by IGMS
Gareth, Lord of Traes, was a good man from all I'd heard but young -- only eighteen. A dangerous age, when you know everything and aren't old enough yet to realise that you're wrong.
The wizard woman was there, in the man's memory of Lord Gareth's hall. Even in his memory I could smell the seductive scent of her and I wanted to hide my hands but if I stopped playing it would break the magic of the song and end my glimpse into the man's memories, my influence over his feelings. My hour was fleeing away. I needed my hands. I needed my music to fill the long, empty days of wandering, and the colder nights. With fame would come food for my belly, warm blankets at night, and maybe enough security that I could stay in one place long enough to learn to know someone. A woman. She could never replace my wife and son but it would be someone to comfort and warm me. Someone to be with. This old man had found a second wife to share the turmoil of his life. Someone he cared about. Why would he cast that away?
In the man's memories, the wizard bent low and whispered in lord Gareth's ear, her breasts brushing against his shoulder.
"The lord atold me it was all my own fault -- my boy's death, my wife and the bastard babe, the poor old sow. The woman, his wizard advisor, atold me herself that I'd to pay back Gerg for the trampled garden but not a word about my cabbages all churned up and eaten by them cows. Then the woman gave me a useless lump o' rock, as if a lump o' rock could help me."
In a few short moments the wizard had destroyed the man's hope, his dignity. Why?
The same reason she was destroying me?
The thought sent prickles of fear across my chest. My fingers stumbled on the strings. She had no reason to destroy me. It was a foolish thought.
The man looked up and our eyes met. If he knew I had been spying on his memories and pushing his emotions, he gave no sign. His attention returned to the rock in his lap.
The wizard had destroyed his dignity, but not his love for his wife. He clung to that love as to the last floating board in a shipwreck. I felt it in the desperate churning of his hands as he rolled the rock over and over again.
For the first time I saw the rock clearly, through his eyes. It was a crystal, gnarled and black. Seeing it, I knew I had blundered into something too big for me. Crystals were dangerous things, contorted by wizards to affect their holder in treacherous ways. Always the holder had to do something, perform some act, before the crystal could bind them but once bound, there was no freeing them. I had met a man on the road, bound to a wizard's crystal, who could only walk east, never west, so he could never get home. Another, in a town, could not use his legs from dawn 'til dusk. How the crystal in this man's lap would bind him, I didn't know, but in some way it would torment or cripple him. For now it was quiet, and I prayed it would stay that way.
The water clock on the mantle dripped relentlessly, drowning my hour. Only a few minutes before the woman returned. How could I save this man from the woman bent on destroying him and still save myself? My mind raced without finding any answers. He felt the same as the crystal -- cold, dark, withdrawn. I had no idea what action would spark this crystal into life. Should I use the last moments of my hour to run across the room and dash it from his hands? But what would stop him from picking it up again once the wizard had come for me and my hands were gone? All I had was my wager. Win it or be silenced. This man didn't deserve whatever fate the wizard had devised for him.
I didn't deserve silence. Not yet. My wife, so silent, her cold lips under mine. So mute, laid in the damp earth that covered her hair. I needed to write a song to remember her as she was before the scent of earth covered the warm saltiness of her skin. To remember her before her silence. I couldn't lose my hands, whatever might happen to this man.
Music is a strange beast. Hard men cry when touched in the right moment by the right harmony. An enemy's heart can be changed and peace brokered. Frightened men can be pushed into battle. How many children have been conceived beneath a melody's seductive fingertips?
Yet it's a difficult master, more compelling than the opiate drugs. Once is never enough to fill or content and so the music drags me back again and again, looking for that purest chord that can shift a man's anger into joy. For the harmonies that might warm a heart to forgive or a melody that might open a woman's thighs, all the while hoping for myself to find that moment of ecstasy when the music shifts me, warms me, opens me, and I feel everything. Even to feel loss is better than knowing emptiness.
The clock dripped to fill up the hour, moments away, three drops, two. I played a note and touched the man. A moment of forgiveness. That was all I needed to create. Just one moment. His love for Ariana was so close to the surface now, so tender, I just had to touch it. I played a thick chord, heavy with longing at first but melting into something fragile, a bubble he dared not touch lest it break. It was so fleeting, suspended there, a blink of time that was the span of his life and then it would flee, burned away like the summer grass, and he had only Ariana in that moment, only her to share his fleeing life with. The bubble shivered before him, so fragile, so easily lost.
In my mind, I saw him reach for it. He could not lose her, too. Could not let his moments with her shatter beyond repair. He could love her. The babe, too. He could make the babe his own. His child.
The crystal in his hand leapt into fire and I dropped my lute to shield my eyes from the glare. I thought the man screamed, but I couldn't be sure. There were so many people screaming. Tables toppled and benches skidded across the floor as people ran from his burning.
I couldn't move. It had been a perfect note and I had felt his love for her blossom into forgiveness. The feeling still burned my chest, hotter than the crystal's glow. I knew he was dead. Only death carries that profound a silence.
I lifted my eyes. The wizard stood across the room, watching him, her body arcing with satisfaction.
"He would accept this bastard babe, would he? Love it?"
She turned and met my gaze. Unshed tears glittered in her eyes, like ice.
"I told you that some loves must be paid for. I spent years looking for my peasant bastard father. He was so young, fulfilling his service time with his lord, when he left my mother in her lord's kitchen with a full belly and no man to protect her. Then, after all these long years, he came to Lord Gareth. He came to me.
"But even after all the sacrifices I made to become a wizard so I could destroy him, I couldn't. Not before seeing what kind of man he was. I needed to know how much he could love, and forgive, when he wouldn't forgive my mother, or love me."
She had used me. Had used my love for my wife, my need for remembering, and made it dirty. I stood and backed away from her but could not rid myself of the bitterness in my mouth that did not come from the smell of charred flesh.
For a brief flash, I felt the brush of her wizard's gift. Her anger beat against me, as deep and desperate as pain, unassuaged by vengeance; her rage demanded that all great loves be sundered. And forgotten.
The word echoed through my head, pounding against my skull. Forgotten.
The wizard lifted her hand and batted away my awareness of her feelings as easily as if I had been a drift of smoke. "Do not dare to look at my emptiness. You, too, have lost your love. Take the fruits of your wager, and go."
I fled.
To this day, they tell stories of me. How I stormed castles with my songs and felled giants. None of the stories are true, and I'm haunted by the memory of that one perfect note. I cannot play. I can't even think of music without smelling the charred smell of death and hearing the terrible silence where the man's heart had been. I touched that heart, shared in its grief. Silenced it.
I wish I had let her cut off my hands. Then maybe I could still remember the smell of the earth where my wife lies, waiting for me. Maybe I could hum a song.
Ender's Homecoming
by Orson Scott Card
* * *
To: [email protected], [email protected]
From: hgraff%[email protected]
Re: When Andrew Returns Home
Dear John Paul and Theresa Wiggin,
You understand that during the recent attempt by the Warsaw Pact to take over the International Fleet, our sole concern at EducAdmin was the safety of the children. Now we are finally able to begin working out the logistics of sending the children home.
We assure you that Andrew will be provided with continuous surveillance and an active bodyguard throughout his transfer from the IF to American government control. We are still negotiating the degree to which the IF will continue to provide protection after the transfer.
Every effort is being made by EducAdmin to assure that Andrew will be able to return to the most normal childhood possible. However, I wish your advice about whether he should be retained here in isolation until the conclusion of the inquiries into EducAdmin actions during the late campaign. It is quite likely that testimony will be offered that depicts Andrew and his actions in damaging ways, in order to attack EducAdmin through him (and the other children). Here at IFCOM we can keep him from hearing the worst of it; on Earth, no such protection will be possible and it is likelier that he will be called to "testify."
Hyrum Graff
Theresa Wiggin was sitting up in bed, holding her printout of Graff's letter. "'Called to "testify."' Which means putting him on exhibit as -- what, a hero? More likely a monster, since we already have various senators decrying the exploitation of children."
"That'll teach him to save the human race," said her husband, John Paul.
"This is not a time for flippancy."
"Theresa, be reasonable," said John Paul. "I want Ender home as much as you do."
"No you don't," said Theresa fiercely. "You don't ache with the need for him every day." Even as she said it she knew she was being unfair to him, and she covered her eyes and shook her head.
To his credit, he understood and didn't argue with her about what he did and did not feel. "You can never have the years they've taken, Theresa. He's not the boy we knew."
"Then we'll get to know the boy he is. Here. In our home."
"Surrounded by guards."
"That's the part I refuse to accept. Who would want to hurt him?"
John Paul set down the book he was no longer pretending to read. "Theresa, you're the smartest person I know."
"He's a child!"
"He won a war against incredibly superior forces."
"He fired off one weapon. Which he did not design or deploy."
"He got that weapon into firing range."
"The formics are gone! He's a hero, he's not in danger."
"All right, Theresa, he's a hero. How is he going to go to middle school? What eighth grade teacher is ready for him? What school dance is he going to be ready for?"
"It will take time. But here, with his family --"
"Yes, we're such a warm, welcoming group of people, a love nest into which he'll fit so easily."
"We do love each other!"
"Theresa, Colonel Graff is only trying to warn us that Ender isn't just our son."
"He's nobody else's son."
"You know who wants to kill our son."
"No, I don't."
"Every government that thinks of American military power as an obstacle to their plans."
"But Ender isn't going to be in the military, he's going to be --"
"This week he won't be in the American military. Maybe. He won a war at the age of twelve, Theresa. What makes you think he won't be drafted by our benevolent and democratic government the moment he gets back to Earth? Or put into protective custody? Maybe they'll let us go with him and maybe they won't."
Theresa let the tears flow down her cheeks. "So you're saying that when he left here we lost him forever."
"I'm saying that when your child goes off to war, you will never get him back. Not as he was, not the same boy. Changed, if he comes back at all. So let me ask you? Do you want him to go where he's in the greatest danger, or to stay where he's relatively safe?"
"You think Graff is trying to get us to tell him to keep Ender with him out there in space."
"I think Graff cares what happens to Ender, and he's letting us know -- without actually saying it, because every letter he sends can be used against him in court -- that Ender is in terrible danger. Not ten minutes after Ender's victory, the Russians made their brutal play for control of the IF. Their soldiers killed thousands of fleet officers before the IF was able to force their surrender. What would they have done if they had won? Brought Ender home and put on a big parade for him?"
Theresa knew all of this. She had known it, viscerally at least, from the moment she read Graff's letter. No, she had known it even before, had known it with a sick dread as soon as she heard that the Formic War was over. He would not be coming home.
She felt John Paul's hand on her shoulder. She shrugged it off. His hand returned, stroking her arm as she lay there, facing away from him, crying because she knew she had already lost the argument, crying because she wasn't even on her own side in their quarrel.
"We knew when he was born that he didn't belong to us."
"He does belong to us."
"If he comes home, his life belongs to whatever government has the power to protect him and use him -- or kill him. He's the single most important asset surviving from the war. The great weapon. That's all he'll be -- that and such a celebrity he can't possibly have a normal childhood anyway. And would we be much help, Theresa? Do we understand what his life has been for the past seven years? What kind of parents can we be to the boy -- the man -- that he's become?"
"We would be wonderful," she said.
"And we know this because we're such perfect parents for the children we have at home with us."
Theresa rolled onto her back. "Oh, dear. Poor Peter. It must be killing him that Ender might come home."
"Take the wind right out of his sails."
"Oh, I'm not sure of that," said Theresa. "I bet Peter is already figuring out how to exploit Ender's return."
"Until he finds out that Ender is much too clever to be exploited."
"What preparation does Ender have for politics? He's been in the military all this time."
John Paul chuckled.
"All right, yes, of course the military is just as political as government."
"But you're right," said John Paul. "Ender's had protection there, people who intended to exploit him, yes, but he hasn't had to do any bureaucratic fighting for himself. He's probably a babe in the woods when it comes to maneuvering like that."
"So Peter really could use him?"
"That's not what worries me. What worries me is what Peter will do when hefinds out that he can't use him."
Theresa sat back up and faced her husband. "You can't think Peter would raise a hand against Ender!"
"Peter doesn't raise his own hand to do anything difficult or dangerous. You know how he's been using Valentine."
"Only because she lets him use her."
"Exactly my point," said John Paul.
"Ender is not in danger from his own family."
"Theresa, we have to decide: What's best for Ender? What's best for Peter and Valentine? What's best for the future of the world?"
"Sitting here on our bed, in the middle of the night, the two of us are deciding the fate of the world?"
"When we conceived little Andrew, my dear, we decided the fate of the world."
"And had a good time doing it," she added.
"Is it good for Ender to come home? Will it make him happy?"
"Do you really think he's forgotten us?" she asked. "Do you think Ender doesn't care whether he comes home?"
"Coming home lasts a day or two. Then there's living here. The danger from foreign powers, the unnaturalness of his life at school, the constant infringements on his privacy, and let's not forget Peter's unquenchable ambition and envy. So I ask again, will Ender's life here be happier than it would be if ..."
"If he stays out in space? What kind of life will that
be for him?"
"The IF has made its commitment -- total neutrality in regard to anything happening on Earth. If they have Ender, then the whole world -- every government -- will know they'd better not try to go up against the Fleet."
"So by not coming home, Ender continues to save the world on an ongoing basis," said Theresa. "What a useful life he'll have."
"The point is that nobody else can use him."
Theresa put on her sweetest voice. "So you think we should write back to Graff and tell him that we don't want Ender to come home?"
"We can't do anything of the kind," said John Paul. "We'll write back that we're eager to see our son and we don't think any bodyguard will be necessary."
It took her a moment to realize why he seemed to be reversing everything he'd said. "Any letters we send Graff," she said, "will be just as public as the letter he sent us. And just as empty. And we do nothing and let things take their course."
"No, my dear," said John Paul. "It happens that living in our own house, under our own roof, are two of the most influential formers of public opinion."
"But John Paul, officially we don't know that our children are sneaking around in the nets, manipulating events through Peter's network of correspondents and Valentine's brilliantly perverse talent for demagoguery."
"And they don't know that we have any brains," said John Paul. "They seem to think they were left at our house by fairies instead of having our genetic material throughout their little bodies. They treat us as convenient samples of ignorant public opinion. So ... let's give them some public opinions that will steer them to do what's best for their brother."
"What's best," echoed Theresa. "We don't know what's best."
"No," said John Paul. "We only know what seems best. But one thing's certain -- we know a lot more about it than any of our children do."