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

Near done was the day when Alvin came to the shore
Of the mighty River Mizeray, all deep
And brown and slow and lookin half asleep.
Said Mizeray, “Jes step a little more,
Young feller, and I’ll carry you across.”
And Alvin, blind as a bat in the fog, he said,
“Don’t I hear the rush of a river in its bed?”
But Mizeray, he gave a little toss
And whispered, “Cross.”

So again that day young Alvin Maker jedges.
How can he know what’s true in a fog so white?
How can he trust what a hidden voice alleges?
He kneels, he touches the soil, he lifts it light,
He crushes it in his hand and it’s loose and smooth,
But still old Mizeray’s voice can tickle and sooth,
And says, “Come on, step on, I’ll carry you
To the only soil in the world that’ll ever do,
I tell you true.”

Old Mizeray has a voice you must believe.
Old Mizeray has a voice that could not lie.
Old Mizeray, he whispers to deceive,
To draw the trustin step to the edge, to die;
But the voice, the voice is full and sweet with love.
So Alvin, with his fingers deep in the loam,
He wonders if this soil is good enough,
And again he hears the river’s whisperin hum:
“I’ll take you home.”

And now he doesn’t know his north from south,
And his fingers search but cannot find his mouth,
And he can’t remember what he came here for,
Or if it even matters anymore.
Only the sound of the river callin him,
Only the whine of his fear, so high and thin,
Only the taste of the sweat when he licks his lips,
Only the tremblin of his fingertips,
Their weakish grips.

He stands, but he doesn’t step, he daresn’t walk,
He puzzles for the key to this hidden lock,
And he knows the key isn’t in that hissin voice,
He knows there’s another way to make his choice.
The soil he’s lookin for, it’s not for himself,
It’s meant for the plow he carried all so stealthy;
He opens his burlap bag and lifts the plow
And sets it on the earth real soft and slow,
And sees it glow.

He sees it shine, that plow, it shines all gold,
All yellow, and it gets too hot to hold,
And around the plow the fog begins to clear,
And the wind, it blows till the fog is gone from here,
And he sees the soil is humusy and black
Just as the unseen voice in the fog had said;
And he sees the river lap the shore and smack
And if he’d taken that step, now he’d be dead
In the devil’s sack.

For Mizeray, down deep, don’t flow with water:
The bottom slime is made of the stuff of night,
The darkness reachin in at the edge of light,
Awaitin for the step of a man unwary
To suck him down and slither him out to bury,
Numb and soundless, pressed in the dark of the sea,
Where the driftin dead look up through the night and see
Forever out of reach the earth in her dance,
O heaven’s daughter.

And in the tree young Alvin sees a bird
All red of feather, mouth all wide and singin,
And Alvin, he calls out, “I know your voice!”
But the wind-awaker answers not a word.
Enough for him that his breezy song is heard,
And he darts from tree to tree, so coy he’s wingin,
And Alvin sighs at the come-out of his choice,
Not altogether sure how the thing occurred,
For the choice was hard.

And while he lies a-restin in the grove,
Up comes young Verily Cooper, shy and smilin.
“Are you the one that they call by the name of Alvin?”
“There’s many who’s called that name. And who are you?”
“I’m a man who wants to learn what you know of makin.
They call me Verily Cooper, I work in staves,
I join them watertight, each edge so true,
But never a keg I made that was proof from leakin
Or safe from breakin.”

Alvin answers, “What do I know of barrels?”
Verily says, “And what did you know of plows?”
And Alvin laughs, and he says, “Ain’t you a marvel,”
And up he hops and gives his hand a shake.
“Verily Cooper, there’s things in a man that shows,
And here at the river’s edge we’ll plow the earth
And together make whatever we fix to make
And be the midwives at the barley’s birth
And weigh our worth.”

So they cut an oak and together hewed the wood
To make the plowframe strong and slow of flex,
And they set the plow in place and bound it good
And never mind a halter for an ox,
For this was a livin plow, of tremblin gold.
And when the work was done, they marked their field,
And side by side they reached and took ahold,
And the plow, it leaped, it plunged, it played like a child
So free and wild.

Verily and Alvin, they hung on;
There wasn’t a hope of guidin the plow along.
It was all they could do to keep it to the land;
Other than that they couldn’t do a thing.
And at last, with bleedin blisters on their hands,
With arms gone weak and legs too beat to run,
They tripped and fell together on the dirt.
Aside from the blisters, the only thing much hurt
Was Alvin’s shirt.

They look, and there’s the plow, still as you please,
Gleamin in the sunlight. “How’d it stop?”
Asks Alvin. Verily, he thinks he sees
The truth. He touches the plow, it gives a hop;
He takes his hand away, and it sets right down.
“It’s us that makes it go,” he says, and he grins.
Now Alvin laughs, a-settin on the ground:
“Maybe it goes a little widdershins,
But it gets around!”

And as they sat there, hollerin and whoopin,
Out come the farmer folk who lived nearby,
To find out what had caused the fog to fly—
And at the same time do a little snoopin.
They saw that the furrow went all anyhow,
And they said, “If you think that’s plowin, boys, you’re daft!
Straight as an arrow, that’s how a plow should go!”
And the farmers mocked—oh, how the farmers laughed
At that no-good plow.

That sobered Alvin up, and Verily frowned.
“Don’t you see that the plow, it cut the earth alone?
We got no ox, we got no horse around!
The plow’s alive, and we’ll tell you how it’s done!”
But the farmers went their way, still mirthful merry,
For they had nothin to learn from any fellow
As young and ignorant as Al or Verry.
And the plow just sat at the head of its crooked furrow,
Hot and yellow.

The rest of the tale—how they looked for the crystal city,
How they crept to the dangerous heart of the holy hill,
How they broke the cage of the girl who sang for rain,
How they built the city of light from water and blood—
Others have told that tale, and told it good.
And besides, the girl you’re with is cruel and pretty,
And the boy you’re settin by has a mischievous will.
There’s better things to do than hear me again,
So go on home.