Wyrms

by Orson Scott Card

  "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 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, 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 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.

  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 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."
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  "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 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 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.

  "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, Unwyrm 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 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 tho
se who have chosen to 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 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."