Earthborn

by Orson Scott Card

  "Zinom," said the Oversoul, understanding now. "Where the main body of the Zenifi are also enslaved, more or less, by the Elemaki."

  "Exactly," said Shedemei. "Monush will think he's fulfilled his mission. He'll have found a group of Zenifi in bondage to diggers. He'll figure out a way to bring them to safety. He'll bring them home."

  "He can't take that whole population along the mountainside."

  "No," said Shedemei. "You'll have to send him dreams that will ‘bring him home by going up the valley of the Ureg and then over the pass that leads down to the valley of the Padurek."

  "That takes them right past Akmaro's group."

  "And the Keeper will try to get Monush to find Akmaro's people again."

  "And I interfere again," said the Oversoul. "That's not what I'm supposed to do, Shedemei. My purpose is not to interfere with the Keeper of Earth."

  "No, your purpose is to get the Keeper's help so you can return to Harmony. Well, if you cause her enough trouble, my dear, perhaps she'll send you back to Harmony in order to stop you from interfering."

  "I don't think I can do that." The Oversoul paused. "My programming may stop me from consciously rebelling against what I think the Keeper wants."

  "Well, you figure it out," said Shedemei. "But in the meantime, keep this in mind: As long as the Keeper isn't telling you anything, how do you know the Keeper doesn't want you to pull exactly the kind of stunt I'm suggesting? Just to prove your mettle?"

  "Shedemei, you're romanticizing again," said the Oversoul. "I'm a machine, not a puppet wishing to be made alive. There are no tests. I do what I'm programmed to do."

  "Do you?" asked Shedemei. "You're programmed to take initiative. Here's a chance. If the Keeper doesn't like it, all she has to do is tell you to stop. But at least you'll be talking then."

  "I'll think about it," said the Oversoul.

  "Good," said Shedemei.

  "All right," said the Oversoul. "I've thought about it. We'll do it."

  "That quickly?" Shedemei knew the Oversoul was a computer, but it still surprised her how much the old machine could do in the time it took a human to say a single word.

  "I made a test run and found that nothing in my programming interferes. I can do it. So we'll give it a try when Monush gets to the right place, and find out how much the Keeper will put up with before deigning to make contact with me."

  Shedemei laughed. "Why can't you admit it, you old fake?"

  "Admit what?"

  "You're really pissed off at the Keeper."

  "I am not," said the Oversoul. "I'm worried about what might be happening on Harmony."

  "Relax," said Shedemei. "Your otherself is there, as the angels would say."

  "I'm not an angel," said the Oversoul.

  "Neither am I, my friend," said Shedemei.

  "You sound wistful."

  "I'm a gardener. I miss the feel of earth under my feet."

  "Time for another trip to the surface?"

  "No," said Shedemei. "No point in it. Nothing I planted last time will be ready for measurement. It would be a waste and a risk."

  "You are allowed to have fun," said the Oversoul. "Even the one who wears the cloak of the starmaster is allowed to do a few things simply because of the joy of doing them."

  "Yes, and I'll do it. When the time comes."

  "You have a will of steel," said the Oversoul.

  "And a heart of glass," said Shedemei. "Brittle and cold. I'm going to take a nap. Why don't you use the time to design a dream?"

  "Don't you have dreams enough on your own?"

  "Not for me," said Shedemei. "For Monush."

  "I was making a joke," said the Oversoul.

  "Well next time wink at me or something so I know." Shedemei got up from the terminal and padded off to bed.

  Monush and his men slept yet another night on yet another narrow shelf of rock high above the valley floor. The torches in the digger village far below burned late; Monush's fifteen companions watched most of them until they guttered and winked out. It was hard to sleep, weary as they were, for if they rolled over in the night they would plunge twenty rods before so much as a knob of stone would break their fall-and, no doubt, the first of many bones. They all pushed sharp stakes into the rock or, if there was no slight crevice to hold them, they piled them so they might feel them if they started to roll toward the edge in their sleep. But all in all, it was a precarious slumber indeed, and there was probably no moment when more than half the men were asleep.

  Despite all this, tonight Monush slept well enough to dream, and when he awoke, he knew the path that he had to take in order to find the Zenifi. This high path would widen and slope downward, but at a certain place, if he should climb, he would come to a pass over these mountains and down into another valley. There he would see a large lake, and by passing down the valley of the river that flowed from it, in due time he would come to the place that Edhadeya had dreamed of.

  He awoke from the dream just as the sky was beginning to lighten overhead. Carefully he pulled out the stakes he had pushed by hand into the stone and put them back into his bag. Then he gnawed on the cold maizecake that would be his only meal of the day, unless they found food somewhere on the journey-unlikely on such steep cliffs, and so high in the thin air. This was the region called "Crown of the Gornaya," the highest region of the great massif of mountain ranges that had long harbored earth people, middle people, and sky people. It was here that the seven lakes had formed, all of them holy, but none holier than Sidonod, the pure source of the Tsidorek, the sacred river that flowed through the heart of Darakemba. Some of the men had hoped to set eyes on Sidonod itself, but now Monush knew that they would not. The pass would come too soon. Within the first hour.

  Wordlessly-for sound carried far in the thin dry mountain air- Monush gave the signal to move. All the men were awake now, and they walked, slowly and stiffly at first, along the narrow shelf of rock. Twice they came to places where the shelf gave out and they had to climb, once up, once down, to another shelf that allowed them to walk on.

  Then they reached a spot where the shelf widened and started to lead downward to an area of easier travel. Monush recognized the place at once, and thought... .

  Thought what? He couldn't remember. Something about this spot.

  "What is it?" asked Chem, his second. In a whisper, of course.

  Monush shook his head. It kept coming just to the tip of his tongue, some word, some idea, but he couldn't remember why. Ah! A dream!

  But the dream had fled. He couldn't think of what the dream had been or what it meant at all.

  How foolish, thought Monush. Foolish of me, to think my dreams could tell me true things the way Edhadeya's did.

  He beckoned the men to follow him as he led onward, down the broadening path. Within half an hour they rounded a curve and saw what so many men dreamed of but never dared to hope to see: Holy Sidonod, shining in the first sunlight to crest the mountain.

  Below them, along the shores of the lake, there were villages, each with its cookfires. Of course only the humans would live in the huts and, now and then, houses; the diggers lived in hollowed trees and in tunnels under the earth nearby. The scene looked so peaceful. Yet they knew that if the men there, diggers or humans, knew of the Nafari walking along this narrow shelf of land, there would be such an outcry, and soon war parties would be scaling the cliff walls. Not that this spelled sure death, outnumbered though they might be. Even diggers, born to climb, would have a hard time getting up the rocks. But eventually the Elemaki would either reach their shelf and force them to fight to the last man, or the Nafari would have to climb higher and higher until they reached the altitudes where men freeze or faint or grow mad.

  So they continued to move silently and smoothly along the rock, wearing their earth-colored tunics and leggings, their earth-colored blankets draped and pinned over their shoulders, their very skin and hair smeared with dirt to make them blend better into the stony cliff.

&n
bsp; If only we could find a way to go up and over these mountains and avoid this heavily-populated lake, thought Monush. And then a thought burst into his mind. Of course we can! Just back there behind us there's a. ... there's a. ... He couldn't remember. What was it he was thinking of? Something behind them? Why? There were no pursuers. Had he forgotten one of his men? He stopped and made a quick count. All were there-and, because they had stopped, most were gaping down at the holy lake below them. Monush beckoned them on. The shelf rose again. They passed by the long lake, sleeping only two nights with it in view.

  After the lake, they passed through easier country, though it was all the more dangerous. It was a large region of lowish mountains, green to their tops, and every valley had at least some people in it, usually diggers, often humans as well, and now and then an isolated settlement of angels, though most of these were either slaves to a nearby Elemaki village or were "free"-but still tributary to one Elemaki king or another. Several times they were spotted by angels soaring overhead, but instead of crying out a warning, the angels always flew on, ignoring them. One angel even swooped low and landed on a nearby branch, then pointed down the ridge that Monush and his men were following and shook his head. Don't go this way, he was saying. Monush nodded, bowed to him as to a friend, and the angel rose up into the air and flew away.

  It's good for us, at least, thought Monush, that the Elemaki are so harsh on the few angels forced to live among them. It gives us friends wherever we go. Weak friends, it's true, but friends are all welcome in the land of our enemies.

  On the fortieth day of their expedition, they came to a place where four streams met within a few rods. The water was turbulent, and yet no diggers or humans or angels lived near it. "A holy place like this," whispered Chem, "and yet no one dwells here to receive the gift?"

  Monush nodded, then smiled. "Perhaps they receive the gift downstream."

  He led them on, just a little way, and as they moved downstream they saw that no new hills seemed to rise up ahead of them. The land was about to change.

  And suddenly they understood. For the ground dropped away in front of them. The water of the river soared out like an arrow's flight, spouting into the air and then falling as perpetual rain down onto the valley below. It was a place of power, the only place that Monush had ever seen or heard of where water from a stream turned directly into rain without first rising up into the sky as clouds.

  "Is there a way down?" asked Chem.

  "As you said," answered Monush. "It's a holy place. See? Many feet have come up this cliff."

  It was almost a stairway, the descent was so artificial, steps cut into the stone, earth held in place by planks. "A cripple could climb here," said Alekiam, the one who spoke the dialect of digger language that was most common among the Elemaki. Not that they were likely to run across many diggers who hadn't adopted Torg, the trading language that was mostly the original human language, with pronunciations adapted to the mouths of diggers and angels and thousands of their words thrown in. But it was possible, here in these high mountains, where it was said that in some remote valleys diggers and angels still lived together in the old way, the diggers stealing statues made by the angels and bringing them home to worship them as gods- even as they sent raiding parties to kidnap the children of the angels and eat them. No one in living memory had run across such a place, but few doubted that people like that might yet survive-diggers who called the angels "skymeat," and angels who called the diggers "devils," both with good reason.

  "Quiet," said Monush. "This place is well traveled. Who knows who might be at the bottom?"

  But there was no one at the bottom, and the land, being lower, had different fruits in season. Monush led his men to the brow of a hill overlooking the river that flowed away from the perpetual rainstorm at the base of the cliff. He told twelve of them to stay there and keep watch, eating what fruit they could find within sight of each other, while Monush himself took Alekiam, Chem, and a strong soldier named Lemech, who could break a man's neck just by slapping him on the ear.

  As they moved carefully along the rivercourse, they could see signs that once this land had been heavily settled. The boundaries of old fields could still be clearly seen, though they were overgrown. And here and there they passed an area that had been cleared and crusted over with stone, so that no diggers could get silently underneath and burrow their way into people's homes.

  "Where are all the people?" asked Chem, as they stood in the middle of one such place. "They built well, and now they're gone."

  "No they're not," said Lemech.

  A tall young human stood at the forest's edge. He had not been there a moment before.

  "Hail, friend," said Monush, for he could hardly hope to avoid an encounter now.

  At a signal from the tall young man, at least thirty soldiers stepped onto the platform of stone. Where had they been? Hadn't they circled this place before stepping out onto it?

  "Lay down your weapons," said Monush softly.

  "In a digger's heart I will," said Lemech.

  "They have us," said Monush. "If we surrender, perhaps we'll live long enough for the others to find us."

  "For all we know these are the people we've come to find," said Chem. "Not a digger among them."

  That was true enough. So they laid down their weapons on the stone floor of the platform.

  At once the strangers closed on them, seized them, bound them, and forced them to run with them through the woods until they came to a place where twenty such platforms were clustered. On them many buildings rose, most of them houses, but not humble ones, and some of the buildings could not have been houses at all, but rather were palaces and gamecourts, temples and, most prominent of all, one solitary tower rising taller than any of the trees. From that tower you could sure look out over this whole land, thought Monush, and see any enemies that might be approaching.

  If the soldiers hadn't gagged Monush and his men, he might have asked them if they were the Zenifi. As it was, they were thrown into a room that must have been built for storing food, but now was empty except for the four bound prisoners.

  In Edhadeya's dream, thought Monush, weren't the Zenifi asking to be rescued?

  Akma awoke from his dream, trembling with fear. But he dared not cry aloud, for they had learned that the diggers who guarded them regarded all loud voices in the night as prayers to the Keeper-and Pabulog had decreed that any praying to the Keeper by these followers of Akmaro was blasphemy, to be punished by death. Not that a single cry in the night would have a child killed-but the diggers would have dragged them out of their tent and beaten them, demanding that they confess that one of them had been praying. The children had learned to waken silently, no matter how terrible the dream.

  Still, he had to speak of it while it was fresh in mind. He wanted to waken his mother, wanted her to enfold him in her arms and comfort him. But he was too old for that, he knew; he would be ashamed of needing her comfort even as he gratefully received it.

  So it was his father, Akmaro, that he nudged until his father rolled over and whispered, "What is it, Akma?"

  "I dreamed."

  "A true dream?"

  "The Keeper sent men to rescue us. But a cloud of darkness and a mist of water blocked their view and they lost the path to us. Now they will never come."

  "How did you know the Keeper sent them?" -

  "I just knew."

  "Very well," said Akmaro. "I will think about this. Go back to sleep."

  Akma knew that he had done all he could do. Now it was in his father's hands. He should have been satisfied, but he was not satisfied at all. In fact, he was angry. He didn't want his father to think about it, he wanted his father to talk about it. He wanted to help come up with the interpretation of the dream. It was his own dream, after all. But his father listened, took the dream seriously enough, but then assumed that it was up to him alone to decide what to do about it, as if Akma were a machine like the Index in the ancient stories.

/>   I'm not a machine, said Akma silently, and I can think of what this means as well as anyone.

  It means ... it means... .

  That the Keeper sent men to rescue us and they lost the way. What else could it mean? How could Father interpret it any differently?

  Maybe it isn't the interpretation of the dream that Father is thinking about. Maybe he's thinking about what to do next. If the Keeper was just going to send another party of rescuers, then why send me such a dream? It must mean that there will be no other rescuers. So it's up to us to save ourselves.

  And Akma drifted off to sleep with dreams of battle in his mind, standing sword-in-hand, facing down his tormentors. He saw himself standing over the beheaded body of Pabul; he heard Udad groan with his guts spilled out into his lap as he sat on the ground, marveling at the mess young Akma had made of his body. As for Didul, Akma imagined a long confrontation between them, with Didul finally pleading for his life, the arrogance wiped off his face, his beautiful cheeks streaked with tears. Shall I let you live, after you beat me and taunted me every day for weeks and weeks? For the insult to me, I might forgive you. But shall I let you live, after you slapped my sister so many times until she cried? Shall I let you live, after you drove the other children to exhaustion until the weakest of them collapsed in the hot sun and you laughed as you covered them with mud as if they were dead? Shall I let you live, as you did all these things in front of the parents of these children, knowing that they were helpless to protect their young ones? That was the crudest thing, to humiliate our parents, to make them weak in front of their own children. And for that, Didul ... for that, the blade through the neck, your head spinning in the air, bouncing and dancing along the ground before it rolls to rest at the feet of your own father. Let him weep, that cruel tyrant, let him try to push your head back into place and make your vicious little smile come back to your lips, but he can't do it, can he? Powerless, isn't he? Standing there with little Muwu clinging to his leg, begging me to spare him at least one son, at least the last of his boys, but I'll spare no one because you spared no one. With such wistful imaginings did Akma go back to sleep.