Orson Card - Maps in a Mirror - The Short Fiction of Orson Scott Card

The other attacker paused just a moment, thrown from his relentless charge by the sudden onslaught from the child who stood so harmlessly by the emperor’s throne. That pause was long enough for recharged lasers to be aimed, to flash, and the last Kinshasan assassin fell, dropping ashes as he collapsed, flaming slightly.

The whole thing, from the appearance of the wooden knives to the fall of the last attacker, had taken five seconds.

Ansset stood still in the middle of the hall, gore on his arm, blood splashed all over his body. He looked at the gory hand, at the body he had pulled it out of. A rush of long-blocked memories came back, and he remembered other such bodies, other heads kicked from torsos, other men who had died as Ansset learned the skill of killing with his hands. The guilt that had troubled him before swept through him with new force now that he knew the why of it.

The searches had all been in vain. Ansset himself was the weapon that was to have been used against Father Mikal.

The smell of blood and broken intestines combined with the emotions sweeping his body, and he doubled over, shuddering as he vomited.

The guards gingerly approached him, unsure what they should do.

But the Chamberlain was sure. Ansset heard the voice, trembling with fear at how close the assassination had come, and how easily a different assassination could have come, saying, “Keep him under guard. Wash him. Never let him be out of a laser’s aim for a moment. Then bring him to Mikal’s chambers in an hour.”

The guards looked toward Mikal, who nodded.

Ansset was still white and weak when he came into Mikal’s chambers. The guards still had lasers trained on him. The Chamberlain and the new Captain of the Guard, Riktors Ashen, stood between Mikal and the boy.

“Songbird,” Riktors said, “it seems that someone taught you new songs.”

Ansset lowered his head.

“You must have studied under a master.”

“I n-never,” Ansset stuttered. He had never stuttered in his life.

“Don’t torture the boy, Captain,” Mikal said.

The Chamberlain launched into his pro forma resignation. “I should have examined the boy’s muscle structure and realized what new skills he had been given. I submit my resignation. I beg you to take my life.”

The Chamberlain must be even more worried than usual, Ansset thought with that part of his mind that was still capable of thinking. The old man had prostrated himself in front of the emperor.

“Shut up and get up,” Mikal said rudely. The Chamberlain arose with his face gray. Mikal had not followed the ritual. The Chamberlain’s life was still on the line.

“We will now be certain,” Mikal said to Riktors. “Show him the pictures.”

Ansset stood watching as Riktors took a packet off a table and began removing newsheet clippings from it. Ansset looked at the first one and was merely sickened a little. The second one he recognized, and he gasped. With the third one he wept and threw the pictures away from him.

“Those are the pictures,” Mikal said, “of the people who were kidnapped and murdered during your captivity.”

“I k-killed them,” Ansset said, dimly aware that there was no trace of song in his voice, just the frightened stammering of an eleven-year-old boy caught up in something too monstrous for him to comprehend. “They had me practice on them.”

“Who had you practice!” Riktors demanded.

“They! The voices—from the box.” Ansset struggled to hold onto memories that had been hidden from him by the block. He also longed to let the block in his mind slide back into place, forget again, shut it out.

“What box?” Riktors would not let up.

“The box. A wooden box. Maybe a receiver, maybe a recording, I don’t know.”

“Did you know the voice?”

“Voices. Never the same. Not even for the same sentence, the voices changed for every word.”

Ansset kept seeing the faces of the bound men he was told to maim and then kill. He remembered that though he cried out against it, he was still forced to do it.

“How did they force you to do it!”

Was Riktors reading his mind? “I don’t know. I don’t know. There were words, and then I had to.”

“What words?”

“I don’t know! I never knew!” And Ansset was crying again.

Mikal spoke softly. “Who taught you how to kill that way?”

“A man. I never knew his name. On the last day, he was tied where the others had been. The voices made me kill him.” Ansset struggled with the words, the struggle made harder by the realization that this time, when he had killed his teacher, he had not had to be forced. He had killed because he hated the man. “I murdered him.”

“Nonsense,” the Chamberlain said. “You were a tool.”

“I said to shut up,” Mikal said curtly. “Can you remember anything else, my Son?”

“I killed the crew of the ship, too. All except Husk. The voices told me to. And then there were footsteps, above me, on the deck.”

“Did you see who it was?”

Ansset forced himself to remember. “No. He told me to lie down. He must have known the—code, whatever it is, I didn’t want to obey him, but I did.”

“And?”

“Footsteps, and a needle in my arm, and I woke up on the street.”

Everyone was silent then, for a few moments, all of them thinking quickly. The Chamberlain broke first. “My Lord, the great threat to you and the strength of the Songbird’s love for you must have impelled him despite the mental block—”

“Chamberlain,” Mikal said, “your life is over if you speak again before I address you. Captain. I want to know how those Kinshasan’s got past your guard?”

“They were dignitaries. By your order, my Lord, no dignitaries are given the body search. Their wooden knives passed all the detectors. I’m surprised this hadn’t been tried before.”

Ansset noticed that Riktors spoke confidently, not coweringly as another Captain might have done after assassins got through his guard. And, better in control of himself, Ansset listened for the melodies of Riktors’s voice. They were strong. They were dissonant. Ansset wondered if he would be able to detect Riktors in a lie. To a strong, selfish man all things that he chose to say became truth, and the songs of his voice said nothing.

“Riktors, you will prepare orders for the utter destruction of Kinshasa.”

Riktors saluted.

“Before Kinshasa is destroyed—and that means destroyed, not a blade of grass, Riktors—before Kinshasa is destroyed, I want to know what connection there is between the assassination attempt this morning and the manipulation of my Songbird.”

Riktors saluted again. Mikal spoke to the Chamberlain. “Chamberlain, what would you recommend I do with my Songbird?”

As usual, the Chamberlain took the safe way. “My Lord, it is not a matter to which I have given thought. The disposition of your Songbird is not a matter on which I feel it proper to advise you.”

“Very carefully said, my dear Chamberlain.” Ansset tried to be calm as he listened to them discuss how he should be disposed of. Mikal raised his hand in the gesture that, by ritual, spared the Chamberlain’s life. Ansset would have laughed at the Chamberlain’s struggle not to show his relief, but this was not a time for laughter, because Ansset knew his relief would not come so easily.

“My Lord,” Ansset said, “I beg you to put me to death.”

“Dammit, Ansset, I’m sick of the rituals,” Mikal said.

“This is no ritual,” Ansset said, his voice tired and husky from misuse. “And this is no song, Father Mikal. I’m a danger to you.”

“I know it.” Mikal looked back and forth between Riktors and the Chamberlain.