"Then we've come to the wrong place," said Patience.
"All the Wise left our lands before I was born."
"I know," said the dwelf sadly. "But I make do with
what comes along nowadays. You wouldn't happen to be
an astronomer, would you?"
Patience shook her head.
, "You have an urgent need for one?" asked Reck. y^ ' "Oh, not urgent, not urgent. It just seems to be a lost ^i i art, which should surprise you, considering that we all
."*[ I came from the stars."
(».!*! '' "She did, and the big one at the door," said Ruin. I sKi } "The rest of us are native born."
I, Tilt The dwelf smiled a little. "Oh," she said. "You think I ; C^' geblings are natives here?"
IS ' Now, for the first time, Patience began to wonder if ^ she shouldn't take this dwelt seriously, not just out of
BOl'i courtesy, but because she might know something of value.
i*"*" , Certainly her hint that the geblings were also starbom & I implied that her ideas would at least be interesting. Inter-
t»iji I esting enough that Angel ought to be here. She might be ^ ' annoyed with him, might not trust him, but Patience was
I' X1" not suc^ a *FOO^ mat sne wou^ reject the possibility of -n^ profiting from what truth he would tell her. She turned
to Reck. "Do you think Will would go down and bring
Angel up?"
Reck looked annoyed. "I don't own Will," she said.
Since Will acted far More like a slave than Angel did,
Patience thought Reek's pretense of not controlling him
was ridiculous. Will never did anything unless Reck had
given him permission first. Still, Patience offered no
retort, but merely turned to Will and asked if he thought
he could carry Angel up to the inn. Will said nothing, but
left immediately.
wyrms | 171
"Why are you sending for More of your party," asked
the dwelf, "when I haven't said that you could stay?"
"Because Angel is the closest thing to a wise man we
have with us. He's a mathematician."
"He's a nothing, then. Numbers and More numbers.
Even if you understand enough to ask the questions, the
answers mean nothing at all."
This delighted Patience, who had said much the same
thing to Angel on More than one occasion. She could
have recited Angel's answer, too, since she had memorized
it from the sheer repetition. Instead, though, Patience
took the dwelf at her word. She offered answers,
so why not ask the question that mattered most? "Let me ask you a question. Who and what is Unwyrm, and what
does he want?"
The dwelf smiled in delight, jumped to her feet, and
ran out of the room.
"If she has the answer to that," said Reck, "then she
knows what no other living soul knows."
Soon the dwelf came bounding back into the room.
"Unwyrm is the brother of geblings, gaunts, and dwelfs,
and the son of the Starship Captain's possessor," she
said. "His mother once had the whole world, and he
wants it back." She beamed with pride.
Ruin cut in, impatiently. "Anybody could make up
this kind of mix of truth and speculation--"
"Hush," said Patience. Then, to the dwelt, she said,
"I'm sorry, I missed part of that, where you said--"
Before she could fmish, the dwelf said it again. "Unwyrm
is the brother of geblings, gaunts, and dwelfs, and the
son of the Starship Captain's possessor. His mother once
had the whole world, and he wants it back." Again she
smiled the identical smile. It was as if they had seen the
same moment twice. The dwelf was giving an answer
that she had memorized.
172 ( orson scott card
Ruin looked at Reck, then smiled. "All right, now let
us give you a question," said Ruin. "Where is the
mindstone of the ancient gebling kings?"
Patience had little trouble guessing the answer to this question herself, but controlled her own misgivings and
feigned ignorance. "What's the mindstone?" she began.
But the dwelf was already up and running out of the
room. And while she was gone, Reck and Ruin kept
I fc,, ' touching each other's faces as if each were studiously "« ;; forming the other's likeness in clay. Patience decided
k(% r there was More to their question than a mere test. And
«.^|i I sure enough, when the dwelf came back into the room, }} they turned to her and waited intently for her reply,
I; showing More interest than Patience thought their stolid
i; W. faces could ever show.
t& I"?
S ^ "The mindstone of the gebling kings, which became
S" " the scepter of the Heptarchs, is imbedded in the shoulder ;»'
S3 nothing, trying to keep her face a mask of polite baffle- ^i"' ment. There was no way this dwelf could possibly have ^C 'h known about her father's secret. "^i1"' Watching the silent tableau of geblings staring at the
human girl, the dwelf began to giggle insanely. "And
now you've answered my question, all of you."
I
Patience turned to her politely. "And what is your
question?"
"My question of you is, who are you, and why do
geblings and humans travel together this way?"
"And what was our answer?" asked Reck.
"Your answer was that you are the gebling king, the
boy and girl of you, and you, human, are the daughter of
Peace, the Heptarch, and he is dead, and you now have
WYRMS | 173
the mindstone and scepter. You're going into battle, but
you aren't sure whether or not you're on the same side."
This was no ordinary dwelf.
Patience drew the slender glass rod of her blowgun
from the cross at her neck. She also took the loop from
her hair. She spoke quietly to Reck and Ruin, in a tone
of calm, sure intention. "If you move from your places,
you'll be dead before you take a step."
"Oh, my," said the dwelf. "You shouldn't ask for
answers that you don't want to hear. Let's not have any
killings here. This is a place where the only traffic is in
truth. Let me have your oath, all of you, that you'll wait
to kill each other until you get back to the river."
No one volunteered to take the oath.
"What have I done? Trouble, trouble, that's what the
truth is. You poor fools--you thought a dwelf could
never know anything, and so you asked me the questions
whose answer you thought no one could have. But I have
all the answers. Every one of them."
"Do you?" asked Reck. "Then tell us how to resolve
our dilemma. However you knew the answer, Patience
has as much as confessed that she has the most precious
possession of the gebling kings. Now More than ever
before in our history we must have it, we must know its
secrets. We would gladly kill her to get it, and she would
as gladly kill us to keep it for herself. When Will comes
back, we'll have no difficulty killing her, so she'll have
to kill us before he gets here."
"I told you, take an oath," said the dwelf.
"We would never keep an oath about the mindstone,"
said Ruin, "nor would we believe her if she made one."
"I don't even know what it is," said Patience. "I only
know that Father said to keep it at all costs, and Angel
said to ask you to implant it in my brain."
174 orson scott card
Ruin laughed. "He thought that /, once I had it in my
hands, would put it into you?"
Reck, still not moving, silenced him with a hiss. Then
she said, "Patience, my fool of a brother doesn't understand.
Though the mindstone by rights belongs to us, it's
no good to us now."
"No good to us!" said Ruin.
"When the humans first thought to put it in their
brains, it drove them mad. There was too much gebling
in it. But now we could never put it in our own minds--
there's too much human in it."
Ruin frowned. "There's a chance we could use it."
"And there's a better chance we could destroy ourselves
trying."
Ruin looked furious. "After so many years--and we
find it now at the time of greatest need, and you say we
can't use it!" But his anger turned immediately to despair.
"You say it, and it's true."
Patience was skeptical. This could be a trick to lull her
into complacency. So she turned to the dwelt for the only
help she could think to ask for.
"I have a question for you," she said. "Tell me what
the scepter does when it's connected to the brain."
"If I leave to get the answer," said the dwelf, "you'll
probably kill each other before I get back, and then I can
never ask you anything More."
"If they don't leave their chairs, then I won't kill
them," said Patience.
"We won't leave our chairs," said Reck.
"But don't be too sure you could kill us," said Ruin.
Patience smiled. The dwelf shuddered and left the
room. There was no spring in her step this time.
She came back in muttering to herself. "It's long,"
she said.
"I'm listening," said Patience.
WYRMS | 175
The dwelf began to recite. "When implanted above
the limbic node in the human brain, the organic crystal
called the scepter or mindstone grows smaller crystals
that penetrate to every portion of the brain. Most of these
are passive, collecting important memories and thoughts.
A few of them, however, allow the human to receive
memories previously stored in the crystal by prior occupants.
Since many of the memories belong to the first
seven gebling kings, in whose brains the crystal originated,
this can be most disorienting to the human. If the
human is not able to gain control of the crystal, the alien
memories can impinge on the mind in unwelcome and
unmanageable ways, lending to confusion of identity,
which is to say, madness. The safest way to use the
crystal is to implant it in a protected place near a fairly
important nerve. One or two chains of crystal will make
their way to the brain, collecting memories but almost
never supplying any to the human host. But there's bloody
little chance that you'll ever meet anyone who needs this
information, Heffiji."
All of them laughed at the last sentence.
"Whoever gave you that answer, dwelf, wasn't as
wise as he thought."
"I know," said the dwelf. "That's why I left it in, so
you could see that I asked him a good question after all,
even though he thought I didn't.''
"And what happens when it's implanted in a gebling's
brain?" asked Patience.
"But why would anyone do that?" asked the dwelf.
"All a gebling has to do is--"
"Silence!" whispered Ruin.
"No," said Reck. "No, let her tell."
"All a gebling has to do," said Heffiji, "is swallow
it. The gebling body can break the crystal into its tiniest
176 orson scott card
pieces, and it will form again exactly where it ought to
be in the gebling's brain."
"How could that happen?" asked Patience. "Why can
geblings use it so easily, when humans--"
"Because we're born with mindstones," said Ruin,
scornfully. "We all have them. And we eat our parents'
mindstones when they die, to carry on the memories that
mattered most to them in their lives." He looked at Reck
with bitter triumph, as if to say, Well, you said to tell
her, and now I have.
Patience looked from one to the other in growing
understanding. "So all those stories that geblings eat
their dead--"
Reck nodded. "If a human saw it, though it's hard to
believe a gebling would ever let them see--"
"Dwelfs too," said Heffiji. "And gaunts."
"There are mindstones of some sort, much smaller
than ours, too small to see, in all the animals of this
world," said Ruin. "Except humans. Crippled, fleshbound
humans, whose souls die with them."
Our souls die, thought Patience, except those whose
heads are taken. It was a question she had thought of More than once. How did the taking of heads begin?
Why did human scientists every try to keep a head alive?
Because they knew, hundreds of generations ago, they
knew that the native species had a kind of eternal life, a
part of their brain that lived on after death. They were
jealous. Taking heads was the human substitute for the
mindstones of the geblings, dwelfs, and gaunts. Instead
of the crystal globe of the mindstone, for us it was gools,
hcadworms, and eviscerated rats dropped by a hawk into
a glass jar.
"Only the Heptarchs, among all humans, have taken
their parents into themselves," said Reck. "And that was
only by stealing our noblest parents from us. Your ances-
wyrms | 177
tor killed the seventh king and stole his mindstone, so
that the kings of the geblings have no memory now of
how the kingdom began. Ruin is of the foolish opinion
that it would be of some advantage to us to have it now.
I, however, understand that it would only have been to
our advantage if we had had it all along."
"I must have it," said Ruin. "If I'm to know what I
must know--''
"Unwyrm wants you to do it. Ruin." Reck seemed to
enjoy forcing her brother to bow before her superior
understanding. "It would please him, to have half the
gebling king a babbling lunatic. Fool. If it drove humans
insane, with their incomplete coupling with the stone,
what do you think it will do to you, to be utterly and
perfectly bonded to More than three hundred human minds?
No gebling is strong enough to endure that."
Patience could see that Ruin was not pretending now;
he was yielding to his sister's arguments. If she said
nothing, it was clear the dispute would be settled with the
scepter left peacefully in her possession, perhaps even
implanted in her brain. Yet if it was so dangerous that
Ruin would not use it, she had to know More of what it
would do to her.
"Are human and gebling minds so alien to each other?"
she asked. "We speak each other's languages, we--"
"You don't understand the beginning of the gebling
mind--" began Ruin.
"It's our strength," said Reck, "and our weakness.
We're never alone from the moment of our birth. Isolation
is a meaningless word to us. We can feel other
geblings on the fringes of our consciousness, awake and
asleep. When we swallow a mindstone, we become the
person whose stone we swallowed, for days, sometimes
weeks and months, until we can sort out all the memories
and put them in their place. If Ruin had to become
178 orson scott card
human that way, three hundred times over, the isolation
would probably be unbearable, like the death of half
himself. You, though, a human being--you're used to
loneliness because you never know anything else. And
the mindstone doesn't bond so perfectly with you. A
strong human--like you--"
"You want me to implant it in her, don't you," Ruin
said.
"I think so, yes," said Reck.
"It may make her even More subject to Unwyrm's
will," he said.
"But what does that matter? At worst, it would make
her a helpless pawn to Unwyrm. Since that's how she'll
probably end up anyway, what difference does it make?"
Patience shuddered inwardly at their utter lack of sympathy
for her. Even she, a sometime assassin, still felt
some understanding, some elementary kinship with the
people that she killed. Now, for the first time, she realized
that they regarded her as a beast, not a person. They
assessed her as a man might assess a good horse, speaking
of its strengths and weaknesses candidly, in the
horse's presence. The difference was that Patience could
understand.
Ruin, still angry despite having to admit that his sister
was right, turned to Patience. "I'll implant the mindstone,
on two conditions. First, that you give it back to me or
Reck or our children when you die."
"Why, when you can never use it?" asked Patience.
"When all this is over," Rum said, "and my work is;
done, then I can use it. If it mads me, then it's no worse
than death, and I'm not afraid to die. But if I succeed in
mastering it, then all we lost will be restored to us, and I
can pass it to my heir."
"I'll make you a different oath," said Patience. "Implant
it, and if I die in the presence of the king of the
WYRMS 179
geblings, I'll make no effort to stop them from taking it,
whoever they are."
Ruin smiled. "It amounts to the same thing. Only you
must promise to make every effort to die in the presence
of the king of the geblings."
"If you promise to make no effort to hasten that day."
"I hate politics," said Heffiji. "You don't need any
oaths. You'll implant it in her because it's no use to you,
and you'll get it back when she's dead if you can." She
snorted. "Even a dwelt with less than half a brain can
tell you that."
"What is the second condition?" asked Patience.
"The first gebling king," said Reck. "He was Unwyrm's
brother. His memories of Unwyrm are in the stone. You
must tell us what Unwyrm is. You must tell us everything
about him that you can remember, when the
mindstone is in place."
"So the Heptarchs remember Unwyrm," she whispered.
"They have known who the enemy is, all these
years."
"Only the ones with courage enough to put it in their
brains," said Reck.
"And strength enough to keep their sanity when they
did," said Ruin.
Reck asked again, "Will you tell us?"
Patience nodded. "Yes." And then, deciding not to be
the careful diplomat, she let Reck and Ruin see her fear.
"Do you believe that I'm truly strong enough to bear
it?"
Ruin shrugged. "If you aren't, we're no worse off
than before." She was still an animal to him.
But Reck noticed her vulnerability this time, and answered
with sympathy. "How many times has this been
done in the history of the world? How can we know how
strong a human has to be, to hold geblings in her mind,
180 orson scott card
and still remain human? But I'll tell you what I know of
you. Many humans, most humans, cringe in their solitude,
frightened and weak, struggling to bring into themselves
as many things and people as they can. To own so
much that they can feel large and believe, falsely, that
they are not alone. But you. You are not afraid of your
own voice in the dark."
Patience put the loop back in her hair, and slid the tube
into its wooden sheath. The geblings visibly relaxed.
"You said your name wa& Heffiji?" asked Patience.
"Yes. A scholar gave it to me once, long ago. I forget
what my name was before that. If you ask me, I'll tell,
you." I
"A gaunt, wasn't he? The scholar who named you?;
Heffiji is a Gauntish word."
"Yes, she was. Do you know what it means?"
"It's a common word. It means 'never.' Never what?"
"Mikias Mikuam Heffiji Ismar."
"Never to Lose the Finding Place."
"That's me," said Heffiji. "I don't know anything,
but I can find everything. Do you want to see?"
"Yes," said Patience.
"Yes," said Reck.
Ruin shrugged.
Heffiji led them back into the rest of the house. Every
room was lined with shelves. On the shelves, in no
apparent order, were stacks of paper. Rocks or pieces of
wood served as paperweights in the rooms where th&
glassless windows let in the wind. The whole house was'
a library of papers scattered in a meaningless order.
"And you know where everything is?" asked Reck.
"Oh, no. I don't know where anything is, unless you;
ask me a question. Then I remember where the answer1 is, because I remember where I set it down."
"So you can't lead us to anything unless we ask you."
WYRMS | 181
"But if you ask me, I can lead you to everything."
She smiled in pride. "I may have only half a brain, but I
remember everything I ever did. All the Wise came by
my house, and they all stopped and gave me every
answer, and they all asked me every question. And if I
didn't have the answer to their question, I kept asking
others the same question until one of them could answer
it."
Patience started to lift a rock from a stack of papers.
"No!" screamed Heffiji.
Patience set the rock back down.
"If you move anything, how will I find it again?"
shouted the dwelf. "Anything you touch will be lost
forever and ever and ever! There are a hundred thousand
papers in this house! Do you have time to read it all, and
remember where each scrap of it is?"
"No," said Patience. "I'm sorry."
"This is my brain!" shouted Heffiji. "I do with this
what humans and geblings and gaunts do with your large
heads! I let you dwell in it because you will add to my
memories. But if you move anything, you might as well burn down the house with me inside, because then I'll
be nothing but a dwelf with half a brain and no answers
at all, none at all!"
She was weeping. Reck comforted her, the long, many-
jointed fingers stroking the dwelf s hair in a swirling
pattern like a bird's wing closing. "It's true," said Reck,
"humans are like that, they stumble into other people's
houses and break and destroy without any thought of the
havoc that they wreak."
Patience bore the abuse; she had earned it.
But Ruin took her silence to mean that she hadn't got
the point of Reek's remark. "She means that you humans
came to this world and ruined it for all of us who were
here before you--geblings and dwelfs and gaunts."
182 orson scott card
Suddenly Heffiji was no longer weeping. She pulled
away from Reck with a broad smile on her face. "It's my
best answer," she said. "Ask me the question."
"What question?" asked Ruin.
" 'All of us who were here before you,' " she said.
"Ask me."
Ruin tried to decide what question she meant. "All
right, who was here before the humans?"
Heffiji jumped up and down with delight. "Wyrms!"
she shouted. "Wyrms and wyrms and wyrms!"
"What about geblings, then, if we weren't here when
humans arrived?" asked Reck.
"What about them? Too vague—you have to ask a
better question than that."
"Where did geblings come from?" she asked.
Heffiji jumped up and down again. "My favorite, my
favorite! Come and I'll show you! Come and you'll
see!"
She led them up a ladderway into a low and musty
attic. Even the geblings had to stoop; Patience had to
squat down and waddle along to the farthest corner.
Heffiji gave her lantern to Ruin and took a sheaf of
papers from a roof beam. She spread them along the attic
floor. Taking back the lantern, she began to read the
explanations of the drawings, one by one.
"There is no such thing as a native life form left on
this world, and no such thing as Earth life, either, except
for human beings themselves," she said.
"That's insane," said Ruin. "Everybody knows that
the domesticated plants and animals came from Earth—"
Heffiji held the lantern up to his face. "If you already
know all the answers, why did you stop at my house?"
Abashed, he fell silent.
Heffiji recited. "Comparing the genetic material of
any plant or animal with the records concerning similar
WYRMS 183
plants or animals preserved from the knowledge brought
with mankind from Earth, we find that the original genetic
code is still preserved, almost perfectly--but as
only a tiny part of a single but vastly larger genetic
molecule."
Heffiji pointed to a diagram showing the positions of
the Earth species' protein patterns within the single chromosome
of the present Imakulata version.
"Clearly, the species brought from earth have been
taken over or, as is More likely, imitated perfectly by
native species that incorporate the genetic material into
their own. Since the resulting molecule can theoretically
contain hundreds of times as much genetic information as
the original Earth species needed, the rest of the genetic
material is available for other purposes. Quite possibly,
the Imakulata species retain the dormant possibility of
adapting again and again to imitate and then replace any
competing species. There is even a chance that the Imaku-
lata genetic molecule is complex enough to purposefully
control alterations in the genetic material of its own
reproductive cells. But whether some rudimentary form
of intelligence is present in the genetic molecule or not,
our experiments have proven conclusively that in two
generations any Imakulata species can perfectly imitate
any Earth species. In fact, the Imakulata imitation invariably
improves on the Earth original, giving it a competitive
edge--shorter gestation or germination times, for
example, or markedly faster sexual maturity, or vastly
increased numbers of offspring per generation."
Heffiji looked at them piercingly, one at a time. "Well?"
she asked. "Do you understand it?"
Patience remembered what Prince Prekeptor had once
said to her. "The genetic molecule is the mirror of the
will."
184 | orson scott card
Heffiji scowled. "That's religion. I keep those in the
cellar."
"We understand," said Ruin.
"You must understand it all. If you have a question,
I'll say it again."
They had no questions. Heffiji moved on to a series of
drawings of wheat plants and a strange, winged insect.
"Our experiments involved separating the original Earth-
species genetic material from common wheat, to see
what was left when the currently dominant Earth-genes
were gone. The experiments were delicate, and we failed
many times, but at last we succeeded in separating the
genetic material, and growing Earth wheat and the species
that had absorbed and replaced it. The genetic structure
of the Earth wheat was identical to the records
passed down to us from the original colonists, and yet
when it grew we could see no difference in the plant
itself from the Imakulata wheat. However, the leftover
genetic material from the Imakulata wheat did not produce
a plant at all. Instead, it produced a small insectlike
flier, with a wormlike body except for three wing-pairs.
It was completely unlike anything we could find in our
catalogues from Earth, but possibly similar to what the
earliest colony records refer to as 'gnats,' which seemed
to disappear from the first colony of Heptam after a few
years."
"What does this have to do with geblings?" asked
Ruin. "I know More about plants than any human scientist
ever did."
Heffiji glared at him. "Go away if you don't want the
answers that I give."
Reck touched her brother's cheek. "It isn't that he
doesn't understand," she said. "It's that he already understands
too well."
Heffiji went on. "We introduced a single Imakulata
wyrms 185
gnat into a glass box containing a sample of pure Earth
wheat that was ready for fertilization. Without a mate,
the Imakulata gnat soon began laying thousands of eggs.
The wheat also ripened and dropped seed. But the
Imakulata eggs hatched first. A few of them produced
gnats, which began attacking each other savagely until
only one was left. Most of the seeds, however, produced
an incredible array of strange plants, many of them
wheatlike, many of them gnatlike, and most of them
hopelessly maladaptive. Only a few grew More than a
few centimeters in height before they died. Those that
thrived, while they were generally somewhat wheatlike,
were still easily distinguishable from the Earth species.
By the time the next generation of Earth wheat germinated
and grew, they had already gone to seed, and
showed every sign of being new and vigorous species.
We immediately began several other experiments to see
if the results were identical."
On to the next drawing. "In the meantime, the sole
surviving second-generation gnat mated, not with the
new Imakulata species, but with the second generation
Earth wheat. This time, most of the gnat's offspring were
similar to what we call wheat today--completely indistinguishable
from Earth wheat, except for the presence of
a single immense genetic molecule which contains all the
genetic information from the original Earth wheat. We
repeated these results at will. When the second-generation
gnat was allowed to reproduce with second-generation--or
even tenth- or twentieth-generation Earth wheat--the result
was always outwardly identical Imakulata wheat,
which reproduced faster and grew More vigorously than
either the Earth wheat or the new Imakulata plant species.
In fact, the Imakulata wheat seemed particularly
inimical to the new Imakulata nonwheat species. They
were destroyed as if by poison within two generations.
186 | orson scott card
The Earth wheat sometimes lingered as long as six generations
before being utterly replaced. However, when the
second-generation gnat was not allowed to reproduce
with later Earth wheat, the Imakulata wheat never appeared.
Instead, the new Imakulata species and the Earth
wheat continued to breed true to form, with no further
cross-breeding between species. This process of complete
replacement within two generations may have repeated
itself many times with every Earth species brought with
the colonists except, of course, humankind itself, which
has shown no changes in its chromosomal patterns."
And that was all.
"You never got to the geblings," said Ruin triumphantly.
"We asked you about geblings, but you never
got to them."
Heffiji stalked off with the lantern. Of course they
followed. But she did not lead them down the stairs.
Instead, she found another few papers and laid them out.
There were four drawings, each drawn and labeled by the
same hand. One was labeled "Human Genetic Molecules."
The other three were labeled "humanlike sections"
ofgebling, dwelt, and gaunt genetic molecules.
In each case, the human genetic patterns were all
imbedded within a single long molecule, just as the Earth
wheat patterns had been incorporated in the single genetic
molecule of all the Imakulata plants.
Heffiji could hardly contain her delight. "They didn't
know it! I was the one who put it together, I was the one
who knew that both of these were the answers to the
same question! And when I saw humans and geblings
together, I knew that you were the ones who needed to
have this answer." She grinned. "That's why I cheated
and gave hints."
"It isn't true!" shouted Ruin. "We are not just failed
copies of humans!"
wyrms | 187
He flung out his hand as if to throw Heffiji's brass
lantern to the floor. Both Reck and Patience caught his
arm before he could do it.
"Are you trying to burn down this house?" demanded
Reck.
"We are the original inhabitants of this world, and
they are the interlopers! We are not descended from
humans! They have usurped our world from us!"
Patience spoke to him quietly. "Ruin, you're right.
Even if half your heritage is human, the other half is not.
The other half is native. To imitate us was part of your
nature. Whatever your ancestors were before humans
came to Imakulata, it was their nature to absorb and
adapt. What you are today is the fulfillment of what your
ancestors had to become, if they were to be true to
themselves."
"And what were we before?" asked Reck. The question
was rhetorical. But again Heffiji ran off with the
lantern, this time clattering down the ladder. They had no
choice but to follow as she ran through the house, shouting,
"I know I know! I know I know!"
They found her in the great room, where Will once
again stood by the door, while Angel sat in the seat by
the fire. Heffiji was holding a large paper, which contained
four versions of the same drawing. She kept reciting
the words written at the top of the page: "Most likely
reconstruction of large segmented animals found at
Rameling and Wissick sites."
It was a large wonnlike animal with vestigial wings
that fanned out just like geblings' fingers, with a head as
proportionately tiny as the head of a dwelf, and with a
body as long and lithe as a gaunt. Its belly looked loose
and open, as if loose sections of bowel were protruding.
When Heffiji at last quieted down, Angel spoke softly
from his place by the fire. "Wynns," he said. "The
188 | orson scott card
earliest colonists called them that, and killed them all,
even though there was evidence that they lived communally
and buried their dead. They were too frightening,
they awakened too many human fears. And now they're
extinct."
"Except one," said Patience. "That's what Unwyrm
is, isn't he? The last of the wyrms."
"Not quite," said Ruin, who looked exhausted and
defeated. "We geblings named him, didn't we? Unwyrm.
Not-wyrm. Not our father; our brother. We didn't remember
that he looked like this, didn't remember what a
wyrm was. But now it's clear enough. Just like the
second-generation gnat that killed off the other gnats and
waited to mate again with the Earth wheat. That's what
Unwyrm is doing. Waiting to mate again with a human
being."
"The seventh seventh seventh daughter," murmured
Angel. "I told you not to come."
"A new human species to replace the old," said
Reck. "And to destroy the others--gaunt, dwelf, and
gebling."
"Why did he wait so long?" asked Patience. "The
gnat finished the process in the very next generation.
Why did Unwyrm wait 343 generations for me?"
Heffiji was crestfallen. "I don't have the answer to everything, you know."
THE SCEPTER
ruin CAREFULLY SHAVED PATIENCE'S HAIR FROM BEHIND
the ear almost to the middle of the back of her head.
"You'll have to wear your wig now," said Angel.
"This new hairstyle might attract some attention."
Ruin chewed a leaf, then licked the shaved area with
his rough tongue. He jabbed her skin many times with a
dry needle. Patience did not feel it except as a tiny
pressure--the nerves of pain had already gone numb.
"I won't care how my hair looks," she said. "I'll be
lucky if I come out of this remembering I'm a girl." She
was trying to show her confidence by joking, but she
surprised herself by sounding frightened instead. "Or
even a human."
Reck touched her hand. Patience vaguely remembered
that only a month ago, if a gebling had touched her it
would have taken concentration to avoid showing revulsion.
Now the touch came as a comfort to her. Beware of
liking her too much, she told herself. Beware of affection,
the great deceiver.
"Patience," whispered Reck, "it isn't good if you
189
190 orson scott card
aren't sure who you are. You'll have the memories of
hundreds of men and women in your mind when this is
done. Some of them are very strong--especially the
geblings. The gebling kings have always been very, very
strong."
"I know who I am," Patience whispered. But it was a
lie. If she knew who she was it was a secret even from
herself. A secret she would at last discover, she hoped.
Having the mindstone would unfold her, back to what
she was before she learned the roles assigned to her in
life. If she was blank, if she was nothing but her roles,
then the mindstone would fold her back again, and she
would disappear in a storm of memories and selves long
dead. But if she had a real self deeper than the faces
painted on her by others, she would find her way out, she
would keep control, she would survive.
Either I am someone, and I'll live, or I am no one, and
my self dies.
She felt Ruin lift a flap of her skin and pin it out of the
way. From the grinding sound, he was cutting at her
skull, but she felt no More than if her head were a slab of
stone. He was a stonecutter, turning her own brain into a
sort of heads hall, with all of the heads alive and staring
down at her, yammering at once from their jars of gools
and headworms. She shuddered.
"Hold still," murmured Ruin.
Angel began a steady monologue to calm her. "Obviously,
Patience, this information about Unw'yrm and the
origin of the geblings and dwelfs and gauints was not
discovered for the first time by whoever left these answers
here. The prophecies themselves, the very name of
Unwyrm, the traditions of the nonhumans tihat they are
descended from a prehuman ancestor and thalt Unwyrm is
their brother--these all imply that this information has
been known before, perhaps many times."
wyrms 191
Ruin pried out a section of skull and set it on the table.
It made a little clunking sound.
"But knowledge comes and goes. For instance, what
happened the first time a human and a gebling met? Had
the geblings already developed a language? A society?
Or did they fashion their social patterns after those of
human beings?"
Ruin held the tiny scepter in his hand. "This is my
heritage," he whispered. "No human being could have
made this. It belongs to me and Reck, and you have no
right to it."
For a moment Patience thought he was reneging on his
agreement, that he would put it in his mouth, swallow it,
and himself walk along the brink of madness. She was
relieved, for just a moment, not to have to do it herself.
But then he set it at the base of her brain and she
trembled to know it was her ordeal after all. His tongue
pushed it through the small incision he had made, until it
rested where he wanted it, exactly on the middle of her
limbic node. Then he withdrew his tongue, licked a small
dish covered with a fine powder, and reinserted it to
smear the powder into place.
"And another question that intrigues me," said Angel,
going on as if Ruin had not spoken, as if Patience were
not now irrevocably committed to a journey that could
destroy her. "How does the crystal relate to nonhuman
intelligence? The geblings, of course, have humanlike
brains, but the dwelfs don't. You all have the crystals,
but the gaunts have no will, no sense of identity—the
mindstones can't be the seat of personality. And you
geblings, you and Unwyrm have in common your means
of communication that transcends anything possible to
human beings. And yet Unwyrm can use it to call to
humans—there must be something in it that is at least
latently possible to us."
192 orson scott card
"You're such an ass when you try to talk like a
scholar," whispered Patience.
Angel ignored her. "And the wyrm that originally
called the Starship Captain--it had that same ability, and
perhaps More."
Ruin spoke without looking up from his work. "No
doubt the wyrms used their ability to lure their prey and
repel their enemies. One wyrm used it with your Starship
Captain, but no doubt it doesn't depend on any intelligence
on the part of the victim."
"And instead of eating the captain, they mated," said
Reck.
"I wonder which he would rather have done, in the
end, mate or die," said Angel. "I wonder how much
abasement a human being can bear, and still desire to
live." He sounded sad.
"With his right hand he drew what the wyrm wanted
him to draw," whispered Patience. "With his left hand
he warned us. He still had some part of his human will,
even though the wyrm controlled most of his actions."
"Yes, a fragmentation, that's it, a breaking down. Part
of the will carried in the brain, created and shaped by
memory, by experience. The conscious mind, the controllable
mind, the mind of words. And part of the will
carried--where? In the genes? Certainly the genes are the
only part of us that has any hope of surviving our death--
what More appropriate place for a seat of a part of the
unconscious mind ..."
Patience's vision suddenly focused. She had not realized
it was blurred before. But it was not Angel speaking
at all, it was old Mikail Nakos. Whose voice had she
thought it was? She couldn't remember. Mikail, he was
the one who had taken it upon himself to study these
creatures, the geblings. I thought it could do no harm. But now he wants to implant this organic crystal in
WYRMS 193
someone's mind. He doesn't understand the implications
of it.
"What if the crystals actually enhance human mental
abilities, make it possible for human beings to communicate
telepathically, the way the geblings seem to?"
Then another voice. "It might be possible." It was her
own voice, she knew, but not what she expected. For
some reason she expected it to be a girl's voice, trained
to be mellifluous, soothing; instead it was harsh, commanding,
male. Why not male? Am I not a man? The
Heptarch listened to himself, trying to remember why his
own voice didn't sound right to him.
"I suspect, though, that the telepathic communication
has More to do with the molecules than the crystals. The
crystal is More likely to be memory. Incredibly well-
ordered, clear, and powerful memory." He did not doubt
his ability to converse intelligently with a brilliant scientist.
But then the old Heptarchs had been scientists, in the
beginning. But why am I calling him an old Heptarch?
It's not me, then. Not really me talking, though I remember
it as being myself. "I'm guessing--but the little
ones, you see, the ones they call dwelfs, they can remember
with absolute perfection everything that they've
ever done, even though they can't hold an idea More
complex than their name for very long. They store millions
of items of data, but have no organizing principle."
"Not implausible, sir. Not at all. The crystal would be
the data storage. The brain, the systematizer. But the
telepathy--it might be in the crystal."
"I'm not even sure I believe there is any telepathy. It's
only speculation. The geblings are certainly not telling,
bless their murderous little viper souls."
"Still, sir, combined with a human brain, the crystal
could provide a great enhancement of mental abilities."
194 orson scott card
"If it can combine. If it actually has anything to do
with mentation."
"Difficult to answer. But the geblings aren't answering
--and they probably don't know, anyway. Ignorant little
devils."
For some reason the Heptarch wanted to correct him.
To tell him the truth about geblings. But he couldn't
remember why he thought he knew geblings so well, so
he said nothing.
"You see, sir, if the geblings weren't so dangerous, so
deadly, we might be able to leave it alone. But they're
cannibals--we saw how they eat each other's brains--
and they've murdered almost a dozen of our people
already. We have to understand all we can about them.
What they want, where they come from--"
"So you need a little white mouse to test the crystal."
"Unfortunately, it needs to be a highly intelligent
white mouse. I intend to have it implanted in my own
brain, sir."
"Nonsense. If you implant it in anyone, implant it in
me."
"You're the Heptarch. I can't do that."
"I'm the Heptarch, so you must do it. There is no duty
so difficult or dangerous or unpleasant that one of my
people can do it, and I cannot."
Patience was suddenly aware that she was not the man
who chose to have the mindstone placed in his brain.
That was long ago, another person. But how could the
crystal contain a memory of an event that obviously took
place before the crystal was implanted?
No sooner had the question occurred to her than the
answer came, a mother speaking to a daughter; she was
the mother and the daughter, hearing the conversation
from both sides, speaking both sides of the conversation
herself. It was confusing, but exhilarating.
wyrms 195
"When the scepter first enters your brain, it searches
for your most potent memories and copies them and
keeps them."
"You won't know my memories, will you?"
"No, darling, but you'll know mine. You'll know
what I'm thinking at this very moment, how much I love
you, to give you this gift while I'm still alive."
"I'm afraid."
"The first thing you think of is always our great
ancestor, who first chose to bear the scepter. He is our
courage, and part of him becomes part of you."
Why didn't Father help me, as this mother helped her
daughter? Then she couldn't remember who Father was,
or who she was, except the mother, except the daughter.
"You're safe as long as you don't think of certain
things."
"What things?"
"If I tell you what they are, my foolish child, then
how will you stop yourself from thinking of them?"
I know what they are, thought Patience. They are the
gebling kings in whose brain the crystal first grew. They
are the wyrm-hearted gebling kings that I mustn't think
of.
And that very thought brought her to the memories
most to be feared, a terrible alien viewpoint. She knew at
once that she had taken the step into the abyss. She could
feel a faint buzz of feeling, like peripheral vision, like
background noise, like a metallic taste in her mouth, like
a smell redolent of sweet and bitter memories, like the
touch of a thousand tiny flies upon her skin; gradually
she realized, as the gebling whose mind now dwelt in
hers realized, that these were her brothers, her sisters, the
life of them speaking to the firstborn, the gebling king,
myself.
The other geblings are still tearing their way out of
196 | orson scott card
their soft-skinned shells, their hair curled and matted. I
am curled by my mother's exhausted body, her black
segments trembling from her labors. Beside me lies my
father, his poor, weak, hairless body covered with sweat.
Come to me, Father, open my mouth-- I
"Full-grown. Whatever it is, it's no baby." The voice
is soft. "Haven't you heard of babies around here?"
His mouth moves and the sounds are beautiful. Teach
me how to make these sounds.
Father's face is twisted as he looks at me. "Full-grown
little apes." He touches me. He pushes me. "You brought
me here so you could give birth to these!''
Another egg opens, but with something black inside.
Black like Mother. The tiny tiny head like Mother. It's
hungry. I can feel it being hungry. It wants to kill Father.
It wants to kill me. It wants to kill everybody and eat all
the world.
Father taught me what to do. Already he saved me.
Father taught me pushing. I push the black one, I push
him but he hurts me very much. I cry out with my fear.
Mother, help me. Father, save me. I hear a terrible
frightened sound and it is my own sound coming out of
my own mouth like Father. I scream and scream.
They fight, Mother and the black one. Father is shouting
and shouting--
"Stay here and die, all of you stay and for God's sake
eat each other!"
The sound of his voice says fear and I am also afraid.
Father goes through a hole in the wall of the birthing
place. Father knows the way. Father we are coming! Come with Father I shout with my silent voice and they
hear me with their omermind. I go and so all the others
go, all those who look like me, and some of the littler
ones and taller ones, all who can move, all who do not
writhe on the ground dying because their bodies don't
wyrms | 197
work. We cry out to him We're coming, Father, but he
doesn't hear us because we don't make a sound and in
the silence he is deaf. I see it in his eyes when he looks
at us, he doesn't understand our cries, he only hears our
screaming.
Behind us the black one that looks like Mother is
eating her belly out and he will eat us all if he can.
Hungry, hungry, he pushes his hunger out into all of us,
Come to me, says his hunger, come and fill me, and I
can feel my brothers and sisters yielding to him, stopping,
going back toward the birthing place. No! I cry!
No! Come with Father, come away. With Father with
Father tell everyone to come with Father.
And the strongest ones take up my call, they call also, Come with Father, and we are stronger as we call together,
stronger and stronger until we have overcome the
Mother-eater's hunger.
Down into the black tunnel, all of us in the black
tunnel, where are you, Father? Where are you?
I see you, bright sisters and brothers, I feel your path
in the darkness, I know where you are, every one of you,
in so many different tunnels. From Father's footsteps splashing ahead of me I know the path outward. Follow
the water. Follow the running water. It goes away from
the birthing place, follow the water--
Patience cried out with joy as she saw the light of the
world for the first time. From a cavern's mouth in the
face of a high cliff she looked down on a vast forest,
with the heads of the River Cranwater joining to form a
single river flowing away from Skyfoot. Even as she
remembered she was Patience, she could also remember
being the first gebling king, feeling the presence of every
other gebling as each came out of his or her own tunnel
to find the sky, the water leaping out from each cavern
mouth. Again she saw through the gebling's eyes.
198 orson scott card
We all stand here, looking at the bright light, like-me
and bigger and littler, I can feel us all here at the edge of
the world. And beside me is Father, I have found him,
there is water on his face. "I sold my soul for you," he
says. "All I wanted was that wyrm back there. How
could I want her." He shudders. "It was eating her.
What kind of monsters--"
I try to feel him, too, like I can feel all the others, but
he isn't there, my eyes see him, my nose smells him, but
my othermind can't find him. I touch his cheek and taste
the water on his face. It is salt, not like the clear water of
the cave. He sees my tongue and wrinkles his face. Then
he reaches to me and touches my cheek and his mouth
says, "You're not a wyrm, though, are you? It's not
your fault, is it."
Then he stands and takes my hand and leads me to the
edge and holds out his hand to point to the bright blue
dazzle that blinds me and all the children of man and
wyrm.
"Sky," he says.
"Sick. " I speak. I am like him, not like Mother.
She was eaten by the wyrm in the birthing place, but
Father lives and I am like him.
"Born an hour ago, and already you can talk. What
have I made here? What can you become?" Patience watched the time flow faster. The babies
born, the Starship Captain teaching them everything. To
build houses, to hunt for food, to tend their children and
teach them. Language came easily, all learning came
easily to these new people who never forgot anything
once they had done it a single time. They invented their
own words faster than Father could teach them, until they
hardly came to him for learning anymore.
The gebling king, who never had a name for himself,
he came to Father often. "Wyrm," Father said. "Your
WYRMS | 199
mother is the wyrm, and I am your father, but most
important of all is the monster that ate your mother and
drove us from the birthing place. He looks like a wyrm
but he isn't a wyrm. He's your brother and he'll kill you
all if he can, and if he ever comes out of the mountain
you must kill him first."
So the gebling king was the first gebling who learned
to kill, and he used the secret knowledge of murder just
as human beings had used it from the start—to gather
power to himself. I have the terrible secret. I can kill you
if you disobey. But if you obey me, I can share the secret
with you and you, too, can have power—
Until Father says one day, when he finds me covered
with blood, "I wish Unwyrm had killed you that day in
the birthing place, I wish he had killed me and eaten me
rather than let me live to make you what you are. I'm
sorry that I taught you, any of you."
So I kill him and eat his brain in front of the others,
even though I find no mindstone in it; I don't tell them
that he had no stone. And now my power is perfect, even
greater than Unwyrm's power, because he has no one to
obey him and I have all of these.
Patience screamed at the memory, at the taste and
smell of Father's blood, at the look of horror and awe
and admiration in the other geblings' eyes. I couldn't do
this, I never could have done this, she cried out in
revulsion. And yet this is what I was raised for, to kill in
order to get power, to devour anything that threatens to
block me from my will—
"It's maddening her," said Angel.
"Give her time to find herself," said Reck.
The voices meant nothing to Patience. For all she
could see was the bloodshed through the years. The
murders of the gebling kings, the murders of the Heptarchs.
Wars and assasinations, tortures and rapes, she remem-
200 | orson scott card
bered committing all the crimes of seven thousand years
of power and she hated herself for all that she had-
done—
Nothing in my life except death and terror, she thought.
And then her own mother's face (or was it her mother?
She had three hundred mothers) smiling at her, touching
her, saying, "Broken heart, don't cry. Don't cry at the'
things that have been done in your name. For every life
that was taken, there were ten thousand who lived in
peace with your protection. Do you think your power
would last for a moment if all you had was the power to
kill? They would rise up and strike you down. You have
the power to draw them together, to make them act as
one. You have made the weak strong by the sound of
your voice, and they love you forever.''
Patience clung to the message of that voice. I have
made the weak strong by the sound of my voice. They
love me forever.
And at last, having found a thread to cling to so she
would not fall into the abyss, she slept.
^
TRUE FRIEND

she AWOKE LYING IN A BED, COVERED WITH THREE FEATHERbeds.
A cold breeze from a broken window whipped past
her face. The trees outside the window were golden with
autumn. Are you really the trees of Earth? she asked
them silently. Or are you strange alien creatures that have
captured the trees and hidden them deep inside, so you
can wear their mask?
She thought of all the children she had ever had in her
hundreds of lives, pictured them smiling up at her, good
children every one; but then something dark, a dark
worm crawled into their mouths and now when they look
out at her it is the wyrm with the tiny head and the
fanlike fingers--not a wing at all--and the hundred fleshy
organs of tearing and digesting and reproducing--Unwyrm,
do you know the difference between eating and mating?
Or is there a difference to you? All hungers are the same
hunger.
She opened her eyes. She saw him before she saw
anything else, standing there half lit by the dim autumnal
light through the window. Will. His face watching her in
201
202 | orson scott card
his utter silence, his unreadable stolidness, like an animal;
or no, like a mountain, like the face of living rock.
Why are you watching me?
She did not speak; he did not answer. He only noticed
that her eyes were open, nodded, and walked from the
room. He closed the door gently behind him. It was the
tenderness, the gentleness of the closing of the door that
told her that he was not, after all, made of stone. It
wasn't lifelessness that made him still, it was peace. He
had made his peace with life, and so his face had no More to say, no silent pleas to make between speeches,
and his mind had no speeches to make between silences.
He isn't hungry. He is already satisfied.
And as she thought of hunger, she felt again the
Cranning call, as powerful as ever, gnawing at her womb.
I am hungry to have his babies, she thought. It came to
her as the memory of a hundred nightmares during the
time she slept. He will make me hungry for his seed in
me, just as his mother made the Starship Captain yearn
for her. He will make me think that it is ecstasy.
She shuddered. But now that she had dreamed Unwyrm
a hundred times, his writhing as he devoured his mother
and slaughtered his helpless deformed brothers, now that
it was so familiar to her it did not make her lose control
of herself and scream, as she had done in all the dreams.
She was too tired of it to cry out against it anymore. I'll
just have to see to it that it doesn't happen, that's all.
He'll die before he has me, or I'll die. His children will
not be born from my body.
But even if I live, will I ever want a man as I want
Unwyrm? What if he dies while still calling me? Will
that need be with me then forever, always unsatisfied?
Thoughts like that made her angry with herself. She
sat up, swinging her legs over the edge of the bed. At
once she was almost overcome with dizziness. The door
wyrms 203
to her room opened, and Angel came in. Angel, looking
strong and healthy, no longer weak from the wound in
his throat.
"Your wound has healed and the trees have turned
colors," she said. "How long have I slept?"
"Forty days and forty nights, like Moses in the mount,
like the rain of the deluge, like Elijah fasting in the
wilderness. If you can call it sleeping. You've done a lot
of shouting and kept us all awake. Even River has complained
that you frighten his monkey. How are you?"
She reached up and touched the side of her head that
Ruin hadshaved. The hair had grown several centimeters.
"Weak," she said. "Unwyrm is calling me."
"We were afraid the scepter was too much for you."
"It wasn't the scepter, really. It was all the terrible
things I had done."
"You didn't do any of them."
"But I did. Angel. No, don't argue with me. I didn't
kill my own father and eat his brain, the way the first
gebling king did, or kill my own wife, as my father did.
But I have killed. Obeying you or father, or to save my
own life, I have killed easily, with pleasure, with pride.
That made it hard for me to--separate myself from all
their crimes. I could only find and follow a very slender
hope running from life to life throughout my past, Angel.
A hope that it all works together for good. That out of
the blood I've poured into the ground, life can grow
again."
"Many people who've just awakened from a sound
sleep think they're philosophers," Angel said.
"Don't make fun of me," said Patience. "This is
important. This is my--my contribution to the scepter, if
I have one to make. All the children will look to me,
gebling children and human children, they all will look to
me and I have to keep them safe. From Unwyrm's
204 orson scott card
children. And yet sometimes I think--Unwyrm's children
would not be murderers. They would all be bound
together with one heart and mind, the way the wyrms
were before the coming of humans to this world. Before
human genes made us strangers to each other. Unwyrm's children would never be alone. And I could be their
mother."
"Don't say that. Patience," said Angel.
"It's just that I finally understood the thought he sends
to me, Angel. I know what Unwyrm did to his own
mother. He's the devourer, not me. I'll kill him if I
can." But she knew she didn't sound convincing. It
didn't matter, though. It wasn't Angel she had to convince,
it was herself.
"He is a wyrm, then? A descendant of the ones the
first colonists killed?"
"He is the Unwyrm, Angel. The very one. The only
one. Alive for all seven thousand years of the world's
history."
"To live so long--"
"We're strangers here. The native life can adapt itself,
make changes in a single generation that we take a
million years to make. Unwyrm is More intelligent than
all of them. In him are combined the most powerful of
the native gifts, and he called the most brilliant of human
minds, and they must have taught him all they knew. What's to stop him from repairing himself genetically,
when he finds any part of him becoming weak, decaying?
What's to stop him from living until he's ready to
mate?"
"Why would he wait so long?"
"I don't know. I only know how humans looked to the
first geblings. The machines that let our ancestors fly,
that made pictures in the air, that chewed up forests and
spat out wheatfields. What did the wyrms see, when a
wyrms 205
new star appeared in the sky and metal birds skittered
above the surface of the world? They weren't gnats,
replacing safe and stationary wheat. They were at the
peak of the ecological system, these wynns, but we were More powerful than they. And if they were to replace
us--"
"They had to know all that we knew."
"The wheat sits there, passively waiting for its enemy
to destroy it. But the wynns knew that human beings
weren't passive. We were the most deadly competitor for
life that this world had ever seen. To overpower us, the
wynns' grandchildren not only had to be identical to
human beings--they had to excel at the things that human
beings do best. They had to know More, to be More
beautiful, More brilliant, More powerful, More dangerous.
How could a single wyrmchild, Unwyrm, hiding in
his ice cave in Skyfoot, how could he learn enough to
prepare his children?"
"An ice cave? That means he's high in the mountain,
where the glaciers are."
"Don't you understand, Angel? He couldn't defeat us
if we built machines. The wynns knew it from the start.
When they captured the Starship Captain, before they
even brought him down, they first made him destroy all
the metal that was easy to mine. But there was still
metal--I remember my ancestors who pursued it, who
mined it, who tried to build machines with it. They might
have succeeded. But always the geblings came, a flood
of geblings out of Cranning."
' 'I'm reasonably familiar with the history of the world.''
"Angel! I'm telling you what no one ever knew. I'm
telling you the why of it. I've seen the pattern in it,
remembering it all at once like this. Unwyrm sent the
geblings to stop mankind from making the machines that
would have made us irresistible. He waited all this time
206 orson scott card
to keep us weak while he gathered wisdom to himself.
He gave himself seven thousand years. And then fulfilled
his own prophecy by causing my brothers to be killed
and me to be—"
He touched her head gently, to soothe her. His hand
felt cool and loving on her forehead, on her cheek.
"River tells us that Cranning is only a week away, and
the autumn winds are strong for getting there. But we
have to go now. The winter winds will beat us back. It's
good you came to yourself today—we'll bring you to
Cranning in your right mind."
There was an artificiality in his tone as he spoke; his
heart wasn't in what he said, and she couldn't think why
he was lying to her. But that was no surprise, she could
hardly think at all. So she let it go, didn't try to discover
what it was he was concealing. "Tell Reck and Ruin that
I also know the map of Cranning."
"They know you do. You've told us much in your
sleep. We've been writing down the stories you shouted
out, and Heffiji has been storing them away here and
there. I've tried to figure out what her system is."
"She doesn't have one."
"That was my conclusion. A true dwelf. But no one
else could have done this. Unwyrm was calling all the
people who knew things. He would have called her, too,
if she had actually known anything. The only way the
knowledge could stay in the world was with someone
like Heffiji who knew nothing of any value, but could lay
her hands on everything that mattered. It's all here. All
the learning of the world. Reck and Ruin have called
geblings out of Cranning to guard the place. They're
going to glaze and shutter the windows, put on a new
roof. Whatever it takes to protect this house."
"Do the geblings accept Reck and Ruin as their king?"
Angel shrugged. "Who knows what goes on in their
wyrms | 207
minds? They say one thing, but something completely
different might be going on under the surface. The fact
remains that for the time being, these kings can't go More than a few dozen meters away from you, or they
start being driven away from Cranning by Unwyrm.
They can't exactly claim their right to lead the geblings
while they're still chained to the human Heptarch, can
they?"
"We've wasted enough time," Patience said. "Take
me to the boat."
"We'll go as far as Cranning, but no deeper into the
mountain until you're stronger."
"I wasn't sick, just crazy," Patience said. "Crazy
people can be amazingly strong."
"Is the call--any different now?"
"Only because I know who it is that's calling me."
"So he doesn't control you--"
"Or if he does, he controls me so thoroughly that I
don't know I'm controlled."
"That puts my mind at ease."
"Angel, I've become a terrible person."
"Have you?"
"If the scepter had been given to me before I knew the
things we learned here in this house, I could never have
coped with it. If I had been brought to Cranning without
understanding all the things I understand, I would have
been helpless when I faced him. I look back on all that
you and father did, all that I did and the geblings did
and--it was right, it was necessary."
"Why does that make you terrible?"
"Even Mother's death. Angel. Even that."
"Ah."
"What kind of person am I, to agree that my own
mother had to die? I have lived through that so many
208 | orson scott card
times, all my life, only this time through Father's eyes. He never forgave himself for it. Yet I forgive him."
Angel bent down and kissed her forehead. "My
Heptarch, only you are fit to rule mankind."
"What kind of person am I?"
"A wise one."
She didn't argue, though she knew it wasn't true. Wise
she was not. But strong--she was strong. She had mastered
the mindstone. There was a true self before all the
folds of her life. She knew that much, but the rest of her
self was still elusive, out of reach, out of sight. So let
Angel call her wise, she cared nothing for that. "But am
I good, Angel?"
"As Heptarch, your choice is no longer between good
and bad. Your choice is between right and wrong."
She had been his student long enough to understand
the difference, and agree that he was right. At least in her
role as Heptarch, she could no longer live by the same
moral code that others lived by. Her decisions now were
the decisions of a larger community than just herself. But
what community? "Right for whom?" she asked.
"For humankind, Heptarch."
She knew at once that he was wrong. "No. The
King's House is all the world. I am a gebling, too. All
the life that speaks, and all the life that doesn't speak, all
the life of the world except one."
"And that one wants you. But I'll die before I let him
have you. He thinks I'm too weak to save you, but I can,
and I will."
His fervor as he spoke was no pretense. Whatever lies
he was telling, this was not part of it. He did love her.
She touched his cheek. "Serve me as a free man. Angel."
"Slave or free, I serve you the same. What difference
does it make?"
"I ask you now, as a free man, to help me."
wyrms | 209
Angel gently dressed her and led her from the room.
To her surprise, the house was busy with geblings,
hundreds of them. Her room had been off limits to them,
but through the rest of the house they were busy glazing,
patching, repairing, making it whole again. Patience sat
in the common room by a scant fire, a fall of sunlight
catching her chair to help keep her warm, and watched
the ladders going up and down, moving along the walls,
the geblings scattering here and there. River's monkey
scampered underfoot--a dozen times he was kicked, nearly
stepped on, or knocked off some high perch. Always he
got up, screeched a string of unintelligible obscenities,
and bounded back into the thick of the fray. Patience
could not help but notice that Heffiji was much like the
monkey, almost frantic with delight and worry, scurrying
in and out of the house, up and down the stairs. "Don't
touch that!" she'd cry. The geblings would laugh and
mock her, but they would also obey.
In his jar on the mantlepiece. River slept. Away from
Cranwater, the world did not exist for him.
Patience found herself trying to feel the geblings' silent
communication, the speechless call of the othermind.
She remembered so clearly how it felt, when she was
each of the first few gebling kings. Yet now she felt
nothing. It was like reaching out with her hand, only to
discover that her hand had been cut off. She watched
them wistfully, grieving that she could never know them
except in the vicarious memories that came to her through
the scepter. And the geblings went about their business,
not knowing who she was, not guessing that she was the
one living human who knew what it was like to be a
gebling, who could understand the constant fellowship
that gave them their anchor in the world. How did I find
the courage to live before, when I never knew what it
was to know another person?
210 orson scott card
"Patience," whispered someone behind her/She knew
the voice, knew that Reek's hand was reaching for her
shoulder, and reached up her own hand to touch. And
yes, it was there, the soft fur of the gebling hand. For a
moment she thought that perhaps she had felt Reek's
proximity through the othermind. But no; it could only
be her instinct as an assassin, to know when a hand was
reaching for her. She could not hope ever to take part in
the gebling community.
"Reck," she said.
"We were afraid we'd carry a madwoman with us into
Cranning."
"A madwoman should stay here. After all, this is a
madhouse."
Reck laughed. "Not really. These geblings came to
rebuild Heffiji's house, to keep the learning of humankind
safe."
"How did you call them?"
"Oh, the gebling king is known. Not by face or
name--no, when they see us here they think we're just
two More geblings who were summoned and came. But
in the othermind, they know the call of the gebling
king."
"Do they come from Cranning?"
"I don't think so. We called, and the nearest geblings
heard it and passed on the call. As More and More took it
up, it got stronger, until we knew we had enough. We're
not Unwyrm. Our own call, alone, could never reach
from here to Cranning."
"It's good of you to keep this house alive."
"This house has done the impossible. It has humbled
my beloved brother Ruin. All the ideas that Heffiji has
saved here. Ruin's made a pest of himself, questioning
her, dogging her heels from answer to answer. He's
hardly known a human in his life, and for obvious reaWYRMS 211
sons he's never known any of the Wise. Now, though,
he's seen what human minds can do at their best."
"If he ever wants to know us at our worst, he has only
to take the scepter," said Patience.
"Not likely," said Reck. "We used to pity you humans
for your solitude. Well, / pitied you, and he despised
you. But now, well, he keeps telling me that
solitude is the foundation of true wisdom, that all the
brilliant thoughts in this house come as the desperate cry
of one human being to another, saying, Know me, live
with me in the world of my mind."
"It's a very poetic thought."
"I told him he's lovesick--he's fallen in love with the
human race. But you know how it is. I've never hated
humans the way he has, and so I'm not quite so impressed
when I find out that not all humans are worthless."
Reck walked to the chair on the other side of the
fire.
"It's funny," said Patience. "I kept dreaming about
houses. Different houses that I needed to take care of.
Sometimes Heffiji's house and sometimes my father's
house, and sometimes Heptagon House. Sometimes the
house where my mother was killed."
Reck looked thoughtful. There were footsteps on the
stair. Ruin padded into the room. Patience noticed at
once that he was no longer naked. He wore short trousers.
A step toward accepting human civilization.
"Why did you call me?" he asked.
Reck turned to him, beckoned him closer. There was
no one else in the room, but still it was better not to talk
too loudly, not when they were saying things that could
reveal who they were before they wanted to. "She heard
our call," said Reck.
Ruin looked at Patience, as if analyzing a strange new
212 0/tSO/V 5C07T card
herb he had just noticed on the forest floor. "The need to
come fix a very important house? And where it was?"
"I saw paths sometimes, I never knew where from or
where to. But always in the distance I could see the
house burning, and I knew I had to hurry--"
Reck shook her head. "There was nothing about fire
in our call."
"We don't even see images," added Ruin. "The
othermind isn't that precise."
But Patience was excited at the thought that she mights have experienced the gebling othermind in her own body. E She wouldn't let these small objections disprove it. "I'm
not a gebling, and my brain may translate things into
images that I can understand. I may be More of a gebling
than you think. I remember the othermind. I remember ,
feeling all the other geblings, and the map of Cranning.
And besides, I have the scepter now. Maybe that lets me
feel your call."
Reck stroked her tongue with the long nail of her
thumb. "No," she said. "Heptarchs have borne the
mindstone before, but they have never heard the call of
the king to the people."
Ruin cocked his head, studying Patience's face. "If it ;
isn't the mindstone, then perhaps Unwyrm's call has i
made her More sensitive, so she hears what no human
could hear before."
Reck raised a finger. "Remember, though. No Heptarch
has ever worn the mindstone so close to Cranning. When
the other geblings took up the call, to pass it on, perhaps
it grew strong enough for her to hear."
"It was nothing like Unwyrm's call," said Patience.
"That is so clear and powerful."
"Unwyrm is much better at it than we are. Our human
nature. It weakens us." Reck sounded a little resentful. |
"Do you wish that you had no human parent?"
wyrms | 213
Reck laughed bitterly. "Do you think the wyrms look
any prettier to us? Nobody gave us a choice of ancestors."
"I saw it," said Patience. And she told them of the
birth of the first geblings. Ruin made her slow down, tell
every detail. He listened with his eyes closed, as if by
concentrating on the sound of her choice he could conjure
up the memories that the geblings had lost forever
when they lost the mindstone of the kings.
When Patience told how the infant Unwyrm killed his
mother, Ruin nodded. "Yes, yes," he said. "It wasn't
murder. He had to eat the crystal, you see. To know all
that she knew."
"We're More discreet now," said Reck. "We're More
human. We wait until our parents die naturally. It means
we have More life on our own before becoming our
parents. But there's nothing unnatural about a child eating
its parent's memory, not on Imakulata."
Patience went on with the story, with all she could remember of the life of the first geblings. And ended
when the last of the gebling kings to bear this mindstone
found the corpse of the last living wyrm. Humans had
burned it to death.
"Of course," said Reck. "If it's strange and frightening,
kill it. The human credo."
"Humans do what they have to do," said Ruin. Reck
grinned wickedly and winked at Patience, as if to say,
See how my brother has become a humanophile! "The
wyrms did what they had to do," said Ruin. "They
knew the humans could and would kill them all, with
their machines. What do you do when the enemy is too
strong to destroy? You become the enemy."
"Oh, yes, everybody's doing what their genes tell
them to do," said Patience.
"If they hadn't chosen to mate with humans," said
214 | orson scott card
Reck, "we wouldn't exist. We can hardly condemn the
choice they made."
"But you see, Heptarch, we geblings are not what
they decided to become," said Ruin. "We're the castoffs
of the second generation, the failed experiments, the
doomed hybrids, the pitiful grotesques. Dwelfs with no
brain. Gaunts with no will. We geblings, we came close.
But not a perfect match. It's the next generation that will
be the perfect match, while we are meant to die."
"It's not as if anyone planned it," said Patience. "It's
he way life evolved here on Imakulata."
"When you put it that way," said Reck, "it makes
you want to bound up to Unwyrm and have his babies,
doesn't it?"
"With all due respect to the wisdom of our most
ancient forebears," said Ruin, "the gebling king has
decided not to go along with the plan."
"We are wyrm enough to feel the life of every other
gebling," said Reck, "and human enough to have an
individual will to survive. As far as we're concerned, the
adaptive process went far enough when it produced us
and the gaunts and dwelfs."
"We are the heirs of the wyrms," said Ruin. "Different
from humans, but enough like you to live alongside
you. The genes of the wyrms are best preserved in us.
Not in the perfect copy that Unwyrm means to make."
"We are allies in this war," said Patience. Impulsively
she slid from her chair, sat on the floor before the
fire, leaning against Reek's legs, her head resting on the
gebling's knee. "I remember living gebling lives. I want
you to survive as much as I want human beings to live."
Reck stroked her hair."! have come to know you as
I've known no other human being but one. I would regret
it if the only way to stop Unwyrm were to kill you, too."
"But you would do it," said Patience.
wyrms 215
"If there be no other way, I will."
"And if there be no other way," said Patience, "I
want you to."
She happened, as she said it, to look back to the door.
Angel stood there, his hands on the jambs on either side.
The look on Angel's face said that he had overheard their
conversation and that he would not consent to Patience's
death.
And for the first time it occurred to Patience that
Angel might have no intention of obeying her when it
came to the final battle with Unwyrm. Angel had his own
plans, and however much he might call her Heptarch, he
still thought of her as a child under his tutelage.
A chill swept over Patience as she thought. What if I
have to kill you, Angel, in order to do what I must do?
He could not have seen what she thought in the expression
of her face, but weak as she was she could not hide
the shudder. He saw it. Wordlessly he went back outside,
closing the door behind him.
If Reck and Ruin noticed the momentary byplay, they
did not comment on it. Perhaps it was because Reck felt
her shudder that she asked, "Are you strong enough to
go on?"
"What strength does it take?" asked Patience. "I'm
sane, I think, and so we can go as soon as the work here
is finished."
"Then we can go now. There's no need to wait here
for the house to be done. It will be finished whether
we're here or not. Besides, we can supervise it, in a
general sort of way, without being here at all."
Reck got up.
"Wait," said Patience. "I wanted to ask you. Will.
He was watching at the foot of my bed when I woke
up."
Reck shrugged. "Will does what he wants."
216 0/?.ww 5C07T card
"How long had he been there?"
"I don't know. Whenever I've noticed him, he was
either coming from or going to your room."
Ruin chuckled. "He's a human male, after all, and
you only came out of your boy disguise when I operated
on you. Perhaps he likes looking at you. He's been
celibate for a long time."
Patience was disconcerted for a moment, to think of
Will perhaps desiring her as a woman. Then she realized
Ruin was joking. She laughed-
"Don't laugh," said Reck. "I gave up trying to decipher
Will's mind long ago, however, so my guess is
almost worthless. He does what he wants. But I doubt he
thought of having you, Child. I've never seen him want
anything for himself. His life is nothing but service."
"A natural slave," said Ruin.
"No one could ever own him," said Reck. "He serves,
but only where he thinks service is needed. I think that
secretly he believes he's Kristos. Isn't that what the
human god is supposed to be? The servant of all?"
"I'm a Skeptic," said Patience. "I don't pay attention
to religion."
"Well, like it or not, religion pays attention to you,"
said Reck. "If you come out of this alive, you'll be
lucky if they don't claim you're the Kristos."
"She's as good a choice as anyone," said Ruin.
"Or why not you?" said Patience. "That would stand
them on their ear, to have a gebling savior."
Ruin laughed. "Why not? The goblin Kristos."
Patience laughed with him. As she did, she felt the
Cranning call strengthen within her, as if it had been
holding back, during her long madness, but had now
awakened with the sound of her laughter. Lust for Unwyrm
burned within her. She called for Sken, and Sken and
Will readied the boat that afternoon. And in the morning,
WYRMS | 217
Patience herself took River's jar from the mantlepiece.
"Wake up," she said to him.
He slowly opened his eyes, then clicked twice and
made a kissing sound. The monkey scampered into the
room almost at once, and began pumping the bellows
frantically. "About time," River said. "About bloody
time, what do you think I had them save my head for, to
watch while a bunch of goblins redecorate a dullfish
house? Get me down to the boat, and you may rest
assured that I'll remember this as the worst, the stupidest
voyage of my life!"
He scolded all the way down the hill. Only the rocking
of the boat in the water stilled him; then he sang the most
curious song to the river, a song without words, without
even much of a melody. The song of a man returned to
his body at last, the ecstasy of once again wearing his
own arms and legs, of once again being himself. River
restored to the river.
They cast off from Heffiji's ramshackle dock and sailed
north on the last of the autumn wind. Patience could feel
Unwyrm rejoicing that she was coming to him once
again. This month of waiting must have been hard for
him, not knowing what it was that kept her, not knowing
if she was injured, or had gained strength to resist him,
or had been captured. Now she was coming to him once
again, and he made her body tremble with the pleasure of
it.
VIGILANT
patience KNEW THAT THE SCENERY UPR1VER OF heffiji's
house was identical to the scenery they had already passed.
The same massive oaks, the same beech and maple, ash
and pine. But she knew More now. She was More. She
could remember some of the earliest Heptarchs as little
children, learning long catalogues of flora and fauna, all
neatly split between native and Earthborn.
Oak and maple are Earthborn, so are ash and pine.
Beech and palm and fern are native, but were named for
similar Earth species. Scrubnut, hotberry, glassfruit, and
web are native; walnut is from Earth.
Like many of her earliest ancestors, Patience now saw
clear divisions between Imakulata's native life and the
life brought in the starship, and she began to understand
the origin of the ancient enmity between humans and the
intelligent natives they despised. They were ugly, strange,
dangerous from the human point of view, while humans
and the plants they had brought with them were safe and
beautiful.
Yet Patience could also see what none of her ancestors
219
220 orson scott card
had seen. Even though she could remember the world as
it was seen by the fifth Heptarch, she had no memory of
an alien world. The forests of Imakulata, by the fifth
generation, had become exactly as they were today, almost
entirely Earthborn.
And yet not Earthborn at all. The native species had
not been replaced. They had merely put on disguises and
become, in appearance, the Earthborn plants that the
humans nurtured. What was the oak before? A little
flying bug, a worm, a seaweed, an airborne virus on a
fleck of dust? The whole world was in disguise, every
living thing pretending to be homely and comfortable for
the humans who supposed themselves masters of the
world. Everything that truly belonged to human beings
had been kidnapped, murdered, and replaced with mocks
and moles. Patience imagined she could see through the
disguise of the deer that drank at water's edge and bounded
lightly away at their noisy approach. She pictured the
secret self of an oak as a hideous, deformed baby leering
wickedly at her from the heart of the tree. Changelings, a
world of changelings, all conspiring against us, lulling us
into complacency, until the moment that they finally
begin to replace us, too.
She shuddered. And she imagined that Unwyrm whispered
to her with the desires of her body. Come to me,
come and bear my children, my children, my changelings,
we'll steal into every house in the world, you and
I, and creep to the children's beds. We'll lay our little
wyrmling into the cradle, and watch as it changes shapes
to look just like the human baby lying there. Then we'll
take the human baby, carry it outside, slit its throat and
toss it in my bag.
A thousand bags, each emptied into a garden, where
the leering oaks suck the last dregs of life from the
dessicated flesh. Patience thought she walked through the
wyrms | 221
garden, brittle bones crackling under her feet, watching
where her husband emptied another bag, then looked at
her with his tiny wyrm's head and said, "The last. That's
the last of them. There's only one human child left in all
the world." He took a living baby out of his bag, its
terrified eyes looking hopelessly up at her, and graciously
offered to let her dine.
Instead, she ran away, to a place where the ground
was soft and forgiving to her feet; to a small hut in the
forest, where she could hear a mother crooning to her
child. Here is a place we missed, she thought. A child
that lives on. I'll protect it, I'll hide it from Unwyrm,
and he'll grow up and thrive and kill the changelings--
She peered into the window and saw the baby, and he
was beautiful, his delicate fingers wrapped around his
mother's thumb, his mouth making sweet sucking motions.
Live, she said silently to the child. Live and be
strong, for you are the last.
Then the child winked at her and leered.
Angel shook her awake. "You screamed," he said.
"Sorry," she whispered. She held to the gunnel and
looked across the water at the trees. None of them seemed
any different. Her dream had been nonsense. If it looks
like an oak, if it cuts like an oak, if you can build with it
like an oak, what does it matter that it has one immense
genetic molecule, instead of many small ones? What
does it matter if the deer is only half deer, and the other
half of its bloodline is some strange creature of Imakulata?
Life is life, form is form.
Except my life. My form. That must be preserved.
Unwyrm's improved version of humanity is the death of
the old, flawed, lonely, but beautiful Earthborn people.
My people.
Come, hurry, hurry, come, spoke Unwyrm's passion.
"Look," said Angel. "River sent Ruin up the mast,
222 orson scott card
and he saw it at the last bend of the river. Skyfoot. For a
few minutes, we can see it even from the deck."
Patience got up. Despite what she'd been through on
this journey, her body still responded quickly. She was
alert and strong in a moment. My body doesn't know I'm
three hundred generations old, she thought. My body
thinks that I'm a young woman. My body still thinks I
have a future of my own.
Skyfoot was a shadow just topping the distant trees on
a long, straight stretch of river.
"If the forest weren't so tall," said Angel, "we would
have seen it a week before we reached Heffiji's house,
instead of three days after leaving it."
"It's very close," said Patience.
"Not really. Just very high. Seven kilometers from
base to ridge."
"And now hidden again."
It was too brief a glimpse, and too far away to make
out any features. But each sight of it seemed longer than
the one before. Two days later they dropped anchor in
another bend, and as the dusk hid the mountain itself, the
lights of Cranning began to dot the sky like a low-hung
galaxy.
The lights went as far from east to west as they could
see through their alley between the shores of tall timber.
That night Reck and Ruin climbed the rigging in the
darkness, to perch together on the mast and watch their
patrimony come alive with light.
River grew surly. Cranning meant nothing to him but
the end of the voyage. It was the journey that he lived
for, and each arrival was like a little death.
The next day the river began to break up into many
wide and slow-flowing streams passing among wooded
islands. "What we have here," said Angel, "is an ancient
tectonic collision of massive proportions. We are on
wyrms | 223
a plate that once was sliding down under the huge upthrust
of Skyfoot. Now the two have joined, and the
ground is stable, but once there must have been terrible
earthquakes. From here on, the land actually falls toward
the base of Skyfoot. The water from the melting glaciers
atop the mountain piles up in the sunken area, making a
lake that runs along the entire base of the mountain. The
original colonists saw it and wrote that there was nothing
like it on any habitable planet in the universe."
"So far," said Patience.
"Well, one assumes that anything that can happen
once, can and will happen again, eventually, on some
other world."
They could make out clusters of buildings on the
mountain's face now. All day Ruin clung to the mast or
sat in the bow, rapt, watching the face of the mountain as
though it were a beloved supplicant coming to him.
"He's useless to anyone," Sken complained. "We
ought to tie a rope on him and throw him overboard as an
anchor.''
Reek's reaction to the mountain was the opposite of
Ruin's. While he grew silent, she became talkative.
"I've heard the stories since I was little," she said.
"The soil and water of the ten thousand cavern mouths
of Cranning are so rich that never a stick of wood or
morsel of food has ever been imported here. The foot of
Cranning is a moist and humid rain forest. The mountain
rises through all the weathers of the world. Anything that
can live and grow anywhere in the world grows here."
She told of the kingdoms of men that had risen and
fallen on the mountain's face, some of them only three
kilometers wide, fifty meters deep, and twenty meters
high, yet with their own dialects, armies, cultures. "And
behind them all, in the deepest caverns, in utter darkness,
we geblings carry on our lives. Ten million geblings,
224 orson Scon card
More than half the geblings in the world. While men and
dwelfs and gaunts have their wars and intrigues on the
face of Skyfoot, we hold its heart. They build their
boundaries and walls, so that none can pass--but the
geblings pass, because we know all the hidden ways."
"Don't you rule on the surface, too?" asked Patience.
"When we want to," she said, smiling. "When we
decide to rule, then we rule. Everyone there knows that.
We don't have to be officious about it."
Patience felt no rapture at the sight of the mountain.
Somewhere near the top he was waiting for her, sensing
her coming closer, getting More eager for her arrival. She
found herself longing to turn the boat around, drift downstream
and never think of Cranning or the Heptarchy or
anything else again. She dreamed More often, and woke
up sweating in the night, trembling from the desire that
ruled her sleep.
One such night she got up from her bed and left the
cabin. Ruin was keeping his watch toward the bow, but
she moved quietly and if he noticed her, he did not show
any sign of it. He faced the mountain lights, now dying
out one by one as the hour grew later. She went to the
stern of the boat and curled up beside a thick rope coiled
on the deck. River was asleep in his jar, swaying gently
as the current rocked the boat. The air was cold, but she
liked the discomfort; it distracted her from the Cranning
call.
She wasn't aware of having been asleep, but when she
opened her eyes, Ruin was not at the bow. Someone
else's watch, then. Whose turn was it? There was no
light yet in the sky. Sken? Will?
She heard splashing in the water near the boat. Immediately
she became alert. She knew all about the river
pirates on the lower reaches of Cranwater; she had never
heard of any this near Skyfoot, but it was possible. She
WYRMS | 225
silently withdrew the glass blowgun from her cross and
eased herself to a sitting position. The splashing moved
along the port side of the boat, and sure enough, a hand
reached up onto the gunnel. As the other hand appeared,
the boat dipped slightly, for now it was taking the weight
of a very large man.
Then Patience relaxed a little. She knew those hands,
knew only one man that large. Will slowly lifted himself
waist-high above the gunnel. Then he swung his legs one
at a time onto the deck, stood up, and began to walk
toward the stern. He was naked. And Patience, perpetually
aroused from the passion of her unendingly erotic
dreams, gasped in spite of herself.
He froze immediately. Patience was ashamed of having
so little self-control that she would make an involuntary
sound; Will showed no shame about his nakedness.
He saw her, shook his head, and then walked toward her
a few steps before rounding the cabin wall to where his
clothes were waiting.
In the moonlight, Patience clearly saw the wide white
hairless scar tissue that formed a dimpled and puckered
cross from his navel to the root of his groin, and from
stern to stern of his hips. From the width of the scars, it
was plain he had been branded long ago, as a child. But
it was still a shock to her. Only one sect chose to
disfigure themselves with the sign of the cross in the
hidden places of their bodies. Will was a Vigilant.
He did not try to conceal it. He faced her as he pulled
on his shirt first, then his trousers. His hair still dripped
with water; he left his stockings and boots aside. In two
steps he was before her, as tall as Skyfoot from her
perspective. Then in a single swift motion he sat down
and looked in her eyes. "A Vigilant was once my master,"
he said softly.
She did not know why she was afraid of him now.
226 orson scott card
When she had served Oruc, the Vigilants were dangerous
because they paid no heed at all to law or government,
and when they spoke there was revolution in their words
and the courage of madness in their eyes. They were
dangerous because the common people believed that they
held some special power from God, and came to visit
them in their solitary huts, bringing food, clothing, and
above all, an eager audience for their sedition.
That was no risk to her now. With what the Vigilants
believed about her, she was in less danger from a Vigilant
than anyone alive.
But she was afraid.
"Vigilants don't brand their slaves," she said. "Not
against their will."
Will nodded. "I was a Vigilant, too. As a child."
"Did you renounce the vows?"
"No."
"Then you're a Vigilant still?"
"I think of my life--as a vigil. But most of the
hermits in their little huts would think I am a blasphemer.''
"And why is that?"
"Because I don't believe that Kristos will come to
unite all humans to rule the world in perfect peace and
harmony." ^
Already this morning he had said More to her than in
all the weeks before. Yet his speech was as simple as his
silence had been, as if speech or silence made no difference
to him. She could have asked him these questions at
any time, and he would have answered. "What is your
vigil, then?"
"What all vigils are--for the coming of Kristos."
"You go in circles."
"In spirals. Closer to the truth on each pass."
She thought again about what he had said, trying to
figure out the answer to the problem he had posed. Then
wyrms I 227
she realized that he was testing her, just as Father and
Angel had always tested her. She shook her head. "Just
tell me. Or don't tell me. I don't care."
"I believe that Kristos will come to unite geblings,
dwelfs, and gaunts. And humans, too, if they can humble
themselves enough."
"Vigilants don't believe that geblings have souls."
"I told you I was a blasphemer."
"And what of me?" she asked.
Will shook his head and looked down at the deck. She
studied his face, the open simplicity of his look. She had
once thought him stupid, from this visage. Now she saw
him as a man at peace with himself, open-faced not
because he was naive and trusting, but rather because he
was wise and trustworthy. A man without guile. If he did
not want to answer, he did not lie; he simply said nothing.
It was the only situation her diplomatic training had
never prepared her for: an honest man.
Finally he lifted his gaze to her face. His expression
changed again. What was it? Despair and hope, struggling
together?
"What do you hope for?" she whispered.
He did not speak. Instead, he reached out his massive
hand and brushed the backs of his fingers against her
lips. It was the gesture of obeisance to the Heptarch. She
went cold inside. Another one who had plans for her.
But then he shook his head. "It's a lie," he said.
"Once that was all I wanted for you."
"And now?"
His hand passed behind her head, covering the stubble
of the part of her hair that had been shaved, gripping her
firmly and yet without violence. He leaned his face
toward hers, kissed her on the cheek, and pressed his
cheek to hers for a long moment.
No one had ever embraced her like this. Since her
228 | orson scott card
mother died she could not remember anyone really embracing
her at all. Her control slipped away, and she
trembled. After all the pent-up yearning of the Cranning
call, she could not help but know that this was what her
body wanted. She turned her face, kissed his cheek.
And then cried out in pain.
He quickly pulled away from her, studied her face.
Could he see the terrible wave of revulsion that swept
over her body?
"I'm sorry," he murmured.
"No," she whispered, struggling to say words at all.
"No, it's Unwyrm, he forbids it, he forbids--" But
Patience did not wish to be forbidden. Impulsively she
took Will's shirt and pulled herself to him, pressed her
face against his shoulders; she felt his tentative hands
touch her back, her shoulders, and his breath was warm
in her hair.
But the longer he held her, the More agonizing the
punishment from Unwyrm. Even though she was breathing,
she felt a terrible, urgent need to breathe, as though
someone had pressed a pillow over her face. I am breathing,
she told herself, but her body panicked in spite of
her will. She pushed Will away and hurled herself down
to the deck, gasping.
"You are Kristos," Will said. "Don't you see? You're
the hero to face the wyrm in his lair. You're the one who
will save or destroy us all, man and gebling, dwelf and
gaunt."
The punishment eased, now that he wasn't touching
her. She began to breathe More calmly.
"He doesn't touch your deepest place," said Will.
"He can only force your passion, not your will. All the
Wise who went to him, they were weaker than their
passion. They had spent all their lives increasing their
understanding, building their stories of the world. Their
wyrms 229
memory, their identity, that part of the triune soul was
honed to perfection, sharper than any sword I ever carried
into battle. But when Unwyrm came, he came to their
passion. It was unfamiliar territory to them, a place they
had not conquered in their soul, and so they went to him,
thinking they had no choice."
"He made me think I couldn't breathe, even though I
was breathing."
"If you had wanted to stay in my arms," said Will,
"you would have stayed."
"I couldn't."
"If you had wanted to, completely, without any reservation
of your own, you could have stayed."
"How do you know what I can or cannot do?"
"Because he has called me, and I know the limits of
his power."
She studied him as well as she could in the moonlight.
As far as she could tell, he spoke the truth. This hulking
giant was one of the Wise? This man who had pulled on
his own plow in Reek's field, who never spoke, who had
lived as a slave and believed at least some of the doctrine
of the Vigilants--was one of the Wise?
"You and I," said Will, "we have learned the same
strength. We both grew up under strong masters, and we
both obeyed. But we learned to turn our obedience into
freedom. We learned how to choose to obey, even when
others thought we had no choice. So that even though we
gave the appearance of having no will of our own, all our
actions all our lives have been free."
She thought of Father's and Angel's tests, me rules of
protocol, the rituals of self-denial. Sometimes it was as
Will said. Sometimes she chose freely. But other times,
no. Other times she was not free at all, and chafed at the
bonds of slavery.
"Did he ever take away your breath?" she asked.
230 orson scott card
"I went into battle one day. My master was the captain
general, and his banner drew the enemy to us. I
stood between them and him, as I had always done. Only
this day, Unwynn called to me. He put terrible fear in
me, but I stood my ground. He made me so thirsty and
hungry that my head ached and my mouth went dry, but I
stood my ground. He made the need of my bladder and
bowel so great that my body released all that it held, but
I paid no attention and stood my ground. And then, as
the enemy reached me, he made me feel as if I were
suffocating. The need to breathe is the one irresistible
need, and I knew that I would not find ease from that
agony until I left the field of battle and began my trek
Cranningward."
"What did you do?"
"What you would have done. I made sure I really was
breathing, and then went ahead and did what I wanted,
regardless of the pain. I killed forty-nine men that day--
the flagbearer kept count of it--and my master offered
me my freedom."
"Did you take it?"
"How could he offer me what I already had? I was
free. As you are free. If you had not secretly doubted that
you wanted to love me, you would have had me here on
this deck."
"And would you have given yourself to me?" she
asked.
"Yes."
"Because I am Heptarch?"
"Not because you are Heptarch, but because you are
Heptarch."
"I'm not as strong as you think."
"On the contrary. You're stronger than you know."
She turned the conversation; she did not believe him,
and wanted to, and feared that if she listened any longer
wyrms 231
he would lead her to overconfidence. "You're one of the
Wise? What secrets do you know, which Heffiji could
put in her house?"
"She asked me her question, and I gave her my answer,"
said Will.
From his tone, she knew not to ask directly what the
question or the answer might have been. Instead, she
asked her own question. "What did you learn, as a
slave?"
"That no one can ever be a slave to another man."
"That is a lie."
"Then I learned a lie."
"But you believe it."
Will nodded.
"There are people who do things for fear of the lash.
There are people who do things for fear they will lose
their families or their lives. There are people bought and
sold. Are they not slaves?"
"They are slaves to their passion. Their fear rules
them. What power do you have over me if I am not
afraid of your lash? Am I your slave, if I am not afraid to
lose my family? I obey you, faithfully, completely, because
I choose to; am I your slave? And when you come
to hate me for my freedom, which is greater than yours,
and you command me to do what I will not do, then I
stand before you in disobedience. Punish me, then; I
choose to be punished. And if the punishment is More
than I am willing to accept, then I will use such force as
is necessary to stop the punishment, and no More. But
never, for a moment, have I done anything but what I
choose to do."
"Then no one is as strong as you."
"Not so. I've given my obedience to God, and use my
best judgment to carry out his purpose, when I have
some understanding of it. But those who have chosen to
232 orson scott card
give their obedience to their passion, or to their memory,
they freely choose to obey. The glutton freely overfills
his belly, the pederast feeds on innocence, and the fearful
man obeys his fear--freely."
"You make it sound as if our desires were separate
from ourselves."
"They are. And if you don't know that, then you
might well become Unwyrm's slave after all."
"I know something of the doctrine of the Vigilants."
"I am not talking about a school of doctrine. I'm
talking about the answer I gave Heffiji. The reason
Unwyrm calls to me."
Now she could ask him outright. "What question did
Heffiji ask?"
"She asked me whether dwelfs have a soul."
"Then it is theology."
"What she really was asking--and it's a question
you'd better answer before you face Unwyrm--she was
asking what part of her was herself.''
Patience studied Will's placid face. How could he
have known the question that so haunted her? "My father
taught me to listen to everything and believe nothing."
"The dead do that much," said Will.
"The dead don't listen."
"If you believe nothing, then you are listening exactly
as much as the dead."
"I'm not dead," Patience whispered.
Will smiled. "I know," he said. He reached out as if
to touch her cheek; she recoiled from him and shook her
head. So he sat back, making no effort to conceal his
disappointment, and began to teach. "Each part of the
triune soul has its desires. The passion has the desires of
pleasure and survival and the avoidance of pain. Those
who are slaves to passion are the ones we see as hedonists
or cowards or addicts or drunks, the ones we pity or
wyrms | 233
despise. And these slaves think that their passion is themselves. I want this drink. I want to breathe. Their
identity is in their needs. And to control them is easy.
You simply control their pleasure or their pain."
She smiled. "I learned this in the cradle. People who
are that easy to control, though, aren't worth controlling."
"So," he said. "They're the weakest. Are you one of
them?"
"When he calls me, I can hardly think of anything else
but the need for him. Even when I remember what he
looks like, from the gebling memories within me, even
when I should loathe him, he makes me want him, want
his children."
"You came through Tinker's Wood when he didn't
want you to."
"If he had really wanted to stop me, he could have."
"I say he couldn't. Because you long ago separated
yourself from your body's desires."
She remembered the cold breeze from the unglazed
window of her room. She nodded.
"So." He did not teach as Father did; there was no
sense of triumph when she bent before his argument. He
merely went on. "The second part of the triune soul, the
memory--it's More difficult. It has another kind of desire,
one that is born in us as surely as the need to
breathe, but because it is never satisfied, we don't know
that it exists. For a moment, between breaths, we don't
need to breathe, so we recognize the need to breathe
when it returns."
"But this one is never gone, so we never notice it."
"Yes. Yes, you see--our memory can't hold everything.
Can't hold every vision we see, every sequence of
events that happened to us, everything we read, everything
we hear about. It's too much. If we actually had to
do that, we'd be insane before we left our infancy. So we
234 orson scott card
choose. The things that are important. We remember
only what matters. And we remember it in certain orders,
in patterns that mean things together. In daytime, the sun
is up; and all daytime becomes one day, and all nighttime
becomes one night--we don't have to remember every
day to remember the idea of day. But we -don't just
remember this--we remember the why. It is daytime because the sun is up. Or the sun is up because it is
daytime. You see? We don't remember randomly. Everything
is connected by threads of cause."
"I'm not one of the Wise," said Patience. "Maybe
the Wise understand the cause of everything, but I don't."
"But that's just it, that's just where the hunger comes.
Every shred of experience that we remember comes as a
story--a series of events that are connected by the pushes
and pulls of cause. And we believe this story, of how
everything is causally connected, without questioning it.
I did this because. I did this in order to. And this is the
world we live in, this pattern of events that cause each
other. It becomes the framework by which we remember
everything. But some things come along that don't fit."
"Not just some things."
"The weak-minded never notice it, Lady Patience.
Everything fits for them, because they simply don't remember
the things that don't belong. They never happened,
the memory is gone. But for those who live in the
mind, the places that don't fit, they don't disappear.
They become a terrible hunger in the mind. Why, they
shout. Why, why, why. And you can't be content until
you know the connection. Even if it means breaking
apart all the network that existed before. Once there was
a time when mankind was locked on a single planet, and
they thought their star circled that planet, because that
was all they saw. That was the evidence of their eyes.
But there were some who looked closely, and saw that it
wyrms | 235
didn't fit, and the why pressed upon them until they had
an answer. And when it all fit, they were able to send
starships to worlds like this."
"Every child asks why," said Patience.
"But most children stop asking," said Will. "They
finally get a system that works well enough. They have
enough stories to account for everything they care about,
and anything their stories can't handle, they ignore."
"The priests say that the self is in the memory--that
we are what we remember doing."
"That's what they say."
"But I remember doing the acts of hundreds of
Heptarchs, and a few geblings, too. Are they part of
myself?"
"You see the problem as few people see it," said
Will. "The self isn't in the memory, only the story we
believe about ourselves. It can also be revised. It's constantly
being revised. We see what it was we did, and we
make up a story to account for it, and believe the story,
and think that we understand ourself."
"Except the dwelfs, who can't hold long memories in
their conscious minds."
"Yes."
"So what did you tell Heffiji--that she had no soul?"
"Only that her soul had no story. Because ourself is
something else."
She knew what he would say; it was clear to her now.
"The will, of course. It's strange, Will, that you're
named for the thing that you think is most important. Or
did you decide it was important because it was your
name?
"Will wasn't the name I was born with. I took that
name the day Reck looked at me and said, 'Who are
you?' "
236 orson scott card
"What's the desire of the will, then? You said all three |
parts of the soul had their desire." I
"The will makes only a simple choice, and it's already
made. Your whole life is nothing but acting out the
choice that defines who you really are."
"What's that?"
"The choice between good and evil."
She let him see her disappointment. "All this talk, and
we come to that?"
"I'm not talking about the choice between killing
people and not killing people, or between stealing and
not stealing. Sometimes killing a person is evil. Sometimes
killing a person is good. You know that."
"Which is why I decided not to care about good and
evil a long time ago."
"No. You decided not to care about legal and illegal."
"I decided there wasn't any absolute good and there
wasn't any absolute evil. You just said the same thing."
"No I didn't," said Will.
"You said sometimes killing is good and sometimes
it's evil."
"So. Killing isn't absolute. But now, when you go to
Unwyrm, what's wrong with doing what he wants? What's
wrong with you having his children?"
"Because I don't want to."
"Why? You know he'll give you pleasure. And your
children--they'll be human, perfectly human, only stronger
and smarter, wiser and quicker, and they'll no doubt
have a perfect connection between their minds, all of
them like Unwyrm combined with the best human traits.
You'll be the mother of the master race. The most magnificent
intelligent beings ever created. The next step in
human evolution. Why don't you desire it?"
"I don't know," she said.
"If you don't know, then at the crucial moment, when
wyrms 237
you are with him, and all your desire is for him, you still
won't know. You'll still refuse, but perhaps not with all
your strength. And it'll take all your strength to resist
him, I promise you."
"Come with me," she said. "Kill him for me."
"I'll come with you, if I can. And I'll kill him, if I
can. But I think I won't be able to. I think there's only
one person who'll ever come close enough to hurt him,
to stop him."
"Then tell me. What is it I need to know?"
"It's simple. Nothing exists except in relation to something
else. An atom is not an atom. It doesn't exist,
except in relation to other atoms. If it never responded to
anything else, it would not exist. All existence is like
that--utterly isolated pieces that only come into existence
in their interaction with other pieces. Human beings too.
We don't exist except in relation to the other events of
the world. Everything we do, everything we are depends
on our responses to other events, and other events' responses
to us,"
"I knew that."
"You didn't know that. It's so obvious that no one
knows it. If nothing you did caused any change in the
world outside, and nothing in the world outside caused
any change in you, then you wouldn't know there was a
world outside, and it wouldn't know you existed, and so
it would be meaningless to speak of your existence at all.
So your existence, all our existence, depends on every
piece, every person in the universe behaving according to
certain set patterns. The system. The order in which
everything exists. The laws that bind atoms and molecules
are very firm. They have no freedom to vary,
because as soon as they vary, they cease to be. But
life--ah, there the freedom begins. And we who think
we are intelligent, we are the freest of all. We make our
238 orson scott card
own patterns and change them as we like. We build
systems and orders and tear them down. But you'll notice
that none of our choices have any effect whatever on the
way that atoms and molecules behave. Just as we have
no idea what any particular molecule is doing, they have
no notion of what we're doing. We can't change their
order at all. We can use it, but we can't break down their
system and cause them to wink out of existence."
"I suppose that's true. We can burn wood, but the
atoms that are torn from certain molecules combine again
with others, and the system hangs together."
"Exactly. So we can't do good or evil to most of the
universe. Only to other living things. Mostly to each
other. Because the systems of human beings are ours to
control. They're every bit as real as the universe itself,
and they are what gives us our existence--but we can
manipulate them. We can change the systems that create
the terms of our life. And we do change those systems,
according to the single simple choice of our will."
"What's the choice?"
"It arises from the desire of the will. And the desire of
the will is simple. To grow."
"I don't want to grow."
"Every living thing has this same desire. Patience.
Angel touched on it, in his childish way, when he spoke
of people who own things. That's the most pathetic way
people have of growing. The way Sken makes this boat
part of herself--it makes her larger. Eating .also makes
her larger."
Patience smiled. "You're being ridiculous now."
"I'm not. Kings also make themselves larger, because
their kingdom is part of themself. Parents make themselves
larger through their children. Some few people,
though, have such a powerful hunger that they can't be
satisfied until their self includes everything alive."
WYRMS | 239
"The King's House is all the world," murmured
Patience.
"What did you say?"
"Something my father taught me."
"Oh."
"So, is it good or evil to desire to be larger?"
"Neither. It's how you choose to grow larger. The
system lives on sacrifice. No order could exist in which
every person in it received everything he desired all the
time. The system that gives us our existence depends on
people making sacrifices. I give up something I desire,
so that others can receive some of what they desire. In
turn, they give up something they want, so I can have
some of what / want. Every human society depends on
that simple principle."
As always, her mind raced ahead, trying to solve the
problem before it had to be explained to her. "So you're
saying that good people sacrifice everything, and evil
people sacrifice nothing."
"Not at all. I'm saying that good people sacrifice
anything that is necessary in order to maintain the order
that allows all others to exist, even if they have to
sacrifice their own life. While evil people manipulate and
force the sacrifice of any and every other person in order
to wholly gratify their own hunger. Do you see the
difference?"
"This is theology. Kristos was good, because he sacrificed
his life."
"Don't speak foolishly, Patience, not to me. Everybody
dies, and some have been martyrs in stupid causes.
Kristos is Kristos because we believe he sacrificed himself
for the whole world. For the largest order of all. He
would not have died for anything less. Because his self
had grown to include all the systems of mankind, and he
acted to protect them all."
240 orson scott card
"Now I see how you became a heretic."
"Of course you do. These fools who think their Kristos
will come to unite humans in perfect peace, without
including the millions of geblings, gaunts, and dwelfs--it
would not be good, because such a Kristos would be
forcing the sacrfice of half the people of the world, to
serve herself. So if Kristos is to be Kristos, she is willing
to sacrifice anything to maintain the order that gives life
to all."
"I'm no Kristos. I don't believe any of this."
Will looked sad. "Oh, you believe my story," he said.
"But you won't know that you believe it until after,
looking back. If either of us is alive then."
"It's a pretty philosophy," said Patience. "It makes
sense within itself. You'd have a sure career in the
School."
He let the insult roll off him. "When you face him,
Patience, you'll remember. A tiny part of your memory
will hold on to my story, and you'll remember who you
are, and who he is, and you'll doubt your own desires
and believe my story. You'll destroy him, even though at
that moment you'll love him More than all the world.
You'll destroy him, because you know he's evil."
"If I can destroy him, it will be to save myself."
"Yourself is the world, and all the worlds. How long
before his children, after they've replaced all other intelligent
life on this world, build starships and go out to
conquer every other world that humanity has visited?
There was once a philosopher who said that there could
never be war between the worids of different stars, because
there'd be nothing to gain. But he was a fool.
There is greatness to be gained, largeness of self, to have
every world filled with your children. It's the most powerful
urge of all life. Questions of profit or politics are
trivial beside it."
wyrms | 241
"When I face Unwyrm," said Patience, "it won't be a
grand question of good and evil. It'll be me, my body,
my wit, such as it is, against his. Nothing More."
"His house against the King's House. The prize is the
world."
"I don't want the world."
"That's why you'll have it."
She laughed in frustration. "Will, what can I do with
you? You see me larger than I am. I can never be what
you imagine me to be."
Will shook his head. "I imagine you to be a girl,
fifteen years old, sometimes frightened, always brave. I
imagine you to be unaware of your beauty, which makes
you infinitely beautiful; unaware of your power, which
makes you dangerously powerful. I have had many masters
in my life, but you are the only master I could follow
until I die."
"You see? How can I bear that? I can't be perfect."
"If / can be perfect, you can be perfect." He showed
no sign that he was aware of how boastful he sounded.
"You're perfect?" she asked.
"I made myself perfect, so I could serve you when
you came. You are skilled in all the skills of government
but one: war. I made myself perfect in that, so I could
serve you in it. My masters were all generals, but I
served each one the same--I made them all victorious."
"You? A slave?"
"A trusted slave. They all learned that when they took
my counsel, they won. I prepared myself so that you
would find me ready when you needed me."
"How did you know that we'd ever meet? There on
your farm with Reck and Ruin. What were the chances
I'd ever find you?"
"There's no chance in this. From the time I discovered
the truth of the soul, the Cranning call was always with
242 orson scott card
me. Lady Patience. Then one day we marched along a
road, from Waterkeep to Danswatch, and for a brief
moment, as we passed a hut at the north end of the
village, the call faded. And was replaced by a repulsion,
a powerful desire not to go toward Cranning. And then
we went a little way, and the Cranning call returned to
me. I knew at once that something in that house—"
"Reck and Ruin."
"I didn't know that geblings lived there. I certainly
didn't know they were the gebling king. But I knew that
whatever was there, Unwyrm feared it, and if Unwyrm
feared it, it was good, and I must ally myself with it. So
I escaped and went to Reck. With her and Ruin, the
Cranning call disappeared, so I was at peace. But that
wasn't why I went to them, and it wasn't why I stayed. I
stayed waiting for you."
"How could you possibly know that I would come
there?"
"For the same reason that I went there. Because if you
didn't, Unwyrm couldn't be defeated."
"That's not the reason."
"Nevertheless, it is the reason."
"You're too mystical for me."
"I don't think so," said Will. "I think I'm exactly
mystical enough for you."
"I liked you better when you were silent," she said.
"I know," he said. "Endure me." He reached out his
hand. With the tips of his fingers he stroked her cheek,
her hair. His fingers traveled down her body, her neck,
her shoulder, her breast, her waist. Finally he rested a
hand on her thigh. "When you want me to speak again,"
he said, "I will. As slave to master. As subject to king.
As Vigilant to Kristos. As husband to wife."
Then he leaned down and kissed her lips. Unwyrm
again filled her with revulsion at his touch, but this time
wyrms 243
she ignored it, put it behind her, and accepted the agonizing
gift he gave. When the kiss was finished, he stood
and walked across the deck to where his boots waited for
him. "Time for me to clump around," he said, "and
wake the others."
It was true. Light was coming in the east, over the
trees; the stars were fading. And the high wall of Skyfoot
rose in the northern sky, topped with eternal snow, where
Unwyrm waited for her, hungered for her. Will has told
me stories, and some of them I believe, but what will it
matter when I come to you, Unwyrm? You're the only
husband that was prophesied for me.
Even Unwyrm couldn't stop her from wishing for
Will's hand to touch her again, his lips to invite her.
After all Will's philosophy, she suspected that the only
thing he had given her that might help her at all when she
faced Unwyrm at the end would be the dream of a human
lover. She could not hold on to a mystic view of good
and evil. But she could hold on to the memory of the
touch of a living man.
She turned around, just to look downstream, just to be
turning, and happened to see River's face. His eyes were
open, gazing at her. Tears had tracked their way down
his face.
"Did we wake you?" she asked inanely.
His lips answered, silently: The river is all the life I
need.
But she knew it was a lie. For a few minutes in this
early morning, she and Will had reminded him of life.
^
STRINGS


the CLOSER THEY GOT TO SKYPOOT, THE BETTER THEY COULD
see that it wasn't a sheer cliff at all. It was steep, but a
slope nonetheless, with occasional deep ledges that were
thick with orchards or farmland. Large reaches of the
mountain were terraced for farming, while houses and
buildings clotted and clumped in towns and villages and
vast cities on the mountain's face. There were horizontal
roads high up the mount, with carts that had been built
on the mountain passing back and forth. There were
hanging platforms that were constantly rising and lowering
to carry passengers and cargos to towns hundreds of
meters above or below. The whole face of the mountain
as far and as high as they could see was a hive of
activity.
Clouds hung only a few hundred meters above them
when they came at last to the clean and seemingly bottomless
lake that fronted the mountain like an apron
many kilometers wide. Dozens of bustling harbors thrust
wharves out into the water. River muttered his commands,
and Sken worked the helm as they picked their
245
246 orson scott card
way skillfully among the boats and jetties, finding an
empty slip in the harbor River picked out for them.
To everyone's surprise, Will jumped ashore almost
before an aging portboy had finished tying their line to
the dock. Will elbowed the old man aside, then retied the
line himself.
"Why did you do that?" demanded Angel as Will
carefully stepped back into the boat. The portboy was
muttering curses behind him.
"Because this is Freetown, and if you fall in with the
jackals at the beginning you're lost."
"What do you know of it?" asked Ruin.
Will looked at him steadily for a moment, then turned
to Reck. "I've been here before," he said.
Reck raised her eyebrows.
"I had a master once who brought me here as his
bodyguard."
Patience saw that Will spoke with the same openness
that she had seen a few mornings before, when they
talked in the predawn darkness, lit only by the moon. It
was the same in daylight. He did not lie. It was impossible
not to believe that he believed what he said. Yet in all
their journey, he had not given her or anyone else the
slightest hint that he had ever been to Cranning before.
"You've been to Cranning?" asked Ruin.
"Why didn't you say so before?" demanded Angel.
Will considered a moment before he answered. "I
didn't know you'd dock right here. This is the only part
of Cranning I've visited." He smiled. "My master thought
there were some secret whores in some of the houses
higher in Freetown. Some whores who could do things that no one had ever imagined."
"Was he right?" asked Sken.
"He didn't have much imagination," said Will. "So
he was easy to satisfy." He tossed a small coin to the old
wyrms | 247
portboy, who was still wailing on the dock. The man
caught it with a quick, snakelike strike of his hand and
grinned. "Now he'll fetch us someone who has the
money to buy our boat. Instead of pretending that he's
willing to guard it for us."
From the back of the boat, they heard River's voice.
"I'm known here," he said. "I fetch a fair price."
"I daresay," said Patience. "But you didn't much
care whether we got that price, or that old portboy's
cronies."
"I can't spend it," River admitted freely. "What's
money to me? But when they steal me, they put me back
on the downstream voyage much faster."
Sken was furious. "I ought to break your jar."
"If I still had my body," River retorted, "I'd teach
you what a woman ought to do to a man."
"You were never man enough for me," said Sken.
"You were never woman enough to know a real man
when you saw one."
Their quarrel went on; the others paid no attention. In
a matter of moments, the whole hierarchy of authority
aboard the boat shifted. Sken and River, the autocrats of
the voyage, were now mere background noise. The others
simply transferred to Will the trust they had placed in
Sken. The tyranny of knowledge.
Will did not embarrass himself with authority as Sken
had done. Patience watched as he deftly took charge of
their expedition. In all these many days and weeks of
travel, he had never once asserted himself, except on that
single morning with her, when no one else could see. But
now he stepped easily and naturally into command. He
did not have to order people about or raise his voice. He
listened to questions, answered them, and made decisions
in a quiet way that admitted of no discussion. She had
seen many men who were accustomed to command; most
248 orson scott card
of them wore their authority defiantly, as if someone had
just accused them of being powerless. Will took his
authority as if he didn't have it, and so the others obeyed
him without resentment, without noticing they were subjecting
themselves to him.
If he were my husband, would he expect me to obey
him? Almost at once, she was ashamed of the thought.
For he was using his authority solely for the good of the
group. That's why he was equally content to follow and
to lead. For whether he gave the command or someone
else did, if it was a good command it should be obeyed.
And so if he were her husband, if he ordered something
that was right and good, she would do it, and have no
doubt that if she ordered what was right and good, he
would easily obey.
"You can't take your eyes off him," Angel whispered
to her.
She had no desire to tell Angel why. "He's not the
silent oaf we thought him to be."
"Don't trust him," said Angel. "He's a liar."
She could not believe that Angel would say such a
thing. "How can you hear him and see him and think he
says anything he doesn't believe?"
"All you're telling me," said Angel, "is that he's a
very good liar."
She moved away from Angel to conceal how flustered
she was. Of course Angel could be right. It hadn't occurred
to her, and it should have, that Will's openness
and honesty could be as much an illusion as her own.
After all, hadn't she schooled herself all her life to speak
so she would be believed? Couldn't he have done the
same?
Or had Angel sensed how much she was beginning to
center herself on Will? Could he be jealous of the man's
influence on her? But no. Angel had never acted out of
wyrms 249
jealousy in* his life. She had trusted Angel from her
earliest memories. If he doubted Will, it would be dangerous
for her not to doubt him, too.
Yet she couldn't doubt him. In that one night, he had
moved to the very center of the story she saw unfolding
for herself. She couldn't thrust him into the background
again. Whatever Angel thought of him. Will's abilities
were real enough, he was proving that. And she did love
him, she was sure of that--
The doubt was there, though. Now Angel stood on the
dock, talking with Will, paying no More attention to
Patience; but his words had been enough to put a doubt
in Patience's mind. Her trust of Will was no longer
complete, as it had been. And she resented Angel for it,
though she knew she ought to thank him. Trust no one,
Father had said. And she had forgotten it, with Will. But
what a fool she had been, a religious fanatic like that, a
Vigilant, and she had trusted him completely. Wait and
see. That's what she would do. Wait and see.
Will sold the boat almost at once, and for a low price.
River was included in the price--and he cursed Will for
valuing him so low. Will only laughed. "I sold you fast
to get you on the river sooner," he said. "I thought that
was all you cared for."
River clicked his tongue, and his monkey turned his
jar around to face downstream, so River couldn't see his
former owners anymore.
Speaking to Patience, Will had another explanation for
the low price. "We're better off if they think we care
nothing for money. They'll take us for rich visitors who
have come to play. In Freetown there's no official government
and no written law. But as long as they think
we're here to spend money, our lives are absolutely safe.
We could drop a purse of steel on the open street and
come back a week later and find it untouched."
250 orson scott card
"People are that honest?" asked Angel.
"The robbery is More organized. The big thieves make
sure that little thieves don't interfere with their profits.
Street crime? Just keep to the main streets, the well-
lighted streets and walkways and stairs. We'll be safe.
The thieves will be waiting for us indoors, at the gaming
tables and in the whorehouses. No one leaves with much More than the price of passage back home."
"What happens when they find out we're just passing
through?" asked Patience. "That we aren't here to lose a
fortune and then go away and tell other people what a
wonderful time we had?"
Will smiled. "We may leave some corpses behind us
when we leave. Angel told me you were good at that."
His words, his expression gave no hint that he remembered
their conversation. He was a deceiver, then, a
concealer; either he was hiding his love for her now, or
he was wearing it as a false mask then. Either way,
Angel was right--he could lie.
They called good-bye to River, who ignored them;
then they left the wharf and took rooms at an inn three
levels above the river. Patience and Angel passed as a
rich young woman and her grandfather, with Will as
bodyguard, Sken as servant, and Reck and Ruin as gebling
merchants who had traveled with them as their guides.
The surprise was Ruin. Will insisted that he dress the
part, and when he appeared on the dock bathed, brushed,
and finely attired, with his sister elegantly at his side,
Patience saw that his previous undress and uncivility
were from choice, not ignorance. Together they were
king of the geblings, and could look the part if they
needed to.
All this time that we traveled together, thought Patience,
I believed I was the only one in disguise. But we
were all in disguise, and are in disguise again. When we
wyrms 251
reach Unwyrm, if we're still together, will the last disguise
be gone, and the truth of all of us be known?
If there is any truth. Perhaps we are what we pretend
to be, taking on new identities with each change of
costume.
She knew that she, at least, would have no disguise
when she faced Unwyrm. No hiding place. No protection
but her wits and what strength she could muster. It made
her feel naked, as if everyone could see through her
clothing to the thin and white-bodied girl that Unwyrm
called.
"You must come down to the gaming tables," said
Angel.
"I have better things to do with my time," said Patience.
She sat at the window, looking out over the
harbor and the forests beyond.
"Sit and brood? Feel his fingers close in on your
heart?"
Sken piped up from the bed. "If I can bathe every
day, you can go down and play Kalika."
"Sken is right, you know. We're here pretending to be
pleasure-seekers. We therefore must seek some pleasure.
Whether it pleases us or not."
"Visit the whores for me. Angel. Do double duty."
But she left the window and walked to the mirror. Her
hair was still cropped short, and deeply marred by the
surgery. Still, the stubble was now a good two centimeters
long. "Angel," she said, "cut the rest off, will you?
To this length."
"It's not your most attractive style," said Angel.
"I may need to shed my wig somewhere along the
way. Be a good fellow." She smiled flirtatiously. Since
Angel was the one who taught her how to smile that way,
she knew he would see it as a joke. And, indeed, he
smiled. A trifle late, though. He was preoccupied. It was
252 orson scott card
harder for them to pretend to be calm when they were
here in Cranning, with Unwyrm's lair somewhere above
them.
Angel took the shears from his trunk and began to cut.
It gave her a severe look, to have her hair almost gone.
"Where is the nearest tunnel from here?" asked
Patience.
"Reck says we'd be insane to try the tunnels from
here. It would take three times as long, and there are
robbers who live in the shallow caves."
"I didn't ask if we should use the tunnels, I asked
where the nearest tunnel entrance was."
Angel sighed. "There's probably one in the back of
this place. Somewhere. Along this cliff, though, the
houses are built half on top of each other. Who knows
which ones touch the mountain face at a point where a
tunnel comes out?"
"If I could once step inside a tunnel, I'd know where
he is. I have the geblings' memory of the labyrinth. I'd
have a sense of where we're going, then."
"And what's to stop him from forcing you to go
through the tunnels? He can keep you safe enough, Lady
Patience, but we'll have no protection. I imagine he'd be
just as glad to have us all dead somewhere in the tunnels,
and bring you safe and sound—and alone—to meet him."
"If I want to step into a tunnel for a moment, Angel, I
don't see why I can't do it."
"Do you want to?"
"Yes, I think so."
"Doyow want to?"
Or was the idea coming to her from Unwyrm? She
frowned into the mirror. "Are you trying to make me
doubt everything?" she asked.
"I just want to make sure you're doing what's best."
Patience kept silent. Everyone seemed so eager to give
wyrms 253
her advice. As if the presence of Unwyrm's urging in her
mind made her incapable of making decisions on her
own. Or was her resentfulness coming from Unwyrm, in
his effort to separate her from her companions? She
wondered if she could trust her own judgment. It would
be so comfortable to concentrate on keeping Unwyrm at
bay, while letting Angel lead her up the mountain. Angel
could keep her safe. Perhaps she should have been taking
his advice all along. She thought about Will and Reck
and Ruin in the next room, and wondered if she had been
wise to take the road through Tinker's Wood after all.
They were just an added complication. Angel was enough,
with Sken to help them where brute strength was needed.
Reck and Ruin were too unpredictable—when had human
and gebling interests ever coincided? And Will—what
insanity, his religion. With Patience as deity, a love
goddess, a sacrifice; that morning on the boat was a
dream, a deception. How could she go up the mountain
with these strange people tagging along? Who knew what
they might do?
She almost suggested to Angel that they ought to leave
now, without telling the gebling king, just disappear into
the crowds. As soon as she was far enough from Reck
and Ruin, Unwyrm would repel them from Cranning
again; they could never follow her.
But she felt uneasy about that. A fleeting memory of
lips on her cheeks, fingers touching her body. Am I such
an adolescent, to be held by such meaningless stirring in
the blood? But it held her. And something else, too: the
memory of being the gebling king herself. She felt the
pressure of that, too, the sense that Cranning was herself,
that all the millions of geblings who lived their busy lives
here were her responsibility, hers to protect, hers to
command. She remembered clearly that she had ruled
here once, when only a few thousand geblings inhabited
254 orson scott card
the place. She couldn't cast aside that responsibility, not
easily, anyway. So she said nothing.
Angel set aside the shears. "Lovely," he said.
"You look like a prisoner just getting out of Glad
Hell," said Sken.
"Thank you," said Patience. "I find the style becoming,
myself." She put on her wig and became a woman
again. "What's the game of the house?"
"Actually, this is More of a show house." Angel
smoothed the back of her hair. "There's a theatre here,
with a company of gaunts. But they do have worm-and-
slither fights, and the betting gets quite intense sometimes.''
"I've never actually seen a worm-and-slither," she
said.
"Not pretty," said Sken.
"We ought to bet something, or they'll think we aren't
gamblers, and they'll worry about whether we're worth
keeping around." Angel tossed a heavy purse into the air
and caught it. Sken's gaze never left the bag.
"Still. The show sounds better. What is it?"
"I don't know. In this place, probably a scat show."
"Maybe we can look for a show somewhere else."
Angel frowned. "If you want theatre, there are better
places than Freetown."
"I'm here on business," said Patience. "So I don't
have much choice."
A knock on the door. Will stuck his head in. "We're
ready when you are."
"We're ready now," Angel answered.
There was a fair-sized crowd in the worm-and-slither
room. Angel led them to the pens first, to size up the
evening's competitors. The slithers all clung to the front
of their glass cases, colors shifting like ribbons inside
them, new arms and legs growing in various directions as
wyrms | 255
others retreated. They weren't More than five centimeters
across. "I thought they'd be bigger," said Patience.
"They will be, during the fight," said Sken. "They
starve them down to low weight for transportation. Slithers
are all pretty much the same, anyway. What matters
is the worms."
The worms were kept in swarms, as many as a dozen
to a case. They drifted slowly and aimlessly through the
water. Patience quickly lost interest in them and looked
around the gaming room.
It was strange to see how easily humans and geblings
intermingled here. There was no sense of separation, no
hint of caste. There were even a few dwelfs who were
not servants, and gaunts who might not have been prostitutes,
though it was hard to tell about that. Gaunts wouldn't
do very well in a game of chance--they'd take too many
bad bets. Surely the people here weren't so unsporting as
to steal from creatures with no resistance.
Everyone was beautiful, or at least wanted to seem so.
Dozens of thick women and paunchy men wore clothing
tailored to emphasize this sign of wealth; jowls and chins
abounded. Brocades tumbled from padded shoulders; velvets
flowed from uncontainable hips. But the gaunts who
stood here and there among the crowd made a mockery
of human attempts at beauty. The human ideal was massive
and strong for men, rounded and fertile for women;
good breeding stock, it was called, and it was high
praise. But men and women both had a way of thumping
when they walked, as if beneath their clothes they wore
bronze plate. The gaunts, on the other hand, seemed to
glide. Not ostentatiously, the way a dancer might do it,
isolating the legs from the trunk, so that the head stayed
on an even, unmoving horizontal plane. Rather they
moved like a ripple in the earth itself, as if they grew out
256 | orson scott card
of the floor like the graceful, purposeful pseudopodia of
the slithers in their cages.
When they move, their bodies are the song of the earth.
When they speak, their voices are the song of the air.
When they love, ah! the pleasures they give
Are as strong as the pulse of the sea.
So said the "Hymn to Gaunts," a half-satirical, half-
insane paean by an ancient poet who was too eccentric
for his name to be remembered or his poetry to be
forgotten.
And Father had said, Humans don't miss their machines
on Imakulata because the gaunts are almost as
obedient and far, far More beautiful.
One gaunt in particular, a young boyok, white-blond
and, though small, too tall for his weight: Patience noticed
him as he bobbed in and out of the front row of the
crowd that gathered around the current game. His hand
sometimes, and sometimes his shoulder, had a way of
brushing ever-so-gently across the crotch of a rich-looking
customer. A catamite? No--when he had their attention,
he handed them a thin paper. Selling something, then,
but something that sold better with a sexual approach.
It was inevitable: in his passage through the crowd, the
young gaunt did his brush-against-the-crotch routine to
Angel. But then Patience noticed a curious thing. Angel
acted exactly like all the others: a moment of startlement,
a look of pleasant surprise at the beauty of the gauntling,
a smile of recognition at the sight of the handbill, a look
of wistful disappointment when the boyok moved away.
To Patience, though to no one else, this clearly showed
that Angel was not surprised. For if he had really been
surprised, he would have shown no emotion at all for a
few moments, until he was certain what the encounter
wyrms 257
meant. Then he might have imitated the natural response,
but not so perfectly. Obviously, then, he had been aware
of the gauntling, but did not want anyone to notice that
he had been aware. It disturbed Patience deeply, because
no one in the gaming room would have paid the slightest
attention except Angel's traveling companions, including
her. For some reason, Angel had been aware of the
boyok, and yet did not want her to know he had been
aware.
So Patience walked over to Angel, who now was watching the slither being prepared for the next game,
and whispered, "What was he selling? The little whore
with the advertisement?"
Angel shrugged. "I dropped it somewhere--"
Patience saw the curl of paper on the floor, picked it
up. It was written in glyphs instead of alphabetics, which
explained why it was written on the single vertical strip.
The glyphs were easy ones, though, enhanced with graphic
drawings. "Lord Strings and His Wandering Wonder
Machine at the Melting Snow. Private Boxes. By Invitation
Only."
"Just a sex show," said Angel. "Nothing worth
seeing."
"You've been abroad in the world," said Patience.
"What's tedious to you might be interesting to me."
"You're only fifteen."
"With a lover," she said.
He frowned.
"Waiting for me on ice," she added. She put enough
insistence in her voice that he would know she was
serious.
His frown faded. "If you want to."
And she knew that this was what he wanted. Had he
intended her to see his deceptive response before? Or was
he planning some More indirect maneuver? For some
258 | orson scott card
reason, Angel wanted to go to the Melting Snow to see
whatever entertainment Lord Strings had prepared. As so
often before in her life, she was puzzled. What had he
seen in that little gauntling that made him decide to go?
Angel placed bets--large ones, but not large enough to
attract undue attention--on the upcoming game. He bet
on the slither by five centimeters. It was daring to give
such a wide margin, but the payoff would be so much the
greater if he happened to win. Patience had never seen
Angel gamble, though she had watched Father often
enough. She had never figured out, in Father's case,
whether he really enjoyed playing, or merely pretended
to enjoy it for diplomatic purposes.
The slither was dropped through a dekameter of open
air into the fighting tank. The shock of the air shriveled
it; once in the tank, its body immediately began to expand
as it took on nutrients from the surrounding culture.
It was a fast one; in the three seconds before the worms'
release, it More than doubled in size.
The worms were slow and stupid at first, swimming
languidly and aimlessly. The instant that the first of them
bumped into the slither, however, all of them became
purposeful and quick. They fastened to the surface of the
creature and began to eat their way in.
The slither noticed them, too, of course, and in its
eclectic fashion it considered the worms to be as welcome
a meal as any other. The slither walls grew out
around the worms, enwombing them in the semirigid gel
of its interior. The worms immediately began to twist and
corkscrew in agony as the slither's digestive fluids ate
into their bodies. Yet their writhing was not directionless.
They moved from the edge of the slither inward,
toward the yolk that included its primitive intelligence
and all its reproductive system. If they reached it, the
worms would deposit their own genetic molecules, which
WYRMS 259
would take over the slither's body and make it a device
for reproducing worms. But this slither had grown too
quickly, and its yolk was by chance quite far from the
side where all the worms had penetrated. The worms
were all dead before any had reached the yolk. However,
the nearest worm had come within four centimeters.
Angel showed no reaction at all. He just reached out
his hand in a grandfatherly way and said, "Come along,
little lady. We'd better eat before I lose everything." A
few people chuckled--it wasn't likely that anyone would
actually say such a thing unless there wasn't the remotest
possibility of bankrupting.
They ate at a place with glass walls that looked out
over the lake and forest on one side, and faced a delicate
and beautiful cliff garden on the other. The food was as
good as anything Patience had eaten in King's Hill,
though many of the fruits were dwarfed and surprisingly
tart, and the meat was flavored with liquors that she
didn't know.
And then, when dinner was over and darkness had
come. Angel made a show of inquiring where to find the Melting Snow. The master of tables cast a long and
disapproving glance toward Patience--the Melting Snow
was apparently a place where decent people, even plea-
sure-seekers in Freetown, did not take virginal girls.
Angel was unabashed.
"Why are we really going?" she finally asked him.
They walked along wooden runways that hung precariously
over rooftops and gardens three stories down. The
geblings were close behind, but not close enough to hear.
Will and Sken were too large to walk abreast of anyone;
they filed along to the rear.
"Didn't you see?" asked Angel. "The little fellow
sought us out. From the time he came into the gaming
room. As soon as he gave me the message, he left."
260 orson scott card
"What does it mean, then?"
"Gaunts have no will, Patience. They sense the desires
of the people nearest them, and try to satisfy whatever
desire is strongest. They make notoriously undependable
messengers, since they can be distracted so easily.
But this one was unwavering."
"Unwyrm?"
"It occurred to me that he would be able to keep a
gaunt focused on a single purpose."
"Then we should avoid this place."
"As I have futilely tried to tell you before, Unwyrm is
trying to get us into his lair, and we are trying to get
there. It isn't until we arrive that our purposes diverge."
It was a hopelessly stupid answer. Unwyrm wanted
Patience there, but he didn't want anyone else. Obviously,
then, the danger was not to Patience, but to everyone
who accompanied her; if Unwyrm could, he would
strip them all away so that she would come unaccompanied
into his presence.
She didn't have time to find out why Angel had said
such nonsense, however, for they arrived at the Melting
Snow and Angel at once began to arrange a table. Patience
supposed that he still thought her so childish he
could fob off a stupid answer while he kept his real
reasoning to himself. After all this time, he still underestimated
her. Or did he? Perhaps the reason for what he
was doing was obvious, and only Unwyrm's pressure
kept her from understanding. She would not notice if
Unwyrm impaired her thinking, but Angel would, and
perhaps he had already seen that her judgment was unreliable.
It frightened her, and Unwyrm's joy surged within
her.
The show was just ending as the boxmaster seated
them in a grill-fronted box overlooking the circular stage.
The boy ok from the gaming room was there, along with
wyrms 261
two tarks and an unusually tall, sad-looking gaunt with
long, grease-gray hair. They were all naked, all fragilely,
ethereally beautiful as gaunts were supposed to be. But in
the final minutes of the dance. Patience realized that this
was no mere sex show, designed to warm the couches in
the boxes around the stage. There was a story being
enacted through the dance. The sad-looking gaunt was
not even aroused. He just stood, tall and straight, yet
with his head hanging limply to one side, hair falling
unkempt across his face, as if his shoulders were suspended
by taut wires from the ceiling, but nothing held
up his head at all. The boyok was trying to reach the old
gaunt; the tarks, just as young as he, and almost as
boyish, tried to hold him back with touches and strokes
that were at once violent restraint and gentle provocation.
The boyok was aroused--the customers were paying for
it, weren't they?--but he seemed uninterested in what the
tarks were doing. Finally, as the music climaxed, the
boyok reached the old gaunt. Patience steeled herself for
some unpleasantly coarse pornographic climax, but instead
the gauntling climbed the old fellow as if he were a
tree, knelt on his shoulders--his balance was precarious
and yet he did not so much as waver--and then lifted the
old gaunt's head by the hair, until it was upright and alert
as the rest of his erect body.
Silence. The end.
The audience applauded, but not with enthusiasm. Obviously,
they had noticed what Patience had seen: that
this was not a sex show at all, but rather dance with an
erotic theme. The climax had been aesthetic, not orgasmic.
The audience was, quite properly, disappointed.
They had been cheated.
But Patience did not feel cheated. It had kindled in
her, in those few moments, a longing that defied her
self-control and brought tears to her eyes. It was not the
262 | orson scott card
sort of passion that Unwyrm put in her, not a compelling,
coercive urge. It was, rather, a melancholy longing for
something not physical at all. She wanted desperately to
have her father back again, to have him smile at her; she
longed for her mother's embrace. It was love that the
dance had aroused in her, love as the Vigilants spoke of
it: a pure need for someone else to take joy in you. And
almost without thought, she turned to look at Will, who
stood near the door at the back of the box. She saw in his
guileless face a perfect mirror of the longing that she felt;
and she rejoiced, for he was also looking at her, searching
for the same thing in her.
Then she turned back to look at the stage. The applause
had died, but still the four gaunts held their final
pose. Wasn't the show over, after all? The music was
gone; there was only silence, except for the breathing and
murmuring of the audience in their boxes and in the
cheap open seats on the floor. For a long few seconds,
the pose remained perfect. Then, slowly, the old gaunt
began to sag. The boyok pulled upward on his hair, as if
trying to hold him up, but the gaunt sank from the
shoulders, as if the boyok's weight were too much for
him.
As he sank, he turned, so that when he finally stretched
full length on the floor, propped barely on an elbow,
with the boyok supine across him, still gripping his hair
and pulling his head up, the old gaunt's face was directly
toward the box where Patience sat. Indeed, his eyes
seemed to see her, and her only, looking at her with
supplication. Yes, she said silently. This is the perfect
ending for the dance. In silence, in collapse, and yet with
the boyok's effort unabated, the head still up, the face
still skyward.
Then, as if her unspoken approval were the cue, the
lamps were snuffed out all at once. The darkness lasted
wyrms 263
only a second or two, but when the lamps were rekindled,
the stage was clear. Patience applauded, and some
in the audience joined her; most had lost interest. "I
want to meet them," said Patience. "Gaunts or not, that
was beautiful."
"I'll go get them," said Will.
"I will," said Angel.
"Then give the money to me," said Will.
"I won't be robbed," said Angel.
"I've been here before," said Will. "You're safe on
the open street, but not in the passageways of a house
like this."
Angel paused a crucial moment, then gave two purses
to Will. Patience knew that he had probably kept most of
the money anyway, but it was a compromise, and there
was no point in arguing over something stupid.
If the show had been a success, there would have been
little hope of getting even one of the gaunts up into their
boxes, not without a serious effort to bribe the boxmaster.
But since it had failed, only the two tarks had been
spoken for--a tark was a tark, after all. Both the old
gaunt and the boyok from the gaming room followed
Angel when he returned to their box.
Another, More predictable show was beginning on the
stage; Patience drew the curtain to shut out the sight of it
and muffle the sound. Will opened the candle-window all
the way, so they could see each other.
"Did you like it?" asked the old gaunt.
"Very much," said Patience.
"Yes, yes, you're the one I felt. You're the one who
needed to see the real ending. So many were disappointed,
but I felt you, stronger than any.
"How does it usually end?" asked Sken.
"Oh, with an audience like this, we usually tup each
other three ways each. Scum. No sense of art." He
264 orson scott card
smiled at Patience. "That was the best the ending has
ever been. The collapse, with my head still up--ah,
thank you, lady."
It had not occurred to Patience, though she should
have realized it. Gaunts always respond to the strongest
desire. No wonder they had pleased her so perfectly.
Unwyrm's intrusion had made all her passions so much More intense that of course she was the most dominating
person in the theatre.
Yet even though the impulse for the ending had come
from her, the execution of it was theirs. "You were
beautiful," she said.
"You don't even want a taste of Kristiano here, do
you?" said the old gaunt, pointing to the boyok. His
surprise was obvious.
"No," she said.
"Or me. But you're hot as a bitch in heat, lady. I
could feel it before you came in the building."
"Never mind," snapped Angel. Patience saw just a
flicker of movement from Will, too, as if he had been
prepared to stop the conversation even More abruptly
than Angel.
"Who are you?" Patience asked.
"Strings," he said. "Not really Lord Strings, of course.
I never heard of a gaunt being a lord, did you? Just--
Strings. And Kristiano, my dear boyok, best I ever had."
"The finest artist from ice to Cranwater," said Kristiano.
It was a slogan, of course, but the gauntling believed it.
"We travel," said Strings. "Where are you going?
We'll go with you, and perform for you every night.
Your need is very strong, and you guide us into beauty
we crave to create."
Reck and Ruin had remained silent throughout this
human entertainment. It was well known that geblings
felt contempt for the human fascination with sex. Their
wyrms 265
own couplings were informed by empathy, so that each
knew when and how the other was satisfied. They didn't
hunger, as humans did, for some relief from isolation,
for some reassurance that what one felt, the other felt.
So it was not surprising that Ruin immediately spoke
against the suggestion. "We have companions enough
for our purposes."
Angel coldly corrected him. "We have More than
enough companions, sir."
At once Strings looked a bit ill. "I really don't enjoy
disputes, if you please."
"It was a pleasure to watch you," Patience said. "But
my gebling friend is right. We're here to sample the
pleasures of Freetown, and then be on our way."
Strings laughed.
Kristiano touched her knee. "Lady, great lady, Strings
can't be deceived, not by someone whose need shouts so
clearly."
"I know where you're going," said Strings, "and I
know the way."
Will spoke softly. "Let's leave here. Now."
Patience was uncertain. Obviously this gaunt was unusually
adept at empathy. Yet how could empathy tell
him her destination? There were no words in it, no
images.
As if in answer to her question, Strings let his head
rock backward at an impossible angle, as if all the muscles
in his neck had gone slack. Then he began to
murmur, his words an incantation. "I'm not so old now
that I can forget the taste of the need like a knife in your
heart. I've tasted the hunger, the yearning to climb to the
ice where he waits, where he waits, where he waits. And
the lady he calls is the one that he waits for, he calls you More strongly than any before you, but under the layers
of pain that he sends you I feel something stronger than
266 | orson scott card
ever before. You are his enemy. You are his lover. And
I am your guide to his lovemaking chamber."
During the speech, Kristiano had almost unconsciously
begun to move, as if the words were lyrics and he the
visual music. Even in the confines of the box, the shape
and movement of the boyok's body were exquisite. He
oriented himself, perhaps instinctively, so that the light
from the candle-window played off his arms and hands,
profiled his face, and made shadows that became part of
the dance.
How can one so young be so experienced already in
the most difficult of arts? No sooner had she asked
herself the question than Patience saw an answer to it:
Kristiano was enacting the dance that Strings gave him.
Strings—and Kristiano his puppet. But that would mean
that Kristiano was responding to a gaunt as if the gaunt
were a human or gebling, with a powerful will.
"How does a gaunt put a dance into a gauntling?" she
asked.
Strings came out of his trance, looking confused.
"Dance?" Then he looked at Kristiano, as if he had been
unaware the boyok was dancing. "Not now," he said.
Kristiano at once relaxed his pose.
"You gave him a dance as you spoke to me," she
said. "How can you do it, when you have no will?"
He was preparing to lie; she could see that. But if he
was indeed Unwyrm's guide up the mountain—for the
Wise who had come before her, and now for the seventh
seventh seventh daughter—then she had to have the truth
from him, and for some reason she knew that this was
the question that mattered.
His face contorted. "Lady, you torture me with your
desire."
"Then ease yourself, and answer me."
"I am a monster among gaunts," he said.
wyrms 267
"Because you have a will, after all?"
"Because I wish I had one. I wish. I take them up the
mountain--from the time I was little I find these men and
women with the hunger on them, and I take them up the
mountain to the yellow door. It's where they want to go,
but they never come down. And you, such beauty you
gave me, do you think I can forgive you far being such a
lifegiver? Like the water down the mountain out of his
palace, a lifegiver, and I'll take you up the mountain like
all the others and you'll never come down and what am I
to do then? How are we ever to dance again, now that
we've found the audience that can bring us to life?"
Again, Kristiano danced during Strings' recitative, giving
a strangely separated life to his words.
"I'm old," said Strings. "The boyok here, he is my
child-self. What dance can I do now, except to stand and
give the others their movements around me? Not until
you came, not for years have I done anything but stand in
the middle of my dance."
"Then you are powerful," said Patience. "Enough to
control the others, anyway."
"I have no will, great lady, but I have desires, as
strong as yours are, hot as fires, cold as the bedchamber
waiting for you, and perfect, yes, I know the perfect
shapes. I desire the shape of perfection from them, and
they answer me, they follow me. Let me follow you,
lady." His eyes pled with her.
She tried to understand the pleading look he gave her.
All that he had told her was true. But something More.
She had to know even what he kept back from her. She
let the desire grow within her, pushed into the background
her desire for Will, her fear of this place; she
even subdued, for a moment, her need to rise to where
Unwyrm waited.
His face twisted. His breath came in labored heaves.
268 ) orson scott card
And then, suddenly, out of a mask of agony he spoke
again. "Don't go up the mountain, lady, he'll have you
then, all alone, there'll be no help for you."
"I'm not alone," she said.
"You will be, you will be, except for the liar, except
for his puppet, except for the wise man who went and
came back, the traitor who--"
As he spoke, Patience thought of the one man who
claimed to be Wise and who admitted he had been to
Cranning and returned. She looked at him, and so the
others did, too. Will, ready to betray her for Unwyrm's
sake.
And she would have gone on believing that, if she
hadn't glanced back at Strings just before his speech
petered out, and he went limp and collapsed on the chair,
his breath a thin whisper of exhaustion. Kristiano gasped,
and immediately felt him for a pulse; relieved that Strings
was not dead, the boyok held the old gaunt against him.
But even in the dim light. Patience had seen. Strings
had not collapsed from exhaustion. Angel's hand had
reached out, had touched the gaunt in the places that
Angel had taught her could make a man lose consciousness.
Just when Strings had said enough to incriminate
Will, but before Strings had said all he meant to say,
Angel had silenced him. Had silenced him at the moment
when all were looking at Will. She was the only one who
could have noticed. Had silenced him before Strings had
actually named a name or pointed a finger or looked at
anyone.
"You," said Angel. He was looking at Will. "You're
the one he meant. You've been here before. And I heard
you tell Patience the other morning on the boat, I heard
you tell her that you had felt the Cranning call. That you
are one of the Wise. Do you deny it?"
If she had not seen Angel's fingers at their work, she
wyrms | 269
would have believed his words. But she knew that the
traitor was Angel. Even as he accused Will, he confirmed
the truth to her. He had been a young man when
he heard the Cranning call. He came to Cranning as all
the Wise had come, no better able to resist the call than
any other. But Unwyrm needed one task performed. The
daughtering of Peace. So Angel had come back down
from the mountain, armed with the knowledge of how to
repair what had been done to Peace. Soon Unwyrm's
bride was conceived and born, and Angel then devoted
his life to bringing her up, preparing her. And finally
bringing her here. All the time, he had been in Unwyrm's
service. All the time. And my father trusted him. She
wanted to tear at him with her hands, reach in through
the soft places of his face and rip him to pieces. Never
had she felt such rage and shame as now, knowing that
all her childish love had been given to a man whose show
of affection was all a mockery. He is a pigherd, and I am
his only swine. Now he leads me to the slaughter, and I,
blind to what he truly is, love him.
Not blind now, though. And because she could hide
anything when she needed to, she let nothing of her rage
show.
Ruin was laughing at the thought of Will being one of
the Wise, but Reck was alert. Patience caught her eye
and gazed steadily at her for a moment, while Angel
continued his accusation against Will. Did she understand?
I will act, and you must watch me if you mean to
stay with me up the mountain.
Still her thoughts raced, putting everything together
now, revising all her past memories to fit the present
reality. Angel was the enemy. He had tried his best to
keep her from meeting Ruin and Reck, and now he
meant to get rid of them before she reached Unwyrm. He
was too good an assassin for her to believe the gebling
270 orson scott card
king would reach the top of the mountain alive, if Angel
were with them, and Will not there to protect them. So
Angel would not be with them.
"Will," she said. "With what has happened, you can
see that I can't trust you anymore." She hoped that he,
too, could read in her steady gaze a plea for him to
understand, to play along with her. "But I don't want
Angel to kill you."
"Not kill him!" whispered Angel.
"So I'll bind you here, and leave Sken to watch you,
and we'll bribe the boxmaster to leave you undisturbed
for the night. Don't try to follow us, or I'll kill you
myself."
Will said nothing. Did he understand?
"This is insane," said Angel. "He's a dangerous
man, and you mean to leave him alive?"
"There's no harm in him," said Reck. But she looked
confused, as if she was not sure whether to believe that
Will was a traitor or to cling to her long belief in the
man.
"We can argue later," said Patience. "Outside this
box." She glanced toward the curtain that was the only
barrier between them and the audience. "Or do we want
to be part of the show?"
Patience had Sken tie him with the cord she had worn
around her waist. It was long and strong enough to hold.
Patience carefully maneuvered herself between Angel and
Will, for fear Angel would slip a knife into him or poison
him and then apologize for having done what he thought
best. Patience wasn't sure yet how to get through this
crisis without bloodshed. But she knew that she could
trust Will, and wanted him alive. Will never took his
gaze from Patience's face; he never denied anything,
either. She hoped this meant he trusted her, too.
Every word that Angel said now, every move he made
wyrms 271
filled her with anger and dread. Hadn't she looked up to
him as the master assassin? Everything she knew of
attack and defense she had learned from him; she had
come to rely on these skills, had believed she could
defeat anyone, but now she wondered what Angel had
kept from her. She could try this, or that, but he had
taught it to her—a thrust with a needle, a dart in the
throat, a pass with the loop, he knew every move she
could make, while she could not guess what he might
have hidden from her.
Did he notice that she kept herself between him and
Will? Did he notice that she maneuvered so that he
would leave the box first, giving him no chance to
separate her from the geblings? Did he know that she no
longer trusted him? She hoped he was too worried, too
distracted by how close Strings had come to unmasking
him, to realize from her actions that she knew the truth
about him. The fact that she had even seen him silence
the gaunt was proof that he was not at his best right now.
This alone gave her a chance to defeat him, to escape.
Angel led them out into the hallway. Sken stood in the
doorway after the others passed through, watching them.
"We should take the gaunt," Angel said softly. "Even
if Unwyrm controls him, he does know the way."
"Angel," she said. "I'm so frightened. I trusted Will,
and he was Unwyrm's creature all along." She put her
arms around him, clung to him as she had when she was
little. But before her fingers could reach the places she
had to touch to render him unconscious, his fingers had
found hers. She knew, then, that he was not deceived.
That he was perfectly aware that she no longer trusted
him. She had a fleeting vision of herself, collapsing
unconscious in his arms. He would tell them she had
fainted; they would believe him. And without her there to
272 orson scott card
protect them. Reck and Ruin would not last long. It was
over.
But his fingers did not press. "I loved you," she
whispered, letting the agony of betrayal sound in her
voice.
And still he hesitated. Now her fingers found the
places; she did not hesitate. He fell at once to the floor.
"Let's go," she said to the geblings.
"What's happening?" asked Ruin.
"Angel is the traitor."
The others looked at her for a moment, uncomprehending.
"I saw him silence the old gaunt before he could name
names. It's Angel who is Unwyrm's man."
"Then we must set Will free," said Reck.
Sken turned around to go back into the box and untie
him. But just then the boxmaster appeared at one end of
the corridor. "What are you doing!" he shouted. He
could see Angel's body lying on the ground. "What have
you done! Murder! Murder!" He ran back the way he
had come.
"This is stupid," Ruin said. "He isn't even dead."
"Stupid or not, if he brings the police, and they arrest
us for questioning, they imprison humans and geblings in
separate jails, where Unwyrm can push you away while
he pulls me on," said Patience.
The boxmaster was still shouting, and soon he would
be back. They could hear the audience, too, becoming
alarmed. Patience wanted to wait for Will and Sken, but
there was no time. Ruin tugged at her arm. Reck and
Ruin led her quickly toward the far end of the corridor.
"What makes you think this is a way out?" asked
Patience as they ran. "It's right against the mountain
face."
There was a spiral stairway leading upstairs to the
actors' rooms, where the pleasures of the performance
wyrms 273
were often continued through the night, with improvisation
and audience participation. Since there was nowhere
else to go, they climbed. Patience, between the geblings,
stumbled and fell against the stairs.
"Unwyrm knows what I've just done," she said. "I
can feel it--he's trying to punish me for leaving Angel."
She tried to climb, but could hardly take a step. Unwyrm
was pounding at her; she was a storm of conflicting
passions; she could not think.
Ruin ahead of her and Reck behind, they dragged and
pushed her up the stairs. There were rows of dressing
rooms here, with naked gaunts and humans busy cleaning
themselves up from the last show or preparing for the
next. The geblings held her by the arms and led her down
the corridor. Step. Step. The movement gave her something
to concentrate on. Unwyrm's surge began to
weaken--he couldn't maintain such a powerful call for
long. Gradually her self-control returned to her, and she
began to walk faster, without the geblings' help.
"Are there windows in the dressing rooms on the
outside wall?" she asked.
"This one," said Ruin.
A naked young gaunt was glittering his crotch when
they came in and tried the window.
"It's cold out there," he said mildly.
"Lock the door, please," said Patience.
"I'm sorry," he said. "It doesn't lock."
"Pretty far down," said Ruin, looking out the window.
"And the walkway isn't very wide there. A lot
farther down if we miss."
Patience looked out the window. "Child's play," she
said. She swung out the window, hung from her hands,
and dropped. The geblings had no choice but to follow
her. Reck ended up sprawled on the walkway. "We
geblings are not wholly descended from apes," she said.
274 orson scott card
"We don't have your instincts for jumping out of
windows."
Patience didn't bother to apologize. The night was
dark, with clouds only a few meters above them, and it
was hard to see where they were going, but they broke
into a run. Suddenly Patience felt very tired. It was a
long way up the mountain. She hadn't slept since last
night on the boat; why couldn't she just go back to her
room and rest? She wanted to rest. But she shook off the
feeling; she knew where it came from. Unwyrm was not
going to make anything easy for them. As long as Angel
had been with them, Unwyrm hadn't had to put obstacles
in their way. But now, if Unwyrm was to keep the
geblings from arriving with Patience in his lair, he would
have to use other people to try to pry them from Patience.
Or kill them. Patience had no desire to face
Unwyrm alone. She knew his strength, and needed help;
if the geblings were all the help she could get, then she
certainly didn't want to lose them. She could trust no one
else. Everyone was her enemy.
They stopped at their rooms in the inn long enough for
Reck to get her bow and Ruin his knife, and to take
cloaks for the climb upward into winter. There was no
human conspiracy working against them, only Unwyrm
sensing the nearest people and arousing them against the
Heptarch's party. So there was no particular danger in
going to their rooms--only in staying for More than a
few minutes. They did not separate: the geblings stayed
with her in the room she had shared with Angel and
Sken, and she in turn went with them to theirs. Someone
knocked on their door as they were preparing to leave.
"It's probably just the innkeeper," said Reck.
"It's death," said Patience. "Unwyrm will see to it
that we meet nothing but death on our way up the
mountain."
wyrms | 275
Ruin thrust open the window. Patience climbed out.
The window hung over a thirty-meter drop. It was too
much even for her. But she had always been a good
climber, and she saw it would be easy enough to get to
the roof. "Trust your human half," she said. "You'll
need all your ape ancestry for this." She stood on the
sill, reached up to the rain gutter, and pulled herself up.
Reck followed right behind her. Ruin had barely joined
them on the roof when they heard a roaring sound.
Flames leaped out of the window of the room they had
just left.
"We'll have to be quick about this, won't we?" said
Ruin.
"Up," said Patience. They ran along the rooftop to
where a ladder connected it to the walkway of the next
level. How many kilometers to the glacier at the top of
Skyfoot? Patience didn't want to remember. She just set
her hands and feet to the ladder and climbed.
ANGEL
sken STRUGGLED TO UNTIE will, UNTIL HE SAID TO HER,
"Wouldn't it be faster to cut it?"
"Oh, now he can talk. Why didn't you say anything
before?" She sawed with her dull eating knife. "When I
was tying you, why not a word about how you were
innocent?"
"Because somebody wasn't innocent, and I didn't know
who."
A cord finally separated. "It was Angel."
"I gathered that." His hands and feet came free, once
the central knot was cut. He got to his feet quickly--he
hadn't been tied long enough to become stiff.
Just as he reached the door, the boxmaster ran by,
waving a cudgel and leading a group of highly irregular
soldiers. Certainly not the official guard, just a spur-ofthe-moment
mob gathered to serve Unwyrm's purpose.
Real soldiers would be summoned soon enough. Will
decided to make no effort to follow them. He knew
Patience and the geblings well enough not to fear for
their safety yet. And he had another matter to attend to.
277
278 | orson scott card
"Is there enough of that cord left. Lady Sken, to bind
this fellow before he wakes up?"
Sken stepped into the corridor and joined him beside
Angel's unconscious body. "They left him?"
"Unwyrm was urging them on. He doesn't let his
people have many distractions."
She prodded Angel with her toe. "Are you sure no-
body's home? He's a crafty one."
"Poke him long enough and he's bound to wake up. I
don't want his hands free when he does."
Sken tied him--Will knew from experience what an
admirable job she could do--and together they carried
the old man back into the box. Only then did Will pay
any attention to Kristiano and Strings. The old gaunt was
awake again.
"What happened to me?" asked Strings.
"Angel thought your story was getting too personal."
"Story? Oh, yes. Yes, my story. I tried to lie. I could
feel how much Angel wanted me to lie."
"But you told the truth anyway?"
"The girl. She wanted the truth More than he wanted
the lie. It was very distressing. I think I fainted."
"You were helped along."
"I knew him," said Strings. "I knew them all. But
Angel--he was a good one, a bright one. When I took
him up the mountain, there wasn't a trace of evil desire
in him."
"I couldn't even guess what a gaunt thinks is evil,"
said Sken.
"We think the same as everyone else thinks," said the
gaunt. "And like everyone else, our actions have no
relation to our opinions of good and evil. I wasn't chosen
accidently as the guide for the Wise. I'm very clever."
"Your dance was beautiful."
"Clever. Merely clever. It's the best a gaunt can hope
wyrms 279
to achieve. Yes, Krisfiano?" He tousled the hair of the
beautiful gauntling beside him. "I am the peak of gauntish
ambition. But don't grieve; we are the ultimate innocents.
We are never the cause of our own actions. It
allows us to reach a ripe old age untroubled by guilt."
Will thought he heard irony in the old gaunt's tone.
"You knew what you were leading them to?"
He shrugged eloquently. "They all wanted to go."
"I also want to go," said Will. "Will you take me?"
"He doesn't want me to take you," said Strings.
"And he makes the most urgent requests of me. I have
never denied him."
"He isn't paying attention to us right now."
Strings looked thoughtful for a moment. "You're right.
It doesn't mean anything, though. He left me alone for
ten years. And then three days ago he came to me again.
I've never hurried so fast. I was on the other side of
Cranning, playing in a decent place, a palace filled with
people of breeding and discernment. Then he made me
leave everything and come here, to take a booking like
this--I don't like working in this kind of place. The
crowd has deplorable tastes. Why do you want me to
keep talking?"
"I like the sound of your voice."
"No, you want More than that from me. You want to
know--ah. Yes. Well, how can anyone know who a gaunt really is? Am I good or evil? Can you trust me or
not? Can you tell him, Kristiano?"
Kristiano smiled. His face had the peaceful sweetness
of a saint. Or an idiot.
"How strong are your passions, man? You have the
size and strength of a horse, but that's nothing to me. It's
the dimension of your lust, your gluttony, your ambition.
You can trust me if your desires are strong and never
waver."
280 orson scott card
"In your list of desires, you mention only evil ones."
"In my experience, they're the ones with vigor. Except the fanatics. I once fell in with a Vigilant, when I
was a child. He made me whip him until he bled. And
one day such a religious fervor came over him that he
died of it. Give me the lust of the sinners before the
austerity of the holy men."
"What about your own desires?" asked Will. "You
said you have them."
"Oh, I'm a man of passion, all passion, and no achievement.
I have done shameful things. I have led my brothers
to the wyrm's maw. Unwynn isn't kind to his servants.
He doesn't stop us from regretting what we do."
"Until regret is the taste in your mouth in the morning, and the last painful noise in your ears at night."
Will and Strings looked at Angel, who was awake
now.
"I know what it is to be a gaunt," said Angel.
"Unwyrm makes gaunts of us all."
"You shut up," said Sken. "That little girl believed in
you."
Will looked at her, and at the look on his face she fell
silent.
"Except you," said Angel. "Except Will. Strings, can
you believe it? Will is one of the Wise. Only he never
came to Unwyrm. He was even here in Cranning once,
and he never came to Unwyrm."
Will shook his head. "I never felt the Cranning call
when I was here. It was only later. When I learned
enough to be worth calling."
"I can't untie you," said Strings, regretfully. "This
one is so much stronger.''
Angel sighed. "Yes, very strong. I tried, you know.
All the way from Cranning to Lord Peace, I tried to
disobey. I even tried to kill myself. And later, many
wyrms | 281
times, I wanted to warn Peace, to tell him about the
snake that he kept in his own house. But above all that
came the desire to stay with Patience, to protect her, to
bring her safely to him. I would have killed you if you
had tried to sleep with her.''
"And now? When he no longer pulls you?"
"Is he truly gone? No wonder I feel so empty. Like a
head with an empty air bladder, nothing to say and no
breath to say it. I can hardly remember who I was before.
But is he gone? I still love her."
"You tell me."
Angel smiled. "I'm an excellent liar. You can't believe
me, especially when I'm most believable. I warn
you. Kill me now. It's the only way you can trust me not
to stab you in the back."
"There's another way," said Will. "I can keep you in
front of me."
"He's gone from me," said Angel. "And I still love
Patience. I was so afraid that I wouldn't, that--she's
been my life. All I cared about. She's my child--as
surely as her father or her mother, I caused her to be
alive. / did. Unwyrm can't put knowledge in a human
brain--I had to learn it, with my own mind, to understand
it. What the Wise before me said could never be
undone, I undid. And if I discovered that I had never
cared for her, that it was all from Unwyrm, then what
was my life, who was I?" Then, to Will's surprise,
Angel began to weep. "And all the time, I hoped that I
would hate her, that when he--took her from me, when
he finally left my mind, I'd find that she was loathsome,
and I hated her, and she deserved to be betrayed."
Then his weeping overpowered his speech.
Strings nodded wisely. "That's the way it is, for us.
We know what we're doing. We know it, and we don't
want it, but we can't choose otherwise. We're very sad
creatures, actually."
282 orson scott card
Sken looked at him with surprise. "You said you felt
no guilt."
Strings sighed. "It makes people feel better when I tell
them that. But it's a lie. We remember doing everything
that we have done. We even remember wanting to do it.
How can we absolve ourselves of that?"
Kristiano began stroking Strings's forehead, his gentle
fingers making a graceful dance on the old gaunt's face.
Will wondered how it would feel, to have those fingers
touching him. And then, almost before he was aware of
having the thought, Kristiano came to him and touched
him, just as he had caressed Strings. Will felt ashamed;
Kristiano quickly moved away, cowered in a corner, hid
his face.
"I'm sorry," said Will.
"Oh, Kristiano's very sensitive. And you're very powerful."
Strings smiled. "When you want something, when
you decide something, why, it's decided, isn't it?"
Will shrugged.
"Where is she?" asked Angel.
"Gone. With the geblings. To face him."
"She can't. She doesn't understand--he's much stronger
than he's ever shown her. Stronger than the geblings,
stronger than she is. And with only three of them, his
attention won't be divided, he'll have his way with
them--"
"So," said Will. "That's why Strings is going to take
me and Sken up the mountain."
"And me. You're a Vigilant, aren't you? For God's
sake, then, let me redeem myself."
"You misunderstand the doctrine. It is Kristos who
will redeem you."
"There'll be no Kristos! Her children will be monstrous
parodies of human beings!"
"I understand that," he said. "But I'll never let you
wyrms I 283
up the mountain with us. A moment ago you asked me to
kill you. It was a good idea."
"No it wasn't," said Angel. "You need me."
"Unwyrm doesn't even need you now."
"You can't kill me. As a Vigilant, you gave up murder,
didn't you?"
"I also vowed never to let an unbeliever use my belief
against me."
"I can help!"
"Unwyrm knows all the paths into your brain. Angel.
How many years now? He has crawled through every
passage in your skull and knows secret doors you've
never found."
"Do you think so? I had my hands on her head and
neck, I was ready, I could have made her sleep. I could
have said she had fainted, and gone off with her and the
geblings, and killed them both so easily, and we would
have been free to go to him then. Patience and I--and he
wanted me to do it, he made me want to do it." He
smiled triumphantly. "I didn't. I didn't. I held on, I held
out just long enough that she could put me to sleep. It
wasn't long, Will, it wasn't a heroic resistance like yours
has been, never to succumb to him. There'll be no epic
poem about it. But Unwynr coald have won, right in
that moment, and I resisted him just long enough." His
voice became an intense whisper, a plea, a prayer. "I do
love her. Will, and even if you kill me, you have to
remember that I saved her, I did, I saved her--"
"He's stronger than he looks," said Strings.
"What do you know about it?" said Will. "All you
can feel is desire. And what he lacks is what you lack--a
will of his own."
"I know what I know," said Strings. "You tell me
I'm wrong, but you want me to speak on. Because you
do want to forgive him. I know you do, because I want
to forgive him."
284 | orson scott card
"That's his desire you're feeling."
"No," said Strings. "He wants me to kill him. And I
would, too. I have my little ways."
"What's stopping you?" said Angel.
"This one." Strings pointed at Will. "He's a monster
of compassion. He pities you."
"It's very hard to conduct a delicate bargaining session,"
said Will, "with you telling him what I really
want."
"But you want me to tell the truth. I promise you,
Will, that the minute you really want me to shut up, I
will."
Will laughed. "For years I kept my silence and no one
knew anything about me. Now my conscience has found
a voice."
Angel moved uneasily, straining at his bonds.
"Don't try to get loose," said Sken. "It won't do you
no good."
Angel slowly sat up and moved his hands out in front
of him. He was completely untied. "Fools," he said.
"There was never a cord that could hold me, when I
want not to be held."
Sken reached for her knife, but then she saw that
Angel had it. "I swear I tied him," Sken protested.
"And my knife, how did he--"
"I could kill you all," said Angel. "But you see? I
don't. Because I'm not what I was. He doesn't rule me
now. I want to go with you, to have a chance to help her.
I love her More than any of you, and I've harmed her More and must repay her More. And if we all face him
together, if we all--he won't be able to take command of
me, then. I can stand with all of you, and fight him--"
"You couldn't answer for yourself for a second," said
Will.
"I could. I'm stronger than you know."
wyrms I 285
"And so am I," said Will. As he wanted, Strings had
moved behind Angel, silently, slowly. Now, at Will's
unspoken wish, Strings flipped a loop out around Angel's
neck and drew it close. "Drop the knife," said Will.
Angel dropped the knife. Kristiano picked it up. Strings
removed his loop from around Angel's neck. Angel touched
a spot where the loop had broken his skin. "No one has
ever done that," Angel said. "No one has ever surprised
me."
"I'm a dancer," said Strings. "I'm very good at
this."
"I wasn't going to hurt anyone," said Angel. "I just
wanted you to see that I could, but chose not to."
"And I just wanted to show you that you couldn't," said Will.
"You're all insane," said Sken. "I wish I was back
on the river."
"Before you kill him," said Strings to Will, "would
you let me ask him a question?''
Will nodded.
"I led so many to him, but none of the others has ever
returned. Tell me--what did he do to the others?" His
face was eager; then, suddenly, it wasn't. He looked at
Will through tired eyes. "Can't you leave my desires
alone, even now, Will? You have made it so I don't want
to know the answer to that queston. But I know that I want to want to know. As soon as you take away this
compulsion, I'll want to know again, it will obsess me
again as it does whenever I'm undistracted. So I beg you,
give me back the desire of my heart, and let me want to
know."
But Will did not think it would be good for Strings to
know the fate of the humans he had led up the mountain.
If he was consumed with guilt, to a point where he could
not function well, he might not be able to guide Will to
Unwyrm's lair.
286 | orson scott card
"Will," whispered Strings, "if you don't let me ask
this question now, then you're no different from Unwyrm,
changing people's desires to whatever is convenient for
you."
It struck Will hard, to hear himself compared to
Unwyrm. And Strings smiled. "Tell me. Angel," he
said.
"You are sly," said Angel. "You have some tricks to
manipulate human beings, too."
"We gaunts do have a will, you know. It's weak and
not well-connected. It drys up like old cake and crumbles
into dust whenever a human or a gebling or even, disgusting
as it is, a dwelf desires something of us. But
when we're alone, we don't just sit staring into space
until another human comes. Alone, we have strength
enough to think and scheme and, sometimes, act. My
question, please, even though you don't want to tell it."
Will nodded to Angel. "I want to know, too."
"It's nothing--painful," said Angel. "He implants in
them--in us--in me. He implanted in me a seed, a virus
of some sort, I believe, that caused a crystal to grow
within my brain. That's all. Most of them he kept there
for a year or two, to give the crystal time to penetrate, to
gather memories and wisdom from every part of the
brain. Then he--took it out."
"He killed them, then," whispered Kristiano.
"No," said Angel. "No, they're humans, they're not
from Imakulata. They can live without the mindstone.
The crystal steals their memories, but it leaves them
shadows. They don't die when the crystal is gone. They
just--forget. Everything. But it's still there, the shadows
are there in their brains, and as long as they live, they
stumble now and then over some of the old information,
quite by chance. They may even find some of the pathways,
recover some of their identity. I don't know. It
wyrms | 287
doesn't kill them, though. He lets them all die a natural
death."
"Prisoners, till they die?" asked Will.
"No. Not really prisoners. They love him."
"Thank you," said Strings. "I've done evil, but not
as evil as I feared."
"Never evil," murmured Kristiano. He touched Strings's
hand. "Good heart," the boyok whispered. The old
gaunt smiled and nodded.
"You were different," said Will to Angel. "He didn't
take your mindstone."
"He needed me to go back out into the world. To
cause Patience to be born."
"What was your wisdom?" asked Will. "What was it
you studied, that made him call you?"
"I studied new life. The way young organisms grow,
from the genetic cells in the parent's body to the final
maturation of the living child."
"Not just organisms. You studied humans."
' 'All there is to know about the growth of the human
infant, fetus, embryo, egg, and sperm--I know it. I
knew it then."
"He didn't take your mindstone--but you taught him."
Angel shook his head. "No."
"Yes," said Will. "If he wanted to gather information
vital to destroying the human race, he'd have to know
what you knew."
"Oh, yes," said Angel. "But I didn't teach him. I studied him. I examined the cells he had developed
within himself. Ready to combine with the vigorous new
human genes that Patience would bring to him. He wanted
to be sure that he was ready. He wanted to know that his
offspring would do all he wanted them to do."
"And what does he want them to do?"
"Oh, I don't mean their careers, or anything like that.
288 | orson scott card
I only studied them to predict their growth patterns. He
has done marvels. His incredible genetic molecule--it
can change itself. His own body makes new hormones,
and those pass into his gametes and cause them to change.
They lack the human component as an active feature. But
they're there, anyway, though no human traits are dominant.
I was able to stimulate artificial growth, cloned life
from his sperm alone. It never lived longer than a few
minutes. I don't work miracles."
"What did you learn?"
"In those few minutes, they did what human zygotes
do in six months. It's why they died. He had jiggered
them so the individual cells reproduced at an incredible
rate. My nutrient solution was too poor for them. I
pumped it into them; they grew visibly in front of my
eyes, and then they withered and died. It frightened him.
For a moment he made me want to kill myself."
"He's sterile, then?" asked Will. "His children will
die in the womb?"
"No. Not now."
"What do you mean?"
"I told him what they needed. To grow slower, that's
what I told him first, but he said no. He wants his
children to be adults within hours, minutes--then they
can eat his mindstone, you see, and know all that he
knows, and walk out of the birthing place knowing
everything."
" He talked to you?"
"I dreamed of it. He made me desire it, too. To see
them grow so fast, and live. So I told him that his
children must have a yolk. A source of material and
energy so rich that they'll have enough to grow at that
incredible rate. He can't have as many children as he
would have, but they'll be adults within an hour. He's
afraid for them, he knows he can't protect them. So from
wyrms | 289
his own body he'll produce a very dense, very rich yolk,
which he'll implant along with his sperm--"
"In Lady Patience."
"Do you believe in God? Pray for her, Vigilant."
"So the children will be few."
"The children had better never be conceived," said
Angel. "Or they'll come down out of the mountain in an
hour, able to communicate with each other as the wyrms
always did. Not the feeble thing the geblings do. The
ancient wyrms were one self. No matter how many bodies
his mate brings forth, Unwyrm will have one child.
And if they do take over the earth, they'll be a single
entitity, knowing all things that each one knows. If any
survive at all--"
"None will," said Will.
"I'll see to that," said Sken.'Tll see to the little
monsters."
"Monsters?" said Angel. "Yes, you see to the
monsters."
"Strings," said Will. "How fast can you get us up the
mountain to Unwyrm's lair?"
"Outside Freetown, the Miserkorden have platforms
that rise most of the way. If Unwyrm doesn't try to stop
us, we could be there in twelve hours or so. If we leave
here at dawn, we'll be there by nightfall."
"You can bet the others won't have it so easy," said
Will. "It won't do to face Unwyrm unrested. Strings, is
there somewhere here that we can sleep? Just for a few
hours?"
"You've paid for this box," said Strings.
"I suppose we wouldn't be the first to stay all night."
"You'd be the first who slept." Strings smiled. Kristiano
laughed.
"Sken," said Will, "I'll stand a two-hour watch.
Then you wake for the next two."
290 | orson scott card
"I had hoped for More sleep than that," she said.
"It's all we'll get. And you, Angel--you might as
well sleep straight through. You may think you're an
invincible assassin, but I've been a soldier in my day,
and my body count is at least as high as yours."
"I told you, he isn't in me anymore."
"I just warned you in case he came back." Will
smiled.
"You mean you're not going to kill him?" asked
Sken.
"That's right," said Will.
"And will you take me with you?" asked Angel.
"I've known Unwyrm's call," said Will, "and I feel
no contempt for those who succumb to it. God has some
good purpose in mind for every soul that's born. You
have a right to try to redeem yourself. But I promise you,
I'll kill you in a moment if I see that Unwyrm has you
again."
"I know," said Angel. "I want you to."
"He does," said Strings.
"Four hours," said Will. "At dawn we'll head for the
top. We're not much of an army, but with God's help
we'll be More than Unwyrm can handle."
"How do you know God doesn't want Unwyrm to
win?" asked Angel.
"If he wins, we'll know God wanted him to." Will
smiled. "Reality is the most perfect vision of God's will.
It's discovering God's will in advance that causes all the
trouble."
"The fate of mankind is in the hands of a fanatic,"
said Angel. "As usual."
17
THE HOUSE OF THE WISE

"you SHOULD HAVE GOT More EXERCISE ON THE BOAT,"
said Ruin.
Patience could hardly speak for panting; Reck was
doing scarcely better. Only Ruin seemed tireless as they
ran along the narrow street.
Despite Ruin's greater endurance, it was Patience who
had chosen their route so far, dodging among the buildings,
climbing over roofs and scrambling up ladders and
trellises. Reck and Ruin had little experience with urban
scenery; they had no sense of where blind alleys might
lead, or what buildings could serve as inadvertent highways
to the next level. Patience, however, had spent
years climbing over, under, and through the many palaces
and public buildings of King's Hill, which in some
areas was as densely populated and overbuilt as Cranning.
The soldiers were shouting behind them, but a curve in
the road that skirted a jut in the cliff's face hid them from
the soldiers' view. Patience saw an open gate into a small
garden on the cliff side of the road. She quickly scanned
the area for possible escape routes. The garden was
291
292 | orson scott card
beside a two-story house, which led upward to a stone
retaining wall built against the cliff face. The wall no
doubt supported a road on the next level up. A sewer
pipe protruded a couple of meters below the lip of the
retaining wall; to avoid having the waste from above
pollute them, the builders on this level had connected it
to a thick masonry drainpipe that carried the wastewater
down to a collector barrel. Until now, there had always
been ladders or stairs or elevators connecting the different
levels, but apparently these two states were feuding,
and the sewer connection was the best they had seen so
far. To Patience, it looked like a highway to safety.
The problem was that during the climb they would be
hopelessly exposed. But if they hid in the garden, the
soldiers might pass them by. It would give them a few
moments until Unwyrm realized what had happened and
began to guide them back. Powerful as Unwyrm was, he
couldn't see through his minions' eyes, or even understand
their conscious thoughts. He could only shove them
in roughly the direction he wanted them to go, by making
them want desperately to go that way. It gave Patience
some time, some room to maneuver; it was the only
reason Reck and Ruin had not yet been killed, or Patience
separated from them.
All this thought took only a moment; Patience drew
the other two through the garden gate. It had been open
slightly, jammed in place by debris and built-up dirt that
showed that the owner never moved it. Patience left it
undisturbed. She had the other two move well into the
garden, behind some barrels, out of sight. She waited
near the entrance, her loop in hand. Only one person at a
time could get through the gate. With luck, though, no
one would try.
They heard the soldiers run by. Their captain was
shouting orders to them. Then there was silence, except
wyrms | 293
for their distant running footsteps as they ran farther and
farther away.
Patience turned to leave the gate and join the geblings,
but Ruin was waving to her frantically: get back, get
back. She turned around just as a soldier, his sword
leading, stepped through the gate. It was a reflex, with
no thought at all, to lariat his head with the loop and snap
it tight. By chance the loop fell right where cartilage
connected two vertebrae of his neck; the force and speed
of her attack were so great that the loop gave only a
moment's hesitation in cutting right through the spine.
The man's head twisted and spun off his shoulders; both
his own forward movement and the pull of the loop made
the head tumble toward her, striking her chin and rolling
down across her chest.
Angel said I couldn't do this, she thought. Said I
couldn't cut off a man's head with a single pass of the
loop.
And at the same time, she thought: The blood will
never wash out of this gown.
The soldier's body still stumbled forward, his arms
reaching out to break his fall. Then the last instructions
of the head to the body were exhausted; the body collapsed.
Patience quickly dragged the body inside the gate,
where it couldn't be seen from outside. Then she put the
head back on the neck and propped it in place with rocks
and a small keg. Let them not see at once that he was
dead. It might be a useless gesture, but Angel had taught
her to do that, since it usually bought More time than it
cost; and because the person who discovered the body
was the one whose action would make the head separate
from the neck, it was all the More horrifying--and therefore
demoralizing.
Ruin and Reck had already guessed the next move,
and were climbing up to the roof of the house. After
294 | orson scott card
climbing dozens of similar buildings this morning, they
had mastered the basic routine. They stayed behind chimneys
and did their best to be invisible from the street.
Patience quickly joined them--she was a More practiced
climber than either of them. In moments she was leading
the way again.
There was a boy, about ten years old, working on the
roof. He had a hammer, which he had been using to
repair shingles. At the moment, however, he had a murderous
glint in his eye. Unwynn was in him, and all he
wanted was to use his hammer to stop them. Patience
knew she could get by him; already his gaze went past
her, as he looked with loathing on the geblings behind
her.
"I don't want to kill you," said Patience.
"Go back," he said to the geblings. "Go back, you
filth!"
Behind her, Reck fitted an arrow to her bow.
"He's a child!" Patience shouted. "He can't help
himself!"
"Neither can I," said Reck.
Before Reck could get off a shot, Patience kicked out,
catching the boy in the belly and knocking the wind out
of him. He fell back against the stone wall of the cliff
face behind him. He didn't drop the hammer. So she had
to do it again, and this time she could feel ribs break.
"Live!" she shouted at the boy. "Live and forgive me!"
Then she ran on, leading the geblings to the base of the
sewer line.
"All Unwyrm needs to do to defeat you is send an
army of children," said Ruin. "Save your compassion
for a time when we're not fighting to survive."
"Shut up. Ruin," said Reck. Then she pushed on the
sewer pipe. It wobbled. "We're supposed to climb this? It's pottery. It'll break."
WYRMS | 295
"The frame is wooden," said Patience. "And there
are gaps in the stone wall. Easy." She proved it by
climbing up beside the sewer pipe, using only the crevices
in the stonework. Reck and Ruin scrambled up
behind her.
Shouts below; the soldiers had come back, and Patience
and the geblings were clearly visible now. There
was no possibility of hiding; they were as visible as
roaches on a whitewashed wall, and could not scurry
nearly as fast. Patience knew the only escape was to
climb as quickly as possible, getting higher and harder to
hit before the soldiers came within bowshot.
"Maybe I could get some from here," Reck said. The
gebling woman was obviously frustrated at not having
been able to use her weapon all day.
"If you killed five, there'd still be fifteen shooting at
us," said Patience.
She reached the place where the sewer pipe stuck out
from the stone wall. Unfortunately, the wall was newer
here; it had not weathered as many years, and there were
no crevices to which she could trust her weight. Using
the last of the cracks below the sewer line, she was able
to get up on top of the pipe. It was a precarious balance,
not helped at all by the fact that the pipe was not firmly
cemented in place; it wiggled slightly. Her face pressed
against the stone, she carefully raised her arms above her
head.
It occurred to her that if she really wanted to thwart
Unwyrm, she had only to lean backward just a little, and
it would be over. But as soon as she felt that desire, she
was filled with a desperate urge to survive. Her fingers
touched the top of the wall, with a few inches to spare.
The stones were firm; she began to lift herself. It was
harder than hoisting herself onto a tree branch; she couldn't
swing front-to-back in order to give herself momentum.
296 | orson scott card
But slowly, with growing pain in her arms, she was able
to lift herself till the wall was at waist height; then she toppled over to safety beyond the wall.
On this side, the road was half a meter below the level
of the wall, so that the wall formed a sturdy curb to keep
carts from toppling over the edge. Almost as soon as she
was behind the wall, the arrows started flying from below.
Of course Unwyrm hadn't been willing to let anyone
shoot when there was a chance of hurting her. Now,
though, only the geblings clung to the wall, high and
difficult to shoot, but open targets nonetheless. A chance
arrow was bound to hit one of them sooner or later.
"I can't reach!" shouted Ruin.
Of course. The shorter geblings couldn't possibly climb
as she had done. And she doubted she had the strength
left in her arms to reach over and pull him up.
At the same moment, Unwyrm increased the urgency
of the Cranning call. Leave them. She felt a sudden
revulsion for the geblings. Filthy creatures, hairy and
crude, imitating human beings but planning only to betray
and kill her. It took all her strength not to do as she
desired, to run from the wall and proceed alone to where
Unwyrm waited, her lover, her friend.
She clung to the memory of Will's voice, telling her
that her desires were not herself. She pictured the passions
that Unwyrm sent as though they stood outside her,
while her passionless self remained inside the machine of
her body, making it do what it so desperately desired not
to do.
She pulled her gown off over her head and knotted it
to her cloak. Then, clad only in her chemise, with a cold
wind whipping along the road, she sat with her feet
braced against the wall, passed the cloak behind her
back, and flipped the gown over the wall. She held the
knot in her left hand, the other end of the cloak in her
wyrms | 297
right; the friction of the cloth against her back would
allow her to support far More weight on the gown than
her arms could have managed alone.
"I'm supposed to climb this?" shouted Ruin.
"Unless you can fly!" she shouted back. Unwyrm
raged at her, tore at her in her mind, but she held, despite
the impulse to let go, to let the gebling fall. I will do
what I decide to do, she said silently, not what I want to
do, and she felt the emotional part of herself become
smaller, recede as if it were rushing away from her. This
is Will, she realized. This is his silence, his strength, his
wisdom, that he can send away all his feelings when he
doesn't want them.
The cloth of the gown gave and tore slightly, then More , but in a moment Ruin scrambled over the wall.
Then he leaned over and shouted encouragement to Reck.
Suddenly there was a cry from the other side.
"She's hit," said Ruin. He shouted, "It's nothing, it
barely hurt you, come on, come on!"
From the weight on the makeshft ladder. Patience
knew that Reck was climbing now. Ruin leaned over,
caught his sister under the arm, and helped pull her up.
The arrow protruded from her left thigh, but Ruin was
right--the head had not buried itself, and he easily pulled
it out. Reck was gasping, her eyes wide with terror.
"Never," she said. "I could never stand heights."
"And you think of Cranning as home?" asked Patience.
She was examining her gown. It was shredded
where it had scraped on the wall. It pulled apart in her
hands. "I'm glad there aren't three of you. The third one
would have fallen."
She unknotted the cloak from the gown. A spent arrow
dropped beside her. She flipped it back over the wall.
"Hope it lands in someone's eye."
298 I orson scott card
Ruin was looking at her. Studying her. "Why didn't
you go off and leave us?"
"I thought of it," she said.
"I know--we get the shadow of what he says to you."
"Well, if I'm going to be a bride, I need a wedding
party. Have to have you along." It was a bitter joke. She
wrapped the cloak around her waist to protect her legs
from the cold wind that whistled down the unprotected
road. "I also need a warm fire."
"At least we don't have to run for a few moments."
Reck tried out her injured leg. "Hurts," she said.
Ruin looked around. "If we find the right herb--"
"They say everything that grows anywhere grows in
Cranning," said Reck.
"Somewhere in Cranning," said Ruin.
"There are trees that way," said Patience. "And if
we're lucky, we won't run into anybody that Unwyrm
can set to chasing us."
The houses, which were several streets deep for a
while, thinned out and finally gave way to gardens and
orchards. Soon they found themselves on a road that led
along the rim of a large flat orchard area. The trees were
stunted, for only dwarf trees could live at such an altitude.
Ruin wandered among the trees, which had long
since lost leaf and fruit; finally he called to Reck and
jammed a furry leaf against her wound.
"We can't rest here for long," Reck said, holding the
leaf in place. "He'll have someone after us soon."
"I've never worked so hard in my life," said Patience.
"And I'm so tired."
"We haven't slept since we left the boat," said Ruin.
"But Unwyrm couldn't be happier. We've got to sleep
sometime."
"Now," said Patience.
wyrms 299
"Not now," said Reck. "We have to get higher.
Where there's no human or gebling to send after us."
Patience could see heavy clouds moving in from the
west, at their level. "There'll be fog. We can hide in the
fog."
"It won't be fog, it'll be snow," said Ruin. "We need
shelter. And we need to get higher.''
"Can't we use the tunnels yet?" asked Patience. Tunnels
would be shelter and a passage to Unwyrm that they
could follow easily.
"Oh, yes, of course," said Reck. "But the entrances
are pretty rare up this high. We're nearly at the top of the
inhabited area now. We'll just have to find another way
up."
The herb acted quickly, taking away enough of Reek's
pain that she could keep up, though she kept losing blood
in a thin trickle as a scab formed and broke, formed and
broke. Finally they found a stairway along the surface of
the steep and polished wall that led up to the next level.
The gate at the bottom was wide open. The gate at the
top was less cooperative.
"They could at least have had the decency to lock the
gate at the bottom, too," said Reck.
But Patience had been trained as a diplomat, and
among his other lessons. Angel had taught her that a
simple lock like this meant that the owner wasn't really
serious about wanting privacy. Using a short stick and a
dart, she had it open in a few moments.
They emerged in another garden, this time without
trees. Behind the garden Skyfoot rose steeply again. This
time, however, it was no polished wall. It was the raw
mountain, with a few caverns yawning in its face. They
had not seen natural rock like this since they reached
Cranning. It looked as though no human hand had ever
cut into it.
300 | orson scott card
"Is this the top?" asked Patience.
Reck shook her head. "The top is a glacier, but the
city may not go any higher than this. At this point,
anyway."
"Do you know where we are?"
"I would if I could stand in that cave," said Ruin.
They began to trot toward it, between two low hedges
that seemed to lead in that general direction. Then the
clouds moved in, and a few seconds later they couldn't
see at all.
They stopped at once and touched each other, held
hands so they wouldn't be separated.
"You're cold, Heptarch," said Reck. "You're
trembling."
"She doesn't have fur," said Ruin. "We'll have to
hold her until the cloud passes."
"He doesn't want me to wait," murmured Patience.
"He's waited so long already."
They lay on the ground. Reck in front of her, Ruin
behind, shielding her as best they could from the snow
that now fell heavily from within the cloud.
"Are you all right?" Reck asked her once.
"All I can think about," said Patience, trembling, "is
how much I want him." Then she laughed slightly. "All
I can think about is sleep."
They held her tighter, and in the warmth of the geblings'
embrace she slept.
The cloud was gone and the stars were out, but the
snow half-covered them and the air was thin. Reck felt
the wound in her thigh throbbing. The pain was not
intense, but it had been enough to wake her. Reck felt no
breath on her back from the human girl that slept behind
her. She called her brother silently.
Ruin opened one eye and looked at her.
wyrms | 301
"How is she?" Reek whispered.
"She's weak. But then, I think he wants her weak."
"The caves won't help much. They're colder than
outside."
"Stand up and see if there are any lights," said Ruin.
"I'll hold her."
Reck pulled herself away from the sleeping human.
There were some lights twinkling far away. A long walk
in the darkness.
"A long way," said Reck. "But we can't go for help.
So we'll have to take her, cold as it is." Reck knelt and
stroked Patience's cold bare arm, then shook her lightly.
"She won't wake up."
As if in answer. Reck suddenly felt what she had not
felt in all the time they had been with Patience: the
repulsion of Unwyrm. But here, so close to his lair, it
came with such power that she could not breathe. She
cried out with the pain of it. "We're too close to him!"
she cried. With Patience asleep, Unwyrm could focus on
them, on pushing them away.
"Wake her!" Ruin gasped.
Reck hardly heard him. She could hardly think of
anything at all now except her urgent need to run to the
wall of the garden and throw herself over the cliff,
downward, all the way through the air down to the water
at the base of Skyfoot, to sink into Cranwater. She got up and started staggering toward the wall.
"No!" screamed Ruin. He clutched at her feet. Strong
as the repulsion was, he was More practiced at resisting
it; her wound had weakened her a little, too, and so he
held on to her. "Wake up, damn you!" he screamed at
Patience. "Wake up, so he'll have to call you again!"
In answer, Patience began to tremble from the cold.
She whimpered. She called her father softly. She did not
wake up.
302 orson Scorr card
"Let go of me!" shouted Reck. "Let me fly!"
"He's trying to kill us!" cried Ruin, though he, too,
felt the need to leap.
"What is it!" called someone in the distance.
"Where are you, ta-dee, ta-doo!" sang someone else.
"It's kickety cold!" cried someone else. Obviously
the group was in a good mood, whoever they were.
"Here!" shouted Ruin. "Help!"
"Let go of me!" cried Reck.
The would-be rescuers bounded up to them. Ruin saw
only that they were humans. "Let go of her!" said one
of them. "Help him," said another.
They were old, and they sounded either drunk or
stupid. Ruin doubted they could hold Reck if she wanted
to get away. There was only one hope. "Wake up the
one that's lying there! She's lying there, the girl in the
snow—wake her up!"
"Look at this! She's not very warmly dressed—"
"In the snow—that's not very wise."
"Good thing we came. We know what's what."
They pulled Patience upright.
"Slap her!" Ruin shouted.
He heard several slaps. Then the sound of Patience
crying. "Stop it," she said.
And suddenly the need to die faded. Reck stopped
struggling.
"Take this frozen young thing into the house—"
"No," said Ruin. "Not without us! Keep her near
us—"
"Do we want geblings?"
"Oh, they're quite all right. This is a gebling city,
after all. Very nice geblings."
"Yes. Keep us together," said Ruin.
Many hands lifted him, helped him stand. They were
carrying Reck, who was too exhausted to walk. Patience
wyrms I 303
walked ahead of them, murmuring, "I'm coming, I'm
coming, this isn't the way--"
"Of course it's the way. We know the way, don't we?
Isn't this the way?"
Fires at both ends of the long, low room kept it almost
hot. Ruin and Reck sat on either side of Patience, holding
her hands as they faced the fire. The old men surrounded
them, commenting inanely.
Patience tried to ignore them. She was worried about
how they could go on from here. The snowstorm was
none of Unwyrm's doing, of course. But he had been
able to use it well enough. And now she was afraid to
sleep, for fear that Reck and Ruin could be made to kill
themselves or run away while she wasn't there to protect
them. It was so complicated--they needed her to protect
them so they could get to Unwyrm; she needed them to
kill Unwyrm before he could mate with her. And Unwyrm
was too strong, they were no match for him. No one was
a match for him.
"No," said Reck.
"Is he doing it to you, too?" asked Ruin.
"Despair. We can't do it," said Reck.
Patience nodded.
The old men changed their babbling a little. "What are these little ones talking about? Buck up, children, don't
despair. This is a happy place, don't look so mournful.
Maybe a song, what?"
A few of the old men began a song, but since no one
could remember the lyrics, it soon petered out.
"We need Will," said Reck.
"What for?" asked Ruin. "There's nothing to plow
here, and Angel's the only one of our party who's been
this high before."
"We need him," said Reck again.
304 I orson scott card
It was Patience who told him why. "We've been
blown by the wind that Unwyrm can blow, and it's too
much weather for us. We need the man who has never
bowed to Unwyrm."
"Unwyrm!" shouted one old man, and the others took
up the cry. "Unwyrm! Unwyrm!"
Patience had been trying to ignore the old men till
now. "You know about him?"
"Oh, we're old friends!"
"We came here to visit him, and he lets us stay as
long as we like."
"No one ever goes home."
"Till they die, of course. Lots've done that."
"We all will, you know."
"Did Unwyrm invite you, too?"
Bald and gray and white-haired heads bobbed up and
down around them. Like little children, they could hardly
stand still. Their obvious senility had lulled Patience.
Now she began to remember that she had followed a path
that others had walked before. "Yes," she said. "Un-
wyrm invited us. But we got lost in the snow. Can you
tell us where he is?"
"Behind the golden door," said one. The others nodded
solemnly. "But you can't go all at once. Only one at
a time."
"He wants us all at once,'' said Recl^;
"Liar liar," said one of the men.
Patience glared at Reck, as if to tell her, I'm the
diplomat and you're the recluse. Leave this to me. But in
fact Patience had no idea how to deal with these men.
They seemed harmless enough. Still, they knew Unwyrm
and Unwyrm knew them, and they might have strength
enough to make things difficult.
"Right now we have to rest," said Patience.
"No tricks," said the youngest of them, a man whose
wyrms 305
hair had not yet turned white, though his plump face was
sagging badly.
"You," said Patience, "sir, could I know your name?"
"Trades," said the man. "You tell us first."
"My name is Patience," she said.
"Patience, you shouldn't walk around with such thin
clothing in snowstorms." Then he giggled as if his advice
had been a masterpiece of wit.
"And your name."
"I cheated," he said. "I don't have a name."
"I thought you said no tricks."
He looked crestfallen. "But Unwyrm took our names
and he won't give them back."
Patience wasn't sure what game they were playing, but
she tried to play along anyway. "You must be very
angry, then, to have lost your name."
"Oh, no."
"Not at all."
"Who needs a name?"
"We're very happy."
"We have everything we need."
"Cause we don't need anything." This last was said
by the youngest one. He was nodding wisely, like a
child. But his eyes were no child's eyes. They were
heavy with sadness and loss.
It occurred to Patience that these men, for all their
cheerful babbling, might indeed be trying to communicate.
We have everything we need because we don't need
anything. Therefore we have nothing. She began to pry,
as delicately as she could.
"What other good things has Unwyrm done for you?"
she asked.
"Oh, he takes away our worries."
"We never worry about a thing--"
Suddenly Ruin interrupted. "Makes me sick," he said.
306 | orson scott card ,
The men fell silent.
Patience looked at him and smiled with murder in her
eyes. "Maybe Unwyrm will help you feel better for the
next few minutes, so you won't feel obliged to say
anything."
Ruin got the hint and returned to glowering at the fire.
"What did he do with your worries?" asked Patience.
"Took them all away."
"Took them out of our heads."
"Put them into his own head."
"No More worries about ..." But he didn't finish his
sentence. They all waited stupidly for someone else to
speak.
"What did you worry about?" asked Patience.
"Old bones," said one. "But I'm very sleepy."
"Got to sleep," said another.
"Oh my. About to yawn."
"Goodnight."
The youngest man also yawned, but he leaned close to
Patience, smiled, and whispered, "The capacity of long
genetic molecules to carry intelligence." Then he smiled
and toppled to the floor.
All the old men lay in heaps on the floor, snoring.
"The Wise," said Patience.
"Funny," said Reck.
"I'm not joking. These are the Wise. The ones that
Unwyrm called, who stopped at Heffiji's house to answer
her questions. Unwyrm ate out the kernel of their minds,
and these are the husks he threw away."
She knelt by the man who had made the effort to tell
her what he really was. "I know you now," she said
softly. "We've come to give you back what he's taken,
if we can."
"Why would he do this?" asked Reck.
"Gathering all the knowledge of the human species, so
wyrms 307
he could replace it, mind and body both," Ruin held his
hands between his legs to warm them. "What I don't
understand is why he left them alive."
"These can't be all the Wise in the world," said Reck.
"Unwyrm's call began sixty years ago," answered
Patience. "These must be the ones who were young,
who were brought most recently. Even they will die
soon, and if it weren't for Heffiji's house, all that they
knew would be lost."
"But there is Heffiji's house," said Reck. "And you
did come to our village, despite Unwyrm's best efforts.
And when Ruin and I were in danger out there in the
snow, Unwyrm's own cast-off manflesh saved us. Why?"
"Luck," said Patience. "It can't always go against us.
Chance."
"I hate chance," said Ruin. "I hate believing that the
future of my people, of the whole world, depends on an
accidental coming-together of events."
"Come away from the fire," said Reck. "You'll singe
your hair.''
He turned, silhouetted against the hotly burning
fire. "What kind of majesty is there in a victory like
that?"
"Maybe," said Patience, "with all the patterns of life
on this world set against us, maybe a little luck is the
only way we'll win."
"I'll take luck," said Reck. "I'll even take acts of the
gods. Just so we win."
"Will would say that it was the hand of God that got
us this far," said Patience.
"If God's hand is in the game, and on our side," said
Reck, "why doesn't he just snuff out Unwyrm himself?"
"God doesn't have the power to act except through
our hands," said Ruin. "He can only do what we do for
him."
308 orson scott card
Reck laughed aloud. "What! Are you secretly a
Watcher, my gebling, my sibling? In your wanderings
through the forest, did you find religion?"
"What do humans know about their god? They want
him to have power over earth and sky. But all he has
power over is the human will. Because he is the human
will--and a weak, feeble god he is. Not like the god of
the geblings. We've seen it, haven't we? Together, all
the geblings are one soul. We ignore it most of the time,
but at a time of great need we act together, we do the
thing that consciously or not we know must be done for
the whole of us to survive. That is the god of the
geblings--the common, unspoken and unspeakable will.
The othermind. Even the humans have a faint touch of
othermind that lets Lady Patience hear a dim echo of our
call, that lets Unwyrm speak to them. Together they
create a god, which is the good of them all, and it rules.
Weakly, pathetically, in fits and starts, but it rules."
Ruin twisted the hair of his cheek. "It rules even Unwyrm.
Just like a gebling, he's half human, too. The human god
lies like a root in his path; he doesn't see, he stumbles."
"I can't think of many priests who would like your
theology," said Patience.
"That's why I'm not putting it up for sale," said
Ruin. "But it's More than chance that helps us. We
aren't lonely creatures trying to save our people. We are
the instrument of our people, which they unconsciously
created to save themselves."
Patience connected Ruin's view to something spoken
to her on the boat not too many days before. "Will says
that gebiings--''
"What do I care what he says?" said Ruin. "It's his strength that we need now, not his ideas. We need the
strength that let him stand against the Cranning call."
"He says that geblings and humans all have souls, and
the same god means to save us all."
WYRMS 309
"If he does, then I adjure this god to bring us Will, to
stand before Unwyrm and resist him for us." Ruin was mocking, but not to amuse them. His mockery was a
mask for desperate faith, Patience could see that. He had
invented for himself a god he could believe in, and now
he prayed to that god.
And was answered.
Outside, during a lull in the wind, they could hear the
high, sweet sounds of Kristiano and Strings singing harmony.
And another voice calling Patience by name.
"Angel," said Patience.
"He killed the others," said Reck. "Unwyrm has
brought him to us."
There were footsteps crunching in the crisp dry snow
outside.
"Patience!" cried Angel again. He knocked on the
door.
"Go away!" shouted Patience. "I don't want to have
to kill you."
Reck was nocking an arrow, and Ruin had his knife
ready.
"Patience, I'm free of him!" shouted Angel. "Let me
in, I can help you!"
"Don't believe him," said Reck.
"Go away!" shouted Patience. She held the blowgun
near her lips. "I'll kill you!"
The door crashed open and swung back to bang against
the wall. Immediately an arrow trembled in the door at
belly height; Reck was preparing to shoot again, as soon
as anyone entered.
Patience knew, however, that Angel hadn't the strength
to kick in the door. "Will," she said. "You can come
in, Will."
Will came in, followed by Angel, who was tightly
bound and tethered to Sken. Strings and Kristiano came
after. They were warmly dressed against the cold.
310 I orson scott card
"Here we are," said Strings cheerfully. "The House
of the Wise. And the Wise, as you can see, are asleep."
It was true; even the shouting and the banging of the
door hadn't aroused them. It was a sign of Unwyrm's
presence here, that he could keep them asleep through
anything.
"Will," said Reck. "Why didn't you speak! We were
sure Angel had--"
"He didn't speak," said Angel, "because he didn't
know whether you were under Unwyrm's power. The
arrow in the doorway was quite convincing,"
Patience looked at Angel. His bonds were a joke, of
course--she knew that Angel could easily slip the knots,
if he wanted to. It was his face she studied.
"I know why you look at me that way," said Angel.
"Do you think I haven't thought ten thousand times,
what will she think of me, when she learns the truth?"
But Patience was not thinking of his betrayal now. She
was thinking: the fire is gone from behind his eyes. He is
weak and alone, and he was never alone before. Even
though Unwyrm is your enemy. Angel, it strengthened
you to have him always with you. And now, you have
the look of a child whose parents have wandered off.
You are waiting for him to come back. You think you
can carry on alone, but you wait for him all the same, to
bring you back to life.
"But I'm not who I was," said Angel. "I don't need
bonds now. I was young when he took me, young and unprepared. But I know him, and now that he's gone, I'll
never let him back."
"Why did you bring him?" demanded Ruin of Will.
"Why didn't you just kill him down below?"
Will only glanced at Ruin, as if to say. Who are you to
expect an accounting from me? Then he turned to Patience.
"My Heptarch," he said, "I brought your servant
to you. He wanted to redeem himself."
WYRMS | 311
"After Unwyrm is dead," said Patience, "then he can
become himself, and my true servant. But as long as
Unwyrm is alive, Angel is the wyrm's slave, and not the
Heptarch's."
"No," said Angel. "I've faced him before. I know
where he's weak--"
"You know nothing of the kind," said Ruin, "or you would have killed him before."
"All he's thinking about now is you, Patience," said
Angel. "All he cares about is to stay alive long enough
to impregnate you. He's waited seven thousand years,
constantly renewing himself, until he hates the taste of
his own life, but when you come, then he can achieve all
he waited for. He cares nothing for me, or Will, or the
geblings--"
"He leaves you free," said Ruin, "so we'll trust you
and bring you with us. Then he'll rule you again and
you'll betray us in our moment of greatest weakness."
"These bonds won't hold me," said Angel. "Either
take me with you, or kill me now."
Patience shook her head. "You did me no kindness,
Will, to bring him here."
"Kindness was never my purpose," said Will.
"What was your purpose?"
"My purpose is God's purpose."
Ruin laughed aloud.
"And what is God's purpose?" asked Angel scornfully.
"We are his purpose," said Will. "Our life, we who
create and discover and build and tear down, we who
love and hate, who grieve and rejoice, we are his purpose.
His work is for our kind to live forever, human and
gebling, dwelf and gaunt, rising up from the womb and
lying down in the grave."
"Very lovely," said Ruin. "But right now our job is
to lay Unwyrm in his grave, and the only way to have a
chance at that is to put Angel there first."
312 ) orson scott card
Patience drew the loop from her hair and let it hang,
limp, from one hand. "The More of us who go there to
face him, the better. He'll be calling to me, and it'll be
hard for him to concentrate on destroying you."
"We hope," said Reck.
"He won't let anyone come close but me," said Patience.
"It's the bow that will kill him, if anything does.
Reck."
"Of course," she said. "It's what I was born for."
"But no one understands his body, or where he must
be shot to be killed. Ruin, you're the one who has lived
with the life of this world. Your intuition is all we have
to go on, in knowing where to strike him so he'll die."
"I know," said Angel. "I know where to strike--in
his eyes, piercing through to--"
"You know nothing now," said Patience. "He could
have lied to you a thousand times, and you would have
believed him because you wanted to believe." She walked
around Angel, stood behind him. "I think that Unwyrm
controls best the minds that he knows best. Angel he
would control most easily. But scarcely better than Reck
and Ruin and me. He has held us in his grasp so many
times that he knows all our pathways as surely as the
geblings know the tunnels of Cranning. It will take all
our strength just to stand against him. But you. Will, and
you, Sken--he doesn't know you. Not the way he knows
us. Will can resist him, and Sken--forgive me, but he
must not hold you in high regard or he would have called
you before now. So you must come last, and stand
behind us. Keep the geblings from running away, force
them to stand against him, so they can concentrate all
their strength on killing him. And in the end, if they fail,
then you must kill me before Unwyrm's children are born ."
"I'm not a hero," said Sken.
wyrms | 313
"We aren't here for heroics," said Patience. "We're
here for murder. Unwyrm's, if we can manage it. Mine,
if we can't."
"They'll begin by killing you, if they can," said
Angel. "It's the easiest way to stop his children from
being born. You'll have Reek's arrow in you before the
end. You can't trust them."
"And you, Angel, my teacher, my friend, my father,"
said Patience. "How can I leave you behind me, when
Unwyrm has only to think of you, and you flinch and
cower and obey?"
She whipped the loop around his neck and gave it a
quick twist, a slight, delicate pull. Blood flowed from all
around his neck. Angel's face held a look of surprise, of
wonderment, perhaps even of gratitude. Then he toppled
forward off the chair. Patience bent over him, carefully
unwinding the loop from his neck. The others looked
away to give her a moment of grief. She had done what
must be done, and had not put the terrible duty on
anyone else. She was the stuff Heptarchs were made of,
they all saw that.
"I'm so sorry," said Strings. "So sorry. He was so
very very good. And he wants to kill Unwyrm, he truly
does."
"Enough," said Will. "It's done."
"He's calling me," said Patience. "It's stronger than I
can bear."
"You know," said Ruin, "when it comes down to the
truth of it, Heptarch, you are the least reliable of us all."
"I'm going now," said Patience.
"He knows his way through your mind better than
anyone's but Angel's, and he cares More about you. He
can do what he wants with you. And yet you're the one
who made our plan for us."
Patience walked to the door. "Now," she said. She
314 I orson scott card
opened the door and walked out into the moonlit snow. |
The wind whipped a white dust behind her, like a cowardly shadow retreating into the warm room. Will snatched
a lamp from the wall and followed right behind her, with
Ruin, Reck, and Sken trotting close after.
Sken was enthusiastic. "Now I finally get to see what
this Unwyrm looks like."
The others ignored her. Will was holding Patience's
arm; she struggled against his grip, trying to run to
Unwyrm. "Slowly, calmly," whispered Will. "I'll hold
you back for now, Lady Patience. Remember that none
of this is you. All of us face him in you. You aren't
alone against him." :
The mouth of the cave waited for them in the distance.
"I'm coming," whispered Patience.
Back in the House of the Wise, the old men awoke,
yawning and stretching. One of them stumbled over to
where Angel lay. "Nasty cut there," he said. He busied
himself untying the knots that held Angel's arms together. :
Angel opened his eyes. Then he sat up and gently
touched his neck. "She cut it close, there. Cut it close."
"Why were we asleep?" asked the man who had
untied him.
"It's time," said Angel. "And he has her now." He
got up and tore open the lining of his cloak. Three
throwing knives were hidden there.
"What happens now?" asked the man.
"You'll see," he said. "You'll see." And then he
spoke quietly, to someone who could not hear his
words. "Call me all you like. I'm coming."
THE BIRTHING PLACE
it WAS EARLIEST DAWN WHEN THEY PASSED INTO THE CAV-
em, the first light shimmering in the east. They did not
wait for sunrise; the lantern was the light they'd live by
now.
Patience led the way. Will's hand gripping her arm
with the strength of a tree root. Their passage wound
upward through the rock, with an icy stream of water
coming down the tunnel. The walls were covered with
ice, and so was the tunnel floor; they soon found that if
they walked on the frozen ground, their feet slipped, and
if they walked in the stream, their feet froze. After half
an hour they came to the golden door.
It was just a wooden slab that had once been painted
yellow. There was no lock. There was no handle. Dozens
of names were scratched in it, and in the ice-slick rock
beside it. The door could not have been More than a
hundred years old. The names in the rock might have
been there for millennia.
Patience was calmer now. Headed toward Unwyrm,
she could feel the pressure ease, and she gained some
315
316 I orson scott card
control of herself. The door was the last barrier between
them. Even as she longed to pass beyond it, she could
feel, like a distant memory, a desperate wish for it to stay
closed.
"Resist him as much as you can," said Ruin. "Go as
slowly as you can."
Patience just nodded. She was gasping with the effort
to stay and listen.
"I'll look at him, try to figure out where the arrow has
to go. We know almost nothing about his body, and what
parts are vital. We know he has no brain, though. Probably
no heart. In the end, we may have to pierce him as
often as we can, till he loses enough fluid to die. That's
why you have to be as slow as possible. To give us
time."
Again Patience nodded.
"All of you," said Will. "All of you listen. We don't
know how many of us will be left alive at the end of this.
But whoever lives, if we're too late, and he fathers
children on Patience--Angel told me that the children
will grow quickly. They must be killed. There may be
dozens of them, and they must all be killed because if
any of them lives, we've lost."
""they'll be my children," whispered Patience. "Mine."
"God help us," said Sken. "Will they look like worms?"
"Human infants," said Will. "And killing them will
feel like murder."
Reck saw how Patience was sweating, steam rising
from her body in the bitterly cold tunnel. Reck remembered
all too well the terrible need that Unwyrm had
forced on her, how little she had been able to think, to
remember that throwing herself from the mountain was
certain death. When Unwyrm commanded with that much
strength, there was no denying him. She spoke to Ruin.
wyrms | 317
"We're asking too much of her. She's sheltered us all
this way, and had no shelter for herself. When she's with
him, she'll have no thought for any plan."
Patience began to sob and struggle against Will's hold
on her. Now that she was stopped again, the call began
to build an unbearable pressure within her. "Let me go,
Will," she begged.
"Patience!" The cry rang through the tunnel. Reck
and Ruin whirled to look down the tunnel they had just
traveled. "Patience! I'll go! I'll go first!"
Will handed the lantern to Sken and gripped Patience
by the shoulders with both hands. "You didn't kill him!"
"Unwyrm wouldn't let me!" she sobbed.
Angel appeared in the dim light their lantern cast at the
far end of the tunnel, where it curved down and out of
sight. He brandished throwing knives in both hands. The
clotted blood still made a ghastly pattern on his neck.
"Out of my way!" he shouted. "I'll kill him, I can do it!
Let me by! You can't, none of you can do it, let me by!"
He forced his way past them, knocking Will to one
side, shoving the door open with his shoulder. Patience
came free of Will's grasp then, and began to run after
Angel. Ruin and Reck stumbled after her. But she had
gone too far ahead. Almost immediately they began to
move slowly, as if they were pushing through stone.
"Help us!" cried Ruin.
Will came after them, seized their clothing in bunches
from behind, and shoved them brutally forward through
the tunnel. Sken ran after with the lantern.
The birthing room was ablaze with light. Sunrise had
come while they were in the tunnel. The icy ceiling was
so thin in places that the light burst through. It showed
them Angel dead on the ice in the middle of the floor.
His knives had slid away from him when he fell. A
slender dart arose from the back of his head. Patience
318 orson scott card
was still holding her blowgun. Then she cast it away. It
skittered across the ice and slid into a swift-flowing
stream that carried it away, out of the birthing room,
down through one of the tunnels that led from here to the
farthest reaches of Cranning.
"She's his now," said Will. "She'll do nothing to
help us."
"Where is he?" whispered Reck.
As if in answer, the black wyrm slid rapidly down into
the birthing room from a white tunnel near the ceiling.
Where is he weak, thought Reck desperately. Where can
I put an arrow and end his life?
"My bow," said Reck. "Tell me where to shoot
him."
His back was made of hard segments that formed an
impenetrable wall. "I don't know where," said Ruin, "I
don't know, there's no place."
"That's Unwynn speaking."
"No place," he said.
Unwyrm came near to where Patience waited. Then he
rose up, exposing his belly. It was not the soft, smooth
belly Reck had hoped for. Instead it was alive with
appendages that alternately thrust forward like soft swords,
then went limp and receded. They were wet and dripping.
Unwyrm's feeble hands fanned out across his side,
trembling.
"Look how he's shaking," whispered Reck. "He's
old."
"That isn't age, it's passion," said Ruin. "We can
only bleed him. It's the only hope."
Patience whirled to face them. "There is no hope!"
she howled. She was an animal, her eyes darting from
one of them to another. "Not for you!" And she hurled
the loop at Reck.
Before the spinning wire could reach her, though. Will
wyrms I 319
thrust Reck down on her face. The loop took him above
the wrist of his right arm, cutting through to the bone.
The skin of his wrist and hand sloughed downward, like
a glove suddenly pulled half off; blood gouted from
above the wound.
Will screamed in pain, but almost at once acted to save
what he could. Since there was no hope now that he
could hold both Reck and Ruin, he shoved Ruin down,
placed his foot on the gebling's leg, and then with his left
hand he pulled the gebling up. Ruin cried out with pain
as his leg snapped. He would stay in the room. "Sken!"
cried Will. Sken hurried forward, slipping on the ice and
nearly falling; she caught herself against Will, who still
had the strength to take her weight without falling over.
"Hold Reck, keep her here!" cried Will. Then he
dropped to his knees and fell forward, thrusting his arm
into the crystal water that flowed in a stream across the
middle of the cavern. "Patience!" he shouted. His arm
cast a bloom of blood ribbons into the water. "Patience,
he doesn't rule you!"
Reck felt Sken's powerful arms around her waist just
as Unwynn urged her to run, to fly away, to escape this
place. But she could also feel Ruin calling to her in her
othermind. Stay. Kill. With shaking hands she took her
bow, nocked an arrow, and shot. Unwynn dodged easily;
the arrow fell harmlessly behind him. She nocked another,
tried to concentrate. He pounded at her mind; her
eyes blurred--
And Patience saw this, saw it all. There was no hope
in her of resisting him, her lust for him was all she could
think of. Yet at the same time, she could remember
Will's story of who she really was, of that small and
forgotten self masked by memory and desire. I must
help, came the thought. She could not resist Unwynn,
but she could distract him.
320 | orson scott card
She stepped forward, crying out to him. "Unwynn!"
She pulled her tunic off over her head and knelt naked
before him. "Unwynn!" Her knees slipped smoothly
across the ice and she leaned back, offering herself to
him.
Reck felt the pressure on her ease. In a swift movement
Unwyrm's body arched forward and lunged onto
Patience. He rooted one of his appendages in her groin.
Patience cried out in her inexpressible relief. Weeks of
longing were finally fulfilled.
Unwyrm's upper body began a rhythmic swaying. For
a moment he had forgotten them; he, too, had a need that
was too long unfulfilled to be put off. Reck fired two
quick arrows. One struck him in the eye. Another spiked his tongue to the roof of his mouth.
"His head is nothing!" screamed Ruin. "His belly!
His belly, where the blood is!"
Reck took another arrow, but this time, instead of
nocking it, she had a powerful urge to eat the arrow. To
bring it to her mouth and jam it down her own throat.
She raised the arrow above her face and smiled at the
death that pointed at her.
Suddenly Sken's fist came down savagely on her belly.
The pain drove Unwyrm's command from her mind. It
also made her realize that she could not possibly do
enough damage to Unwyrm's belly to kill him. Only
Patience was close enough. The Heptarch now lay on her
back, her hand within easy reach of one of Angel's
knives. She was shuddering and writhing in ecstasy beneath
him. Somehow, Reck knew, she had to be distracted
from the delight that Unwynn gave her, forced to
remember what was really happening. A sudden pain
might break the hold that Unwynn had on her mind,
make her forget the pleasure long enough to take the
knife and disembowel him.
wyrms | 321
So Reck readied the arrow and aimed, not at Unwyrm,
whose belly was pressed against Patience, but at the girl
herself. Reck shot for the thigh, and in a moment the
arrow trembled in the Heptarch's flesh.
Patience tossed her head back and forth from the pain.
Did she see the knife?
"Kill him!" cried Ruin.
She saw it. She reached it easily, brought it up to kill,
then suddenly cried out again in ecstasy. She knew what
she had to do, and yet her body could not respond. I am
a gaunt, now, at the end, Patience realized. I have no
will before him. She struggled to raise her hand against
him, but all she could think of was a great aching love
for him as she could feel her womb filling. Gradually her
arm dropped back down. But her fingers clung to the
knife. She did not let go, though now she couldn't even
remember why she held it, or what it was.
"She's still holding it," said Ruin. "She's not gone!"
Sken raised her voice to taunt them. "King of the
geblings! Why did you come alone? Where are your
armies when you need them most!"
"Geblings," whispered Reck. And in that moment she
and Ruin both knew that they had one tool that might
free Patience's mind from Unwyrm's control.
"We must call the geblings—" murmured Ruin.
"The geblings must call her," said Reck.
They cried out with their silent mind. Feel and repeat
this urgent need—to kill Unwyrm, to kill the child-killer,
the mother-eater.
Geblings in the highest reaches of Cranning fell the
urgent call in their othermind. They stopped what they
were doing; it was the king, they knew who called them,
it was the king and all unknown to them the final battle
had already been joined. Kill Unwyrm! They echoed the
silent shout, passing it on to the other geblings farther
down the mountain.
322 orson scott card
Cart drivers let their oxen walk on unattended; geblings
in conversation fell silent; workers let their tasks slip
from their hands. All joined in the fervent call: Kill
Unwynn.
In moments, the message passed silently to every part
of Cranning. It was echoed by ten million gebling minds.
Every other time that Cranning had cried out together, the
geblings had gathered from every part of the world to
join battle against the human kingdoms and strike them
down. This time, the message was much simpler. Death
to their brother, their enemy, their satan, the wyrm.
And in Patience's mind that same cry also arose,
stronger and stronger, making its way against the perfect
pleasure that Unwyrm gave her. She felt the knife in her
hand again, knew that the desire to kill him was her true
self even though her body cried out against it. She felt
his blood spill almost before she felt the knife enter his
body. Unwyrm arched backward, then slapped himself
forward on top of her. She screamed in pain, then jabbed
at him again. He whipped away, slithered toward his
upper chamber, then writhed out his dance of death,
smearing himself across the ice as he whipped to and fro.
All that he desired in the last moments of his life Patience
felt, for the bond was still firm between them. She
screamed his scream for him. At last he was still, and her
voice was her own again.
Except for their labored breathing, the room was silent.
Patience curled up on her side and sobbed quietly,
Unwyrm's blood slowly freezing on her.
Sken let go of Reck and leaned back against the ice
behind her. Reck fell forward, gasping for breath. "Will,"
she whispered.
Ruin crawled to Will, dragging his broken leg behind
him. He pulled the large man over onto his back. His
face was blue from the cold, but the icy water had
wyrms 323
slowed the bleeding of his arm. "Save him if you can,"
whispered Reck. Ruin at once drew a threaded brass
needle from his kit and began feverishly sewing the
severed arteries and veins together.
Reck looked back at Sken. "Help the Heptarch, can't
you?" She did not wait to see if Sken would obey. She
slid across the ice to where her brother labored over
Will. "He held us here, he got us here when no one else
could have--"
"Get me a leather pouch," said Ruin. "Not that one,
no, sniff it, like krisberries, yes, that's it." Reck opened
the pouch and Ruin dipped his tongue into it, then smeared
it on the severed surfaces. It would make the cells of
Will's body grow again; it would stimulate the living
nerve ends to grow out and find new connections.
Then Patience cried out. Softly. Reck looked up. Patience
had rolled over and was lying on her stomach, her
head toward the others. Her body heaved twice.
"What's happening?" whispered Reck.
Ruin looked up in time to see the head of a half-
developed fetus rise up from between Patience's legs.
"The wyrm's child!"
"We were too late!" shouted Sken.
Reck reached for her bow and arrow, but Sken was
stumbling along the ice, her hatchet in hand, blocking a
clear shot. And by the time Sken got there, Patience was
standing up, holding the infant, shielding it. "I'm going
to kill it!" Sken shouted.
Patience nodded, but she still held the child out of
Sken's reach. Was it an illusion, or had the child grown?
Yes, it was larger, and it was no longer fetal--it was a
fully developed infant.
"Take the baby!" shouted Reck.
"It's going to die anyway!" Patience cried. "Can't
you see? I killed his father too soon, he's going to die."
324 | orson scott card
It was true. They could almost see that as the child
grew taller, feebly wiggling its limbs, the skin tightened,
grew tight around the bones, like a victim of famine. The
baby opened its mouth, and spoke its only words: "Help
me." They were grotesque, coming from a body so
young. It was clearly Unwyrm's child, clearly a monster,
yet from the sight of him he was any infant, helpless,
demanding their compassion and getting it.
The baby died. Patience felt it, the sudden slackness of
the body. She relaxed her protective posture. Only then
could Sken reach the body, tear it away, cast it to the
ground, and raise her hatchet to hack at it.
"It's dead!" shouted Patience.
"It was growing!" Sken cried. "It spoke!"
"But it's dead!"
Sken lowered her hatchet. Reck took Patience's garment
from the cave floor and carried it to her. ' 'Only the
one," said Reck. "And Unwyrm didn't have time to
give it strength to live. We did it. In time."
Paience turned away and pulled the chemise over her
head.
There were shouts and footfalls in the tunnel leading
up from the golden door. Armed geblings rushed a few
steps into the room, then stopped to take in the scene.
The corpse of Unwyrm, split open and spilt on the ice;
the starved, skeletal body of a human infant. A few of
the old men came in, not looking half so doltish now.
"Behold," said Sken bitterly, "the gebling kings.
Behold the Heptarch!" Her face worked to keep from
crying. She flung out her hand toward the baby lying on
the ice. "Behold the child of prophecy!"
Reck hushed her. "The baby was no Kristos. It was a |
wynn, it was death to humans and geblings, and if it
hadn't died I would have killed it with my own hands."
The old men walked toward Unwyrm's body. One of
wyrms | 325
them took Angel's other knife, the one that Patience
hadn't used, and sliced Unwynn's head from snout to
crown. The skin burst apart as if it had been under
pressure, revealing the shining facets of a green crystal.
"His mindstone," whispered Reck. She walked toward
them, looked at the crystal.
It was not a single mindstone, but many hundreds of
them, fused together. The old men pulled the flaps of
skin farther apart, and the crystal toppled forward onto
the ice.
"Here," said one of them.
"This is where he kept all the gifts we gave him,"
said another.
"Everything we knew."
The old men knelt, touched the crystal, as if to find
where in the living jewel their own knowledge lay. The
youngest one lifted his head and cried out like a dog
baying. "Give it back to me!"
Reck turned from the old men and walked slowly,
wearily to Patience. They embraced, and Reck helped the
exhausted woman walk across the ice, out of the room.
Geblings were already helping Ruin, preparing to carry
him out. Others were binding up Will's arm and wrapping
him in blankets.
Sken looked up when Patience passed. "Heptarch,"
she said. "Did we sin?"
Patience stopped, stood before the fat woman with her
twisted, tear-stained face. She touched Sken's cheek with
her bent fingers.
"Did I raise my hatchet to murder God's own son?"
Her voice was high and weak, like a child's. "Am I
damned forever?"
In answer, Patience pulled her close, embraced her.
"No sin," she whispered. "This day's work honors us
all forever."
19
CRYSTALS
the FIRES ROARED IN THE house OF THE wise. it WAS
afternoon, but outside it was dark with clouds and falling
snow. The cold seeped in through the shutters and under
the door, but the fires in the two hearths fought it back to
the edges of the room.
Sken, stark naked, was up to her neck in a huge and
steaming tub, occasionally bellowing curses at Strings,
who was scrubbing her back. Strings endured it calmly
enough; Patience, listening, knew that he only served
Sken because Reck and Patience wanted him to. Sken
cursed again, but then began to tell him—for the third
time—how she had killed Tinker's men in the battle in
the woods, months before. Strings listened, the perfect
audience, responding exactly when she needed to hear
him say, "Yes," or "Bravely done," or "Remarkable."
Patience knew that Sken was telling of the battle with
Tinker because she could bear to think of it; she had little
to say of the battle in Unwyrm's cave, and did not tell
the tale of the baby who died only moments before Sken
would have murdered it. We'll all choose the stories we
327
328 orson scott card
can live with, and forget the rest, thought Patience. I
hope so, anyway.
She walked to the east fireplace. Many of the old men
were watching as several geblings carefully worked on
Unwyrm's huge mindstone. Reck was directing the work
of separating the hundreds of mindstones that had grown
together. The geblings poured a solution over the crystal,
then carefully pried the surface crystals away. Many
small mindstones, the size of the one that Patience bore
within her brain, lay in a tray before the fire, drying.
"What are you looking for?" asked Patience.
"These are all the crystals of the Wise, which he took
from them and ate," said Reck. "But in the center
there'll be the crystal that was his own. Himself. That's
the one I want."
"What can you do with it?" asked Patience.
"We'll know what to do when we find it." Reck led
her away from the fire. "See how the old men watch?
They know where those mindstones came from, and they
want them back."
"Can't you do it? Give the mindstones back? They
came from their brains in the first place."
"Which one do we give to each of these men? They
have so little memory left--just their memory of life in
this house, with vague shadows of the past--that whatever
stone we give them will take them over and become
them. It would be no favor. And besides, these stones
have lived as long in Unwyrm's head as they ever lived
in their original human hosts'. Do these men look strong
enough to endure Unwyrm's memories?"
Patience shook her head. "But it's tragic. This great
treasure of learning, useless."
"This?" asked Reck. "These stones are the way that
wyrms passed their wisdom from one generation to the
next. You humans brought another way. And that way
still lives."
WYRMS I 329
"Heffiji's house," said Patience.
"What was learned once can be learned again," said
Reck. "Ruin is already babbling about a university there,
administered by geblings whose whole purpose is to
protect Heffiji and catalogue her house. I think nothing
will be lost."
"Except these old men."
"What's the tragedy there, Heptarch?" asked Reck.
"How is what happened to them any worse than death?
And that's how all lives end. Their works live on at
Heffiji's house--it's More immortality than most people
get. And these old men live. No matter what you might
think of it right now, life is good and sweet, even with
the memory of great loss and terrible grief."
"I have lost both my fathers," Patience whispered,
"and I killed them both with my own hands."
"You were Unwyrm's hands when Angel died."
Patience shook her head, then walked toward the other
hearth.
Will lay on a pallet stretched before the fire. Kristiano
knelt by the giant man, wiping his naked, sweating torso
with a wet cloth. Patience knelt beside the boy ok.
"He likes this," said Kristiano. "But he's afraid."
Patience took the gauntling's hand in hers. "May I?"
Kristiano relinquished the cloth with a sweet but enigmatic
smile. Patience saw herself, for a moment, as the
gauntling saw her--this human woman would come and
serve Will for a moment, but the gaunt would serve him
hour after hour, unfailing. If love was giving the gift
most desired, then only gaunts in all the world truly
loved. But Patience shrugged off the silent criticism of
the beautiful child. You are what you are; I have other
work to do, and I can only give a few gifts to anyone.
Maybe none at all.
Will's eyes were open, but he said nothing. Patience
330 | orson scott card
had no smile for him, nor he for her. They were alive,
weren't they? And Unwynn was dead. That was victory.
But it had been Patience's hand that threw the loop that
nearly cut off Will's. And it had been Patience also who
killed Unwyrm and held Unwyrm's only child as it died.
There was much murder and pain in Patience's memory,
and she had not yet discovered whether any love remained.
Ruin sat nearby, his broken leg heavily splinted, his
face glum as he stared into the fire. Reck soon came with
a carafe of water and gave Ruin a draught of it. He drank
long and deep, then touched her arm in silent thanks.
Reck gave the carafe to Patience, who took it, lifted Will's head, and let water into his mouth. Will lapped it
gratefully. Gently she lowered him to the pallet again.
Finally, now, Will spoke. "How did you find strength
to do it?" he whispered.
"It wasn't my strength," said Patience. "It was lent to
me. The geblings called me. Together, with one voice. It
gave me just enough freedom within myself to find myself.
So I did what I was born for."
"Saved the world."
"Murdered an enemy who trusted me. I remained the
consummate assassin to the end."
"You did what God wanted," whispered Will. Then
he closed his eyes.
Ruin spoke. "He's right, you know. About what God
wanted. The kind of god I believe in, anyway. Humans
and geblings and gaunts and dwelfs, we all wanted to
live More than Unwyrm wanted us to die. It all worked
together. You couldn't kill Angel, and he lived to bring
into the birthing place the knives you killed Unwyrm
with, after he thought he had left you weaponless. Reek's
arrow saved you; Will broke my leg to save me; Sken,
useless and stupid and foul, kept Reck from killing herself
under Unwyrm's control. Every bit and piece of it,
wyrms | 331
an intricate and impossible network, a web that could
have failed at any point." Ruin nodded, almost angry in
his insistence. "We are god, if there is a god, and
Unwyrm fell before us."
Patience remembered again the unbearable joy she had
felt under Unwyrm's body. And felt again the way his
ichor spilled over her, the way her knife tore through his
tender organs. It was not what she had felt with her body
that most affected her now. It was what she had felt with
her mind. For as the death agony came, he cried out to
her with his silent voice, the one that had ruled her for so
long; he cried out: I live. I want to live. I must live. It
was the desperate cry of her own heart, too. He had
wanted nothing More than any human wanted. To live, to
pass on his genes to his children, to keep death at bay for
as long as he could. His people--for such the wyrms
were, to each other--his people had lived for centuries,
but he had lived longest of all, waiting to be the salvation
of all his race. And his death was the death of ten
thousand generations of wyrms.
His death was the death of the miraculous child she
had held in her arms, the new shape a dying species had
tried to adopt in order to save themselves. They saw us
coming, and they knew we would be the disease for
which there was no cure. They did all that they could do.
The last breath of their struggle grew in my womb,
shaped like a human in tribute to the human gods who
had come to destroy them. But we did not accept the
offering, no; I killed Unwyrm before the child's yolk was
complete, and when the child was born I let it die in my
arms.
What is so much better about my kind of life, that we
should survive, and they should die? She could think of
no standard of judgment that made sense, except this
one: I am human, and so humans must live. It was not a
332 | orson scott card
struggle for justice. It was a battle of savages. The
cruelest won. I was the perfect savior for mankind.
"Unwyrm held in his mindstone the memory of this
planet," said Reck. It was as if she had read Patience's
thoughts. "His root was back to the first wyrm that had a
thought. And in his mindstone, the stories of his kind,
forever. Of our kind. We have as much wyrm ancestry as
he had."
"You favor the human side," murmured Will.
"See how beautiful it makes us," said Ruin.
"You are beautiful," said Patience, looking at Reck.
"I remember being a gebling myself. I remember the
way it felt, inside my body; I remember the voice of my
siblings in the othermind. And something else, too. The
loneliness of never knowing my father, and then, when
the scepter came to me, finally remembering his life as
he knew it."
"It nearly drove you to insanity," Ruin reminded her.
"I wish that every human could have such madness.
Or a taste of it, just for a moment, to know their mother
or father. It would be a great gift."
"To know them, but not to be them," said Will.
"You are very strong. Lady Patience. Few can endure
having other people's memories live in their minds. I
couldn't."
"You?" said Patience. "You're the strongest of all."
His eyes went distant, rejecting the praise. "Will I
keep my hand?" he asked.
"It will dangle as beautifully as ever at the end of your
arm," said Ruin. "As for using it—I've done all I can to
encourage the nerves to grow."
"I won't be much use to anyone without my right
arm," he said.
Patience touched his forehead, drew her finger along
his cheek, and finally let her fingertips rest on his lips.
WYRMS | 333
"We're all looking for new careers," said Patience.
"There aren't any prophecies about what I'll do after Unwyrm is dead. I'm not seventeen yet, and everything I
was born to do is done. Does this mean that I'll have to learn a trade?"
Reck laughed softly, and Will smiled.
"You're Heptarch," said Ruin.
"There's a man in King's Hill who would disagree,"
said Patience. "And he's not a bad man, and not a bad
Heptarch."
"He's a caretaker," said Will. "Ruling only until
your work here is done."
"When an army of a million geblings stands at his
border, he might give thought to abdication," said Ruin.
"No," said Patience.
"What, do you think we'd do it for you out of altruism?
The geblings are best served by having a Heptarch
who remembers being a gebling. We aren't subhumans to
you, now."
"Not a drop of my people's blood will be shed in my
name," said Patience.
"There you are," said Ruin. "You're right. Your life
work is over."
"Shut up, Ruin," said Reck.
Sken walked up to them, buttoning a clean gown that
fit her like the draping of a warhorse. Her ruddy face
gleamed in the firelight. "Heptarch, the geblings have
brought the body of your former slave out of the birthing
place. They want to know what you want done with it."
"I want him buried with honor," said Patience. "Here,
among the Wise. The graves here are all honorable ones."
"I'm sorry we didn't take his head in time," said
Reck. "We know that's how you humans preserve the
counsel of your wise ones, since you don't have mindstones
to eat."
334 orson scott card
"We were busy," said Ruin, "and the moment passed."
"But he does have a mindstone," said Sken. "Doesn't
he. Will? Isn't that what he said? He had a mindstone,
just like these other old coots. Unwyrm just didn't take it
from him, that's all. That's why his mind isn't at the
low-water mark. Isn't that right, Will?"
Will closed his eyes.
"Angel had a mindstone?" asked Ruin.
"Let it die with him," said Will.
"Bring his body in here. Bring him to me!" shouted
Ruin. The rest of the room fell silent. Ruin stood, leaning
against the chimney, his face flickeringly lit by the
fire below and beside him. "The gebling king will have
his mindstone."
"No," said Reck. "You can't."
"When the ancient king of the geblings died, a human
Heptarch took his mindstone and had it placed within his
brain. Some Heptarchs were so weak that it maddened
them, but some were not. Do you think I'm weak,
Sister?"
"But you're the gebling king," she said. "You can't
take the risk."
"You're also the gebling king," he answered.
She looked away from him.
"Do you think I didn't know what you were planning?"
said Ruin. "And I understand it, Reck. I understand,
I agree, and I know you're strong enough to bear
it, and to pass it whole to your children. But what will I
be then? The feeble gebling king, a pale shadow of the
human Heptarch who can hold both races in her mind, an
even weaker shadow of you? What will they call you,
Mother Wyrm? There'll be no name for me, if I'm too
weak to do as you do, as she did."
"What are you planning?" asked Patience.
At that moment, the geblings who had been working
WYRMS | 335
on Unwynn's mindstone came toward them. One of them
held a single crystal in the palm of his hand. "This is the
one," he said. "It was in the center, and it's the oldest
of all."
"I've never seen a larger one," said Reck.
"Much larger than your own," Ruin reminded her.
She lifted the stone to her mouth and swallowed.
"You can't!" cried Patience.
"She already has," said Will.
"He was so strong! How can she endure--"
Reck smiled. "It wasn't right for our ancestors to
perish utterly from their own world. So I will remember,
and my children after me. Not particularly Unwyrm, not
above any other--what was he, compared to the thousands
of generations before him? They're all in here, all
in me. And now I will come to know them, and speak in
their voice."
Will spoke from his pallet on the floor, his voice thick
with grief. "And what of my friend Reck? Will she have
a voice left, when this is done?"
"If she does," said Reck, "it will be a wiser one than
before."
Ruin insisted that they make a bed for her. Reck
laughed lightly, but then, when it was ready, she lay in
it, for the crystal was already beginning to work its
influence on her.
Then they brought Angel's body from the snow outside
and laid it on a table in the middle of the room.
Patience went to him, and looked down into his stiffened
face, forever locked in the same neutral, undecipherable
expression he had cultivated in life. "You never had a
chance to discover who you were," she murmured to
him. "Nor had I."
They carried Ruin to a stool beside the table where the
336 | orson scott card
body lay. "He was your slave," said Ruin. "I should
have your permission."
"He was Unwyrm's slave, and he won his manumission
before he died," she answered. "Still, if you must
have a human memory to join with your own, why his?
Why not any of the others--there are five hundred
mindstones there."
"They've all been tainted with Unwyrm's mind," said
Ruin. "I want no part of him--that's my sister's sacrifice.
I hated him too long; she never did. And Angel--if
I'm to understand human beings, why not this one?
Strings says that he was good, before Unwyrm had him.
Wouldn't you rather the gebling king became human
through the memories of a good man?"
The geblings rolled the body over on its side, and they
brought Ruin a knife, to cut into his brain and retrieve
the mindstone that had grown there. Patience did not
watch. She returned instead to Will, who lay by the fire.
She reached across him and took his left hand, his whole
hand, and held it tightly.
"We have unfinished business," she said.
"I'm not the man for you now," he answered.
"If I'm to be Heptarch in fact, and not in name, I need
a man who can lead armies."
"I'll serve you however I can."
"And not just lead them, but create them. Out of
whatever rag-tag of volunteers and rebels I can raise, I
need a man who can train them into a force that can put
me in my place."
"So you want that place now?"
"I can see what Reck and Ruin want to do, and
they're right. The time has come for all of humanity to
be united in fact under one king, as the geblings are. A
king who remembers being a gebling, as the geblings
will be ruled by a king who remembers being a human.
wyrms | 337
And both kings able to speak with a woman who remembers
being a wyrm. Being every wyrm that ever lived."
"Then I'll serve you."
"And More," said Patience. "I want More of you."
"What More can I give? All my wisdom is in the ways
of war."
"My womb has borne a child, but it was a monster,
and it's dead. I need heirs to my kingdom. Unwyrm
doesn't watch now, to make sure that the line of the
Heptarchs doesn't fail. So I need a consort who can
create children who are large and strong, keen of mind
and quick of hand. I need a consort who can teach my
children what strength and wisdom are."
He said nothing, and his open eyes stared at the ceiling.
"And More," she said. "He's gone from me. The
desire that burned in me for so many weeks is gone. On
the boat when you touched me, and I wanted you then, I
feared that it was my desire for Unwyrm. But now he's
gone from me, and still when I see you I love you.
Surely God will let his Vigilant answer the need of a
weak and frightened girl."
He smiled. "Weak and frightened."
"Sometimes," she said. "Aren't you?"
"Terrified. Of you. I never thought to marry a woman
who could kill me with a little piece of string."
"Then you'll marry me?" .
"I'll serve you as I can," he said.
She bent to him and kissed his lips. Behind them,
now, Reck and Ruin lay in torment, sweating and tossing
and ranting on their beds. Strings and Kristiano bent over
them, bound them so they did not scratch out their eyes,
wiped their brows to cool the fever, sang softly to them
to soothe away the terrible dreams.
Will and Patience watched, and spoke to them in the
moments of sanity. Sometimes Ruin became Angel, and
338 orson scott card
Patience could talk to him; a hundred times, it seemed,
he begged for her forgiveness, and she for his. I betrayed
you, he would say; I killed you, she would answer. Then
they forgave each other until the memory returned afresh.
Reck had no words in her madness, except, now and
then, the learning of the Wise that had dwelt in Unwyrm's
mind. She would lie staring at the ceiling, at the fire, at
the wall, whichever way her head happened to face.
Kristiano and Strings sang the ancient geblings songs of
mighty deeds in battle, of terrible and forbidden love, of
the sins of fathers remembered by their daughters, of the
great gebling kings and their battles for the soul of the
world. No one knew if Reck even heard the music, or if
it helped her follow some thread out of the darkness;
until one day in deep winter, when the snow was three
meters deep and they brought in food through the second-
story doors. Strings turned away from Reck after an
hour's song and then, suddenly, turned back. "She wants
me to go on," he whispered. Will and Patience came,
then, and listened as Kristiano joined in the song; they
wept in relief when Reck smiled in her troubled sleep.
She was not lost. The songless wyrms had not stolen her
utterly away.
Late in the winter, when the snow was grey from coal
fires. Will regained some feeble use of his right hand. He
could curl the fingers into a grip--not enough to wield a
sword, but enough to help his left hand. It was enough of
a triumph for him to be willing to do what Patience had
asked him to do; as Heptarch, she proclaimed him her
consort, and they loved each other in the cold sunlight
through the upstairs window.
Not long after, Kristiano called to them to come; Ruin
was awake. When they came into the room, he was
kneeling beside his sister's bed, his face grave. He saw
them, and held out his arms, embracing Will, then Pawyrms | 339
tience, and looking at them with new respect. "You bear
it all your lives," he said. "Alone."
But Will's hand was touching her shoulder, where
Ruin did not see--Patience knew that the solitude was
not as complete, not as unbridgeable as Ruin thought. He
knew only Angel, good and grief-stricken Angel, whose
isolation from humankind had been More complete than
any other man she could think of. But it was not inappropriate,
Patience decided, for the gebling king to have
the memory of human life at its most tragic; she did not
tell him that not all humans were so utterly alone.
And then, when the wind turned southerly and warm,
and the snow melted, and the first shoots brought green
back to the forest below, Reck awoke. Her eyes were
distant, her thoughts remote, and often she would startle,
as if she had only just come awake. She had thoughts she
could not put into words; she could not tell them stories
of her lives among the wyrms, because there was no
language for it. But as they made their plans for the
future government of the world, she listened, and from
time to time spoke quietly and unknotted the tangled
threads of the future.
They did not call her Reck anymore; she did not
remember the name, for wyrms had no names, and had
never needed them. Yet even though she had lost her
name in the labyrinth of her mind, she had not forgotten
them, and loved gaunt and gebling, dwelt and human,
with the compassion of mother for child. They began to
call her Mother Wyrm, and though Ruin had some hours
of grief, longing for his sister, he also loved this new
soul that dwelt in his sister's body; she comforted him for
his loss, as she comforted them all.
They all soon realized that Mother Wyrm had grown
stronger, with Unwyrm's memory within her; Strings and
Kristiano reported that she was always with them, and
340 | orson scott card
they could do nothing without her consent. Oddly, though,
she wanted nothing from them; the result was a freedom ' they had never known before. They still felt the needs of ' the others there in the House of the Wise, but they were ' not compelled to obey. Instead, there was Mother Wynn
within them, awakening their own will, strengthening
it. "We're free," said Strings, "in bondage to her."
Hearing that, Ruin spread the word through Cranning
that gaunts should be brought to the House of the Wise.
The warm weather brought them like petals on the southern
wind, coming into the house in slavery, and leaving
it in freedom. And not just gaunts; soon geblings, dwelfs,
and humans also came. Mother Wyrm no longer belonged
to the little group that had come with her to
Skyfoot, and they knew that when they left Cranning to
begin their work in earnest. Mother Wyrm would stay
behind, for her work was already begun, and would
never take her away from this house.
The cherries were in full blossom in the orchards of
Skyfoot when the Gebling King, the Heptarch, and Will,
her consort and captain, came down out of the mountains.

16
THE COMING OF KRISTOS

the RUMORS HAD BEEN COMING ALL WINTER, AND INTENSIfied
in the spring. King Oruc began to hear whispers, and
finally open speech. Agaranthemem Heptek, they called
her, and her husband was Lord Will, who had been slave
to dozens of great generals, and now was the greatest
general of them all. Other rumors called her Kristos, and
said she had killed the great satan with her own hands;
God would .now give the world to her, and King Oruc
would die an agonizing death, after witnessing the torture
and death of all his children.
There were also stories of the geblings. How all the
geblings in the world had stopped at one moment, their
faces twisted with murder and hate, while the daughter of
prophecy worked her miracle in the heart of the world.
Now the gebling king had become an angel, and was
coming to destroy all human life on Imakulata. Behind
him was Mother Wyrm, a great dragon who had been
resurrected from a corpse as ancient as the time before
the starship; she was calling for the purification of
Imakulata, the final battle between human and gebling.
341
342 orson scottcard
In the spring the rumors became reality. A gebling
army gathered; the spies confirmed it. And Patience had
been seen, had even spoken to one of them. He brought
back her message:
"Lord Oruc, my friend," the messenger quoted. Oruc
trembled at the way she did not call him King, and at the
bitter irony in her condescension. "I come to you at last,
to thank you for your good care of my kingdom. You
will be well rewarded for the excellence of your regency,
for I have not forgotten anything you ever did." She
signed it with her dynastic name, and then with the
signature he had so often seen: "Patience."
He knew then that she meant his death, and he prepared
for war. He called on the other human kings and
rulers to stand with him against the gebling invasion and
the traitor Patience. This was one More in the long
history of gebling invasions, and it would be the most
terrible of all; if humankind was to survive, they would
have to stand together.
Most of the kings agreed with him, and brought their
armies, uniting under the banner of the Heptarch. But he
knew that in every camp, in every tent, the men and
women muttered the name of Agaranthemem Heptek,
and remembered the prophecies of the seventh seventh
seventh daughter, and wondered if they were not blaspheming
and fighting against God and his Kristos. How
can I defend humanity, when my people are not even
sure they want to defeat their enemy?
He gathered his children and grandchildren around
him, and told them the danger that was coming. They all
chose to stay with him, knowing well that if the geblings
won, there would be no hiding place.
The armies camped in sight of each other in the last
afternoon of spring, before the solstice. There were no
banners in the gebling camp. The grey-furred bodies
wyrms 343
seemed to stretch from horizon to horizon; the spies said
that what they saw was only the vanguard of the gebling
host. His own army, the largest ever assembled by any
human king, looked pathetic as a pebble before a flood.
Oruc had chosen his ground as well as he could--a hill to
defend, with open ground before them and wooded land
behind. But he could not hope for victory against such an
enemy. That night he withdrew into his tent, alone, and
wept for his children and grandchildren, and the death
they would suffer on the morrow.
When dawn came, however, his generals brought the
incredible news. The gebling army was gone.
Oruc came down himself to the field where he had
expected his blood to flow, and found that only the
trampled ground gave proof that the gebling army had
been there the day before. Only a single tent remained of
all his enemies, and a single banner.
As he stood there, the tent flap opened, and she came
forth: Patience, as he remembered her, scarcely changed
by the year that had passed. To her right walked a giant
of a man, whose right arm hung limp and useless at his
side; to her left, a small furry gebling carried himself
with the ease and dignity of power. Lady Patience, Lord
Will, and King Ruin, alone, at his mercy. He had wept
in grief the night before. Now he did not understand at
all.
Lord Will called out, and his voice could be heard
clearly by the soldiers in the front ranks; they passed
along his words to those behind. His declaration was
simple.
"Here is the daughter of prophecy. By right of blood
and prophecy, she is your King. She will not shed one
drop of human blood to claim her right. If you refuse
her, she will gladly die. If you receive her, she will
forgive you."
344 orson scott card
And when he was sure that every man in Oruc's army
had heard his words, he cried:
"Where are the soldiers of Agaranthemem Heptek!
Where are the Vigilants of God!"
Oruc's soldiers did not hesitate. Their voices swelled
like the rising voice of the wind over the sea, and they |
threw down their weapons and came to her, crying her
name at first, but then changing the cry into the simple
chant: "Kristos! Kristos! Kristos!"
Oruc gathered his family about him, preparing to die
with courage. But when she had him brought to her, she
smiled kindly at him, and he could detect no savagery in
her face or vengeance in her voice.
"You stood in a hard place, and did well," she said
simply. "I have come as Heptarch of all humankind. I
ask you to rule Korfu as my viceroy, a title to be
conferred on your heirs as long as one of your blood is
found worthy."
He bowed before her then, as she gave his children
back to him, and his life, and his kingdom. He ruled as
always in King's Hill, and she visited him only once a
every year; he served her loyally and well, and she
honored him above all other human kings.
But the center of the world was no longer Heptam. It
had moved to a new city, only a few days downriver of
Cranning. The city was built around a university, and the
university was built around a house on a hill overlooking
Cranwater. The city took the name of the school, and the
school was named for the house, and from this new city
called Heffiji's House the Gebling King and the Heptarch
ruled. This was the place where all the humans and
geblings and dwelfs and gaunts of the world looked for
justice, for wisdom, for mercy, for peace.
And every year. King Ruin and Agaranthemem Heptek
left Heffiji's House and made the voyage up Cranwater
wyrms 345
to Skyfoot; every year they climbed together to an ice
cave at the base of the glacier that roofed the world.
There they sat with Mother Wyrm, and told her all that
had happened in the world, and like any other supplicants
to that holiest place in all Imakulata, they listened to her
wisdom and received her love and joy. So also did their
children, and their children's children, through all the
ages of the world.
80820179