The Worthing Saga

by Orson Scott Card

  “No,” whispered John.

  “Hold your tongue or I'll do you, too.”

  “No,” said John aloud.

  In answer Adam struck his father across the belly with the rope. Elijah did not so much as flinch. “See, John? It doesn't hurt.”

  “Why doesn't Papa move?”

  “He likes it.” He kicked his father in the groin with all his strength. Again not a sound; but the blow overbalanced him, and Elijah toppled over backward, lay helpless and unmoving on the floor, looking for all the world alike one of the corpses on the pile. What are you doing, Papa, lying on the pile? Do you want to burn with Mama? Are you dry? Adam kicked and beat and stamped and John screamed, “Uncle Matthew! Uncle Matthew!” And suddenly Adam felt himself flying across the room, slamming into the leathers hanging on the wall.

  Uncle Matthew stood at the top of the cellar stairs. “Get your clothing,” Matthew said.

  Adam tried to make him hold still, just like Elijah, but he couldn't seem to find Uncle Matthew's mind. Suddenly he felt himself burn up inside, so that he clawed at his belly to let the fire out. Then he felt his eyes melting, dripping down onto his cheeks, and in terror he screamed and tried to push them back in place. Then his legs began to crumble like a sugar man, and he lurched closer and closer to the floor; he bent over and watched the pieces of his face fall off and lie shriveling on the floor, ears and nose and lips and teeth and tongue, his eyes last like jelly, only now he looked up from those eyes at his empty face, just blank and featureless skin with a gaping hole for his mouth, and he saw the mouth suddenly fill from inside, and out came his heart, and then his liver, and then his stomach and bowel as his body emptied itself, until he was light and empty as a flourbag in spring—

  And then he lay on the floor, weeping and pleading for mercy, for forgiveness, for his body back the way it was.

  “Adam,” John said softly from the bed, “what's wrong with you?”

  Adam touched his face and everything was there, as it should be; he opened his eyes, and he could see. “I'm sorry,” he whispered. “I'll never do it again.”

  Elijah was crying where he sat now, leaning against the wall. “Ah, Matthew,” he wept, “what have I made here? What monster have I made?”

  Matthew shook his head. “What harms have you done to Adam that you haven't also done to John? The child is what he is—he eats what you feed him, but he turns the food into himself.”

  Then Elijah realized something, and smiled despite his pain. “I was right. You are one of us, just as I said.”

  “Please don't do it again,” Adam whispered.

  “You and your father,” Matthew said. “Neither of you knows what your power is for. Do you think Jason made us to live forever on a farm, Elijah? Or to play cruel pranks on people who can't protect themselves? I am watching you now, both of you. I'll have you do no more harm. You have both done enough harm in your life. Now it's time that you began to heal.”

  Adam lived at Matthew's inn for two more years. Then, on a day when he could bear it no more, he fled empty-handed, stole a boat and went down river to Linkeree. On the way he searched backward, looked in Worthing Inn until he found his uncle's son, little Matt, a baby just learning his first words. He made the baby speak aloud; “Goodbye, Uncle Matthew.” And then he killed it.

  He waited for the answering blow from Matthew's mind, but it never came. I am beyond his reach, Adam realized. I am safe at last. I can do what I like.

  He made his way to Heaven City, the capital of the world. Adam was safe on every road, for who could even think of harming him? And he was never hungry, for so many people yearned to give him food. In Heaven City he waited and watched. This much he had learned from Uncle Matthew: his power would not be used for games. He had read the stone in the middle of Worthing Farm, as all the blue-eyed children read it: “From the stars blue-eyed one, from this land Jason's son.” I am the first to leave the Forest of Waters. I am Jason's son. I will not be content with a plot of ground, or even with an inn. The world should be enough for me.

  And bit by bit, the world came to him.

  Came to him in the shape of a girl, not so little anymore, the granddaughter of Elena of Noyock. She haunted the palace, always just out of sight, holding still in a comer, under a stair, by a curtain. It was not that she was unsupervised. Some of the servants were probably detailed to keep an eye on her. But it didn't matter much. No one cared that much about her, for she had a younger brother, and Noyock's rulers were succeeded by the eldest male. Elena of Noyock was merely guardian, in favor of her grandson, Ivvis. What was Uwen, the daughter, the invisible? When Adam first came to live at Elena's palace, he noticed her, determined that she was nothing, and ignored her.

  So a year had passed, in which Adam had made himself indispensible to Elena of Noyock. He had risen quickly, but not suspiciously so—no higher or faster than native genius might make a young man rise. Now Elena sent him to conduct delicate negotiations for her—he always seemed to extract the very most that could be won from any situation. Now Elena had him choose her servants and her guards, for the ones he chose were loyal and served well; he was never deceived. And when he told her what her enemies were planning, his information always turned out to be correct. Elena prospered. Noyock even prospered. Above all, Adam prospered. Everyone watched him as he made his way through the chambers and porches of Heaven City. Watched him with envy, or hatred, or admiration, or fear.

  Except for Uwen. Uwen watched him with love. Whenever Adam noticed her, he noticed that. Saw in her memory that she came sometimes to his room at night, as he lay alone on his mat in the darkness. In the night she studied him, when he was alone and when he was not alone, studied him and wondered how this man from nowhere had managed to be powerful, to be noticed, to be somebody, when she, the daughter of a lord, granddaughter of Elena of Noyock, she had never been noticed at all. What do you do, she wondered? How do you know what you know? How do you say what you say?

  But by the time Adam noticed that Uwen was asking these questions, she had the answer. Adam was the enchanted man. Adam was the man of wood from the forest. She knew all the old tales. Adam was the Son of God. When he climbed the stairs to the third floor to go to bed one night, she was leaning on the banister at the top. Not hiding anymore. It was time, she had decided, to be seen.

  “What did you do, Adam Waters?” asked Uwen. “For a living, I mean. Before you came here.” She perched on the banister above the steep drop down the stairwell.

  “I looked for little girls who wanted to die, and I pushed them down stairwells,” said Adam.

  “I'm fourteen years old,” said Uwen, “and I know your secret.”

  Adam raised an eyebrow. “I have no secrets.”

  “You have one very big secret,” said Uwen. “And your secret is that you know all the other people's secrets.”

  Adam smiled. “Do I?”

  “You listen all the time, don't you? That's how I find out secrets. I listen. I've seen the way you pay such close attention to everyone who comes to our house. Mother says you are very wise, but I think you just listen.”

  We wouldn't want people to think I'm wise, would we.

  Uwen entwined herself into the rails like a weed grown up through a picket fence. “But when you listen,” said Uwen, “you even hear what people didn't say.”

  Adam felt a thrill of fear. In all his maneuvering to rise through the ranks of diplomats and bureaucrats in Heaven City, no one had guessed his secret until now. How many people had he whispered to, who had recoiled in fear and said, “Who told you? How did you know?” But none had said, You even hear what people didn't say. Already Adam imagined Uwen's death. It would annoy her grandmother, but not seriously. The child was not particularly useful until she could be married to political advantage. It was not as if the child were loved. Adam felt no debt to Elena of Noyock. He had benefited her as much as she had him, and that made them even; he did not owe her his life itself. And it was his life at stake
. For if people once guessed that instead of controlling a network of informers, as they all supposed, Adam Waters had only his own mind supplying him his secrets, then everyone he had blackmailed would be out to kill him, and Adam would be dead within a day. My life or yours, Uwen. “How could I hear them?” asked Adam.

  “You lie on your back in bed,” said Uwen, “and you listen. Sometimes you smile, and sometimes you frown, and then you wake up and write letters, or go make visits, or tell Grandmother, 'The governor of Gravesend wants this much and no more,' or 'The bank of Wien has let all its gold slip away to build the highway, and they're buying at a premium now.' It gives you power. You're going to rule the world someday.”

  “Don't you know that if you tell people such things, someone might actually believe you, and then my life would be in danger?” I could make the banister break right now, but the fall might not kill her.

  “I don't tell secrets. I'll never tell yours, if you do one thing.”

  I could make her erupt into flames from the inside out—it would be thorough, but perhaps too flamboyant. “You were a cute little girl, Uwen, but you're becoming something of a fart as you get older.”

  “I'm becoming an unusually interesting young woman,” said Uwen. “And if you're planning on killing me, I've already written everything down. All my proof.”

  “You don't have any proof. There's nothing to prove.”

  “As Grandmother always says, innuendo is everything in politics. It's much easier to be believed when you're telling people that a powerful young man is really a monster.”

  The banister creaked and began to crack.

  “I love you,” said Uwen. “Marry me, get rid of my brother, and Noyock will be yours.”

  “I don't want Noyock,” said Adam. The banister began tilting backward.

  “You wouldn't dare,” said Uwen. “I'm second in line to the throne of Noyock. I can help you.”

  “I can't think how,” said Adam.

  “I know things.”

  “Everything you know, I know,” said Adam.

  “I would be the one person,” she said, “that you could tell the truth to. Don't you ever wish that you could tell the truth to somebody? You've been in Heaven City for five years now, and you're just about to play for everything, and when it's done what will you have to do with yourself?”

  The banister righted itself. “You'd better get off that,” Adam said. “It isn't safe.”

  She unwound her legs from the rails and clambered off, then walked to Adam where he stood leaning on the wall; she walked to him and pressed herself against him and said, “So you'll marry me?”

  “Never,” said Adam, putting his hands behind her, holding her close to him.

  “You want to marry power, don't you?” she said, lifting her skirt and guiding his hand to rest on her naked hip.

  “You aren't the heir. Your brother Ivvis is.”

  She lifted his tunic too and began to fumble with his codpiece. “I don't have to have a brother.”

  “Even if you had no brother, Noyock isn't strong enough for what I want to do. You will never be powerful enough.” He checked the servants and made sure none of them had the slightest desire to come up to the third floor of Duchess Elena's Heaven City palace.

  She looked angry. “Then why did you let me live?”

  He lifted her up, his hands behind her thighs, and carried her into her room. “Because I like you.”

  Adam was very careful with her. He could feel everything she felt, knew what she enjoyed, what she did not enjoy, when she was unready, when she was eager, when she needed passion, when she needed gentleness. He was her only memory of lovers; the other women he had taken were too cluttered with faces in their minds, names to cry out in the moment of delight. Uwen had only him. She would never need anyone else. “You love me,” she whispered.

  “Whatever you need to believe,” said Adam, “is fine with me.”

  Adam was in no hurry. There was little suspense in the final outcome. Heaven City was not like Worthing Farm. Here there was no one to undo him, no one whose power matched his or surpassed it. When he was challenged to a duel here he knew that he could win, and did, until the challenges stopped. When someone thwarted him he could easily move them aside. He could flatter almost anyone, and when he tired of that, he could frighten or seduce or, ultimately, strike down whoever stood in his way.

  Except Zoferil of Stipock. Zoferil was a woman of honor and deep faith, who alone of all the rulers of the world had never lied and never would. When she could not speak the truth she said nothing, and when she did speak the truth her words were knives that cut to the heart of all hearers. They feared her, even those whose armies were larger, because they knew that the people of Stipock truly loved Zoferil as she loved them, and would die for her, and she for them; they could not get her to conspire with them in any dishonorable thing, and so she remained aloof from all their plans, a constant threat because if she brought her army into any war it would easily swing the balance. Without her as an ally—there was always the risk that she would be an enemy. People of every nation said, Jason must love the land of Stipock, because he gave them Zoferil.

  “I will have Zoferil's power and I will have her love,” said Adam. “She is mine.”

  “She's an old lady and you'll never love her,” said Uwen.

  “But with Stipock and Noyock both mine,” said Adam, “the rest of the world will slip into place quietly.”

  “Noyock isn't yours,” said Uwen. “It's Grandmother's.”

  Adam didn't need to argue. Didn't need to say, she is mine, and you are mine, and your little brother Ivvis is also mine. Everyone was his; Uwen simply knew it, that's all, and it gave her a sense of freedom, to at least be aware of her possession.

  Elena of Noyock grew old, and her son Ivvis was only twelve years old; with the weight of future death on her, she felt a need to name a regent—Adam was her choice, of course. She died soon after when her ship was lost at sea. Adam was a scrupulous regent, protecting the child-magister from all harm, teaching him studiously to be a man of virtue. At the court of the Heaven King they watched how the young man grew, a model of what a ruler ought to be; and in a world where regents more often had to be removed by bloodshed than by law, Adam surprised them all by turning power over to young Ivvis two years before the law required, because the boy was ready to be magister in his own right. The world admired how gracefully Adam stepped back at once into his role as one adviser among many. No one thought it anything but a fortunate coincidence that this happened just as Zoferil's eldest daughter and, sadly, only surviving child came of age. No one but Uwen.

  “If you can kill off Gatha's brothers, why couldn't you kill off mine?” demanded Uwen. “And why didn't you just keep the power, when you had it?”

  “Doesn't it occur to you that sometimes I like to win things by merit, and not by secret compulsion?”

  “You'll never compel me.”

  “I never had to.”

  “She's not as beautiful as I am. What does Gatha have, that you want to marry her and not me?”

  “For one thing,” said Adam, “she's a virgin.”

  Uwen kicked at him, and Adam laughed at her as he went to call on Zoferil.

  “All my sons have died during these last few years,” said Zoferil to Adam. “I would have hoped that, if they lived, they would each have become a man like you. Adam, it is time for my daughter to have a husband, and the desire of her heart is like the desire of mine: that you be my son, and help her rule Stipock after I am gone.”

  “I would say yes at once,” said Adam, “but I cannot deceive you. I am not what I seem.”

  “You seem to be the best and wisest and most honorable of men,” said Zoferil.

  “No,” said Adam. “I have deceived the world and disguised myself all these years.”

  “Who are you, then, if you are not Adam Waters?”

  “My true name is Worthing. I think you know the name.”

 
; “Jason's son,” whispered Zoferil.

  “I thought before you gave me your daughter, you ought to know.”

  “You,” she whispered. “For a thousand years the secret rite of the men and women of Stipock has called upon the sacred, holy name of Worthing, Jason's son. When I saw your eyes like a perfect sky, I wondered. When I saw your virtue like the purest of all men, I hoped. Now, Adam Worthing, now I know you, and I beg you to take my daughter and my kingdom both, if only you think us worthy.”

  She crowned him with the crown of iron, and put the iron hammer in his hand, and he vowed that never a sword would come from the forges of Stipock, as all the philocrats of Stipock had sworn before him. All the world looked to him in love or jealousy, and the people of Stipock honored him as if he had been born among them.

  Adam had some mercy. He waited to unmask himself until Zoferil was dead.

  Then, with a pathetic plot of Wien and Kapock as his excuse, Adam sent the armies of Stipock and the fleets of Noyock to bring blood and terror to every kingdom of the world. Adam's enemies could not stand against him. Their armies could not find him until he stood behind them; their own guards turned against them and assassinated them; and within three years, for the first time since Jason had taken the original Star Tower into heaven, all the world was ruled from Heaven City, and Adam named himself Jason's Son, the true Heaven King.

  Even then there were still some who loved him. But through the years of his misrule they learned what he truly was. How could he pursue power now, when there was no more power to be had in all the world? He plumbed the secrets of death and pain by torturing and killing while tasting the experience in his victims' mind. He broke great men and women, and impoverished great families. He took his pleasure with the virtuous daughters of noble houses and then sold them out for whores. He took as much in taxes as he could, and more, so that famines came to lands whose harvests had been good; when the desperate people begged for food at any price, he bought them as slaves to build his monuments. It was as if he set himself the task of proving that he was so powerful that even when everyone in the world hated him, he could still rule them, could still keep his power. His wife, Gatha, wept to see what he had become; his mistress, Uwen, urged him on, for she loved the pleasures of power even more than Adam did. In Heaven City she built the Star Tower the same size and same shape as the one described as Jason's own, and sheathed it in silver, and the bodies of five thousand dead were buried under it. And any who spoke or acted against either of them were ingeniously undone for all the world to see, for all the world to hear their screams. I am God Himself Adam said at last, and there was no one who dared to say that he was not.