The Call of Earth

by Orson Scott Card

  "This is the raveler speaking?" asked Rasa.

  "It's your student speaking," said Hushidh, "telling you what you would know yourself, if you weren't so confused."

  A tear spilled out of Rasa's eye and slipped down her cheek. "What will happen?" said Rasa. "What will happen to my city now?"

  Luet had never heard her so afraid, so uncertain. Rasa was a great teacher, a woman of wisdom and honor; to be one of her nieces, one of the students specially chosen to dwell within her household-it was the proudest thing that could happen to a young woman of Basilica, or so Luet had always believed. Yet here she saw Rasa afraid and uncertain. She had not thought such a thing was possible.

  "Wetchik-my Volemak-he said the Oversoul was guiding him," said Rasa, spitting out the words with bitterness. "What sort of guide is this? Did the Over-soul tell him to send my boys back to the city, where they were almost killed? Did the Oversoul turn my son into a murderer and a fugitive? What is the Oversoul doing? Most likely it isn't the Oversoul at all. Gaballufix was right-my beloved Volemak has lost his mind, and our sons are being swallowed up in his madness."

  Luet had heard enough of this. "Shame on you," she said.

  "Hush, Lutya!" cried Hushidh.

  "Shame on you, Aunt Rasa," Luet insisted. "Just because it looks frightening and confusing to you doesn't mean that the Oversoul doesn't understand it. I know that the Oversoul is guiding Wetchik, and Nafai too. All this will somehow turn to the good of Basilica."

  "That's where you're wrong," said Rasa. "The Over-soul has no special love for Basilica. She watches over the whole world. What if the whole world will somehow benefit if Basilica is ruined? If my boys are killed? To the Oversoul, little cities and little people are nothing-she weaves a grand design."

  "Then we must bow to her," said Luet.

  "Bow to whomever you want," said Rasa. "I'm not bowing to the Oversoul if she's going to turn my boys into killers and my city into dust. If that's what the Oversoul is planning, then the Oversoul and I are enemies, do you understand me?"

  "Lower your voice, Aunt Rasa," said Hushidh. "You'll waken the little ones."

  Rasa fell silent for a moment, then muttered: "I've said what I have to say."

  "You are not the Oversoul's enemy," said Luet. "Please, wait awhile. Let me try to find the Oversoul's will in this. That's what you brought me here to do, isn't it? To tell you what the Oversoul is planning?"

  "Yes," said Rasa.

  "I don't command the Oversoul," said Luet. "But I'll ask her. Wait here, and I'll-"

  "No," said Rasa. "There's no time for you to go down to the waters."

  "Not to the waters," said Luet. "To my room. To sleep. To dream. To listen for the voice, to watch for vision. If it comes."

  "Then hurry," said Rasa. "We have only an hour or so before I have to do something-more and more people will come here, and I'll have to act"

  "I don't command the Oversoul," Luet said again.

  "And the Oversoul sets her own schedule. She does not follow yours."

  Kokor went to Sevet's favorite hideaway, where she took her lovers to keep them from Vas's knowledge, and Sevet wasn't there. "She doesn't come here anymore," said Iliva, Sevet's friend. "Nor any of the other places in Dauberville. Maybe she's being faithful!" Then Iliva laughed and bade her good night.

  So Kokor wouldn't be able to pounce after all. It was so disappointing.

  Why had Sevet found a new hiding place? Had her husband Vas gone in search of her? He was far too dignified for that! Yet the feet remained that Sevet had abandoned her old places, even though Iliva and Sevet's other friends would gladly have continued to shelter her.

  It could only mean one thing. Sevet had found a new lover, a real liaison, not just a quick encounter, and he was someone so important in the city that they had to find new hiding places for their love, for if it became known the scandal would surely reach Vas's ears.

  How delicious, thought Kokor. She tried to imagine who it could be, which of the most famous men of the city might have won Sevet's heart. Of course it would be a married man; unless he was married to a woman of Basilica, no man had a right to spend even a single night in the city. So when Kokor finally discovered Sevet's secret, the scandal would be marvelous indeed, for there'd be an injured weeping wife to make Sevet seem all the more sluttish.

  And I will tell it, thought Kokor. Because she hid this liaison from me and didn't tell me, I have no obligation to keep her secret for her. She didn't trust me, and so why should I be trustworthy?

  Kokor wouldn't tell it herself, of course. But she knew many a satirist in the Open Theatre who would love to know of this, so he could be the first to dart sweet Sevet and her lover in a play. And the price she charged him for the story wouldn't be high-only the chance to play Sevet when he darted her. That would put a quick end to Tumannu's threat to blackball her.

  I'll get to imitate Sevet's voice, thought Kokor, and make fun of her singing as I do. No one can sound as much like her as I can. No one knows all the flaws in her voice as I do. She will regret having hidden her secret from me! And yet I'll be masked when I dart her, and I'll deny it all, deny everything, even if Mother herself asks me to swear by the Oversoul, I'll deny it. Sevet isn't the only one who knows how to keep a secret.

  It was late, only a few hours before dawn, but the last comedies wouldn't be over for another hour. If she hurried back to the theatre, she could probably even go back onstage and be there for the finale, at least. But she couldn't bring herself to play the scene she'd have to play with Tumannu-begging forgiveness, vowing never to walk away from a play again, weeping. It would be too demeaning. No daughter of Gaballufix should have to grovel before a mere stage manager!

  Only now that he's dead, what will it matter if I'm his daughter or not? The thought filled her with dismay. She wondered if that man Rash had been right, if Father would leave her enough money to be very rich and buy her own theatre. That would be nice, wouldn't it? That would solve everything. Of course, Sevet would have just as much money and would probably buy her own theatre, too, just because she would have to overshadow Kokor as usual and steal any chance of glory, but Kokor would simply show herself to be the better promoter and drive Sevet's miserable imitative theatre into the dust, and, when it failed, all Sevet's inheritance would be lost, while Kokor would be the leading figure in Basilican theatre, and the day would come when Sevet would come to Kokor and beg her to put her in the starring role in one of her plays, and Kokor would embrace her sister and weep and say, "Oh, my darling sister, I'd love nothing better than to put on your little play, but I have a responsibility to my backers, my sweet, and I can't very well risk their money on a show starring a singer who is clearly past her prime"

  Oh, it was a delicious dream! Never mind that Sevet was only a single year older-to Kokor that made all the difference. Sevet might be ahead now, but someday soon youth would be more valuable than age to them, and then it would be Kokor who had the advantage. Youth and beauty-Kokor would always have more of both than Sevet. And she was every bit as talented as Sevet, too.

  Now she was home, the little place that she and Obring rented in Hill Town. It was modest, but decorated in exquisite taste. That much, at least, she had learned from her Aunt Dhelembuvex-Obring's mother-that it's better to have a small setting perfectly finished than a large setting badly done. "A woman must present herself as the blossom of perfection," Auntie Dhel always said. Kokor herself had written it much better, in an aphorism she had published back when she was only fifteen, before she married Obring and left Mother's house:

  A perfect bud of subtle color and delicate scent is more welcome than a showy bloom, which shouts for attention but has nothing to show that can't be seen in the first glance, or smelled in the first whiff.

  Kokor had been proudest of the way the lines about the perfect bud were short and simple phrases, while the lines about the showy bloom were long and awkward. But to her disappointment no noted melodist had made an aria of her aph
orism, and the young ones who came to her with their tunes were all talentless pretenders who had no idea how to make a song that would suit a voice like Kokor's. She didn't even sleep with any of them, except the one whose face was so shy and sweet. Ah, he was a tiger in the darkness, wasn't he! She had kept him for three days, but he would insist on singing his tunes to her, and so she sent him on his way.

  What was his name?

  She was on the verge of remembering who he was as she entered the house and heard a strange hooting sound from the back room. Like the baboons who lived across Little Lake, their pant-hoots as they babbled to each other in their nothing language. "Oh. Hoo. Oo-oo. Hoooo."

  Only it wasn't baboons, was it? And the sound came from the bedroom, up the winding stair, moonlight from the roof window lighting the way as Kokor rushed upward, running the stairs on tiptoe, silently, for she knew that she would find her husband Obring with some whore of his in Kokor's bed, and that was unspeakable, a breach of all decency, hadn't he any consideration for her at all? She never brought her lovers home, did she? She never let them sweat on his sheets, did she? Fair was fair, and it would be a glorious scene of injured pride when she thrust the little tartlet out of the house without her clothes! so she'd have to go home naked and then Kokor would see how Obring apologized to her and how he'd make it up to her, all his vows and apologies and whimpering but there was no doubt about it now, she would not renew him when their contract came up and then he'd find out what happens to a man who throws his faithlessness in Kokor's face.

  In her moonlit bedroom, Kokor found Obring engaged in exactly the activity she had expected. She couldn't see his face, or the face of the woman for whom he was providing vigorous companionship, but she didn't need daylight or a magnifying glass to know what it all meant.

  "Disgusting," she said.

  It worked just as she had hoped. They obviously had not heard her coming up the stair, and the sound of her voice froze Obring. For a moment he held his post. Then he turned his head, looking quite foolish as he gazed mournfully over his shoulder at her. "Kyoka," he said. "You're home early."

  "I should have known," said the woman on the bed. Her face was still hidden behind Obring's naked back, but Kokor knew the voice at once. "Your show is so bad they closed it in mid-performance."

  Kokor hardly noticed the insult, hardly noticed the fact that there wasn't a trace of embarrassment in Sevet's tone. All she could think of was, That's why she had to find a new hiding place, not because her lover was somebody famous, but to keep the truth from me.

  "Hundreds of your followers every night would be glad for a yibattsa with you," Kokor whispered. "But you had to have my husband."

  "Oh, don't take this personally," said Sevet, sitting up on her elbows. Sevet's breasts sagged off to the sides. Kokor loved seeing that, how her breasts sagged, how at nineteen Sevet was definitely older and thicker than Kokor. Yet Obring had wanted that body, had used that body on the very bed where he had slept beside Kokor's perfect body so many nights. How could he even be aroused by a body like that, after seeing Kokor after her bath so many mornings.

  "You weren't using him, and he's very sweet," said Sevet. "If you'd ever bothered to satisfy him he wouldn't have looked at me"

  "I'm sorry," Obring murmured. "I didn't mean to."

  That was so outrageous, like a little child, that Kokor could not contain her rage. And yet she did contain it. She held it in, like a tornado in a bottle. "This was an accident?" whispered Kokor. "You stumbled, you tripped and fell, your clothes tore off and you just happened to bounce on top of my sister?"

  "I mean-I kept wanting to break this off, all these months ..."

  "Months," whispered Kokor.

  "Don't say any more, puppy," said Sevet. "You're just making it worse."

  "You call him ‘puppy'?" asked Kokor. It was the word they had used when they first reached womanhood, to describe the teenage boys who panted after them.

  "He was so eager," said Sevet, sliding out from under Obring. "I couldn't help calling him that, and he likes the name."

  Obring turned and sat miserably on the bed. He made no attempt to cover himself; it was obvious he had lost all interest in love for the evening.

  "Don't worry about it, Obring," Sevet said. She stood beside the bed, bending over to pick up her clothing from the floor. "She'll still renew you. This is one story she won't be eager to have people tell about her, and so she'll renew you as long as you want, just to keep you from telling."

  Kokor saw how Sevet's belly pooched out, how her breasts swung when she bent over. And yet she had taken Kokor's husband. After everything else, she had to have even that. It could not be borne.

  "Sing for me," whispered Kokor.

  "What?" asked Sevet, turning to face her, holding her gown in front of her.

  "Sing me a song, you davalka, with that pretty voice of yours."

  Sevet stared into Kokor's eyes and the look of bored amusement left her face. "I'm not going to sing right now, you little fool," she said.

  "Not for me," said Kokor. "For Father."

  "What about Father?" Sevet's face twisted into an expression of mock sympathy. "Oh, is little Kyoka going to tell on me?" Then she sneered. "He'll laugh. Then he'll take Obring drinking with him!"

  "A dirge for Father," said Kokor.

  "A dirge?" Sevet looked confused now. Worried.

  "While you were here, boffing your sister's husband, somebody was busy killing Father. If you were human, you'd care. Even baboons grieve for their dead."

  "I didn't know," said Sevet. "How could I know?"

  "I looked for you," said Kokor. "To tell you. But you weren't in any of the places I knew. I left my play, I lost my job to search for you and tell you, and this is where you were and what you were doing."

  "You're such a liar," said Sevet. "Why should I believe this?"

  "I never did it with Vas," said Kokor. "Even when he begged me."

  "He never asked you," said Sevet. "I don't believe your lies."

  "He told me that just once he'd like to have a woman who was truly beautiful. A woman whose body was young and lithe and sweet. But I refused, because you were my sister."

  "You're lying. He never asked."

  "Maybe I'm lying. But he did ask."

  "Not Vas," said Sevet.

  "Vas, with the large mole on the inside of his thigh," said Kokor. "I refused him because you were my sister."

  "You're lying about Father, too."

  "Dead in his own blood. Murdered on the street. This is not a good night for our loving family. Father dead. Me betrayed. And you-"

  "Stay away from me."

  "Sing for him," said Kokor.

  "At the funeral, if you're not lying."

  "Sing now" said Kokor.

  "Little hen, little duck, I'll never sing at your command."

  Accusing her of cackling and quacking instead of singing, that was an old taunt between them, that was nothing. It was the contempt in Sevet's voice, the loathing that got inside her. It filled her, it overfilled her, it was more than she could contain. Not for another moment could she hold in the tempest that tore at her.

  "That's right!" cried Kokor. "At my command, you'll never sing!" And like a cat she lashed out, but it wasn't a claw, it was a fist. Sevet threw up her hands to protect her face. But Kokor had no desire to mark her sister's face. It wasn't her face she hated. No, her fist connected right where she aimed, under Sevet's chin, on her throat, where the larynx lay hidden under the ample flesh, where the voice was made.

  Sevet didn't make a sound, even though the force of the blow knocked her backward. She fell, clutching at her throat; she writhed on the floor, gagging, hacking. Obring cried out and leapt to her, knelt over her. "Sevet!" he cried. "Sevet, are you all right?"

  But Sevet's only answer was to gurgle and spit, then to choke and cough. On blood. Her own blood. Kokor could see it on Sevet's hands, on Obring's thighs where he cradled her head on his lap as he knelt there. Glimmeri
ng black in the moonlight, blood from Sevet's throat. How does it taste in your mouth, Sevet? How does it feel on your flesh, Obring? Her blood, like the gift of a virgin, my gift to both of you.

  Sevet was making an awful strangling sound. "Water," said Obring. "A glass of water, Kyoka-to wash her mouth out. She's bleeding, can't you see that? What have you done to her!"

  Kyoka stepped to the sink-her own sink-and took a cup-her own cup-and brought it, filled with water, to Obring, who took it from her hand and tried to pour some of it into Sevet's mouth. But Sevet choked on it and spat the water out, gasping for breath, strangling on the blood that flowed inside her throat.

  "A doctor!" cried Obring. "Cry out for a doctor- Bustiya next door is a doctor, she'll come."

  "Help," murmured Kokor. "Come quickly. Help." She spoke so softly she almost couldn't hear the sound herself.

  Obring rose up from the floor and looked at her in rage. "Don't touch her," he said. "I'll fetch the physician myself." He strode boldly from the room. Such strength in him now. Naked as a mythic god, as the pictures of the Gorayni Imperator-the image of masculinity-that was Obring as he went forth into the night to find a doctor who might save his lady.

  Kokor watched as Sevens fingers scratched on the floor, tore at the skin around her neck, as if she wanted to open up a breathing hole there. Sevet's eyes were bugging out, and blood drooled from her mouth onto the floor.

  "You had everything else," said Kokor. "Everything else. But you couldn't even leave me him"

  Sevet gurgled. Her eyes stared at Kokor in agony and terror.

  "You won't die," said Kokor. "I'm not a murderer. I'm not a betrayer"

  But then it occurred to her that Sevet just might die. With so much blood in her throat, she might drown in it. And then Kokor would be held responsible for this. "Nobody can blame me," said Kokor. "Father died tonight, and I came home and found you with my husband, and then you taunted me-no one will blame me. I'm only eighteen, I'm only a girl. And it was an accident anyway. I meant to claw out your eyes but I missed, that's all."