Orson Card - Wyrms

She thought of last night, when the innkeeper had come to them. Perhaps he advised everyone to avoid Tinker's Wood, but she doubted it. The people of Waterkeep had to have some working arrangement with the local highwaymen, especially since they had no protection from a larger government. If the innkeeper was free to warn away travelers, then the robbers must not be very dangerous after all. And if the robbers were as dangerous as he had said, then how did he dare to risk his life to warn a trio of rich and foolish strangers away from the road?

What could it be but the Cranning call, prompting the innkeeper and now making her long to go by water. For some reason, Unwyrm-whoever he was-wanted her not to travel on the forest road. Was it simply to keep her safe? Or was it because there was something in that forest, along that road, that she must not discover?

Am I not a trained killer? And Angel? Sken, too, looks like she could be dangerous enough. Even if the robbers are as vicious as the innkeeper said, we could probably get through. And if Unwyrm wants us not to go that way, then that is the way I will go.

In the moment she made that decision, she felt an agony of regret. How could she even have thought of doing such a stupid thing? Risking the lives of all three of them on some stupid whim. When the water looked so inviting, was so easy, just to sail upriver-

And now she knew, through the cloud of these passions, that Unwyrm wanted desperately for her to stay off the forest road. She also knew that regardless of the cost, she would travel by land. The gnawing hunger for Cranning and for the river only got worse, but hadn't she been schooled all her life in putting off her ease? Hadn't she gone without sleep, without food, without water, in order to stretch her limits, to toughen her resistance? She could ignore any of her body's hungers, especially when she knew that it was an illusion sent into her mind by an enemy.

Or was it an enemy? It didn't matter. She was determined not to succumb to the Cranning call in every particular. She would go to Cranning, but she would take any route she pleased. She would not be controlled.

"This one," said Sken. The boat was small, compared to some of the sailing vessels, but it looked clean and sturdy.

"All right," said Angel.

"No," said Patience.

Sken was annoyed. "What's wrong with it?"

"Nothing. Except that I'm not going by boat."

Angel drew her away from Sken. "Are you out of your mind?" he whispered.

"Probably. But I'm not going by boat. I'm taking our carriage through the forest road."

"It's suicide. Didn't you hear the innkeeper?"

"I heard him very well. I also hear the Cranning call.

He wants me to go by water. Wants it badly. I'm going to find out what it is that he doesn't want me to find in the forest."

"Death, that's what he doesn't want you to find,"

"Are you sure? I think he's a little too eager to get us off the road. This isn't the best place to begin a sailing voyage upriver-the current's too swift. Sken said so herself, didn't she?"

"It's better than dying."

"Since when have you been afraid of a few highwaymen, Angel?"

"Since I thought of dozens of them dropping out of trees onto our heads. I'm trained to kill unsuspecting people in subtle ways, not fight with a bunch of unmannered thieves."

"You haven't met them. You know nothing about their manners."

"Did it occur to you that maybe this is just what Unwyrm wants you to do? Maybe the creature knows that you're stubborn and rebellious. Maybe it wants you to go into the forest, and figured this was the way."

"A little far-fetched, Angel."

"Maybe it wants the robbers to get rid of your traveling companions."

He was as much as confessing that he feared for his own life. The Cranning call resonated with his words.

The feelings welled up in her. How can you endanger them? What kind of person are you? Selfish, arrogant.

Go by water, for their sake.

But the more the Cranning call pressed her, the more she resisted. "Go by boat, then. I'll meet you in the first riverport village upstream. I can handle the carriage alone.

You can even take all the money-I trust you."

"No," said Angel. His hands were trembling. "No, I won't leave you."

He really is afraid, thought Patience. Almost she decided to give in, for Angel's sake. But the moment she thought that, the Cranning call redoubled its force, as if her thought of yielding had opened a floodgate. She winced from the pain of it. Then the longing subsided, as if it had taken a great effort from Unwyrm to call her with such power. Good, thought Patience. Wear yourself out with trying. I didn't go without comfort all that time in my childhood just to give in and take the easy way now.

"Good. We go by land."

Sken was no happier than Angel had been.

"You don't have to come with me," Patience said.

"You've served me well and earned your passage home."

"We need all the help we can get," Angel said. "I'll double your payment, if you come with us."

Sken looked at him with contempt. "I'll come because of who she is, not what you offer."

Angel smiled. Patience knew perfectly well that Angel had expected Sken to react that way. The art of diplomacy, as Father had always said: to provoke your opponent into wanting to do what you planned. Angel was a diplomat. Unwyrm wasn't. Unwyrm was very blunt about what he wanted, and Patience was just as blunt about rejecting him. There was no subtle byplay in this battle.

They left the dock and went to the stable. Their horses had been well groomed-Angel had paid for the service, since he was expecting to sell them.

Patience prepared her blowgun with three dozen wooden darts. They were more visible than her glass darts, but they flew farther and carried as lethal a close of poison.

Angel gRuinbled about being an old man as he took a shortbow and a packet of arrows from his trunk. "I'm not very good with this," he said. "I'm better with knifework in close."

"From behind, too, no doubt," said Sken.

"I can poison them all, too," said Angel. "Provided they invite us to supper."

"Poison and a knife in the back. What a man."

"Enough," said Patience. "This will be dangerous enough without a stupid quarrel over nothing." She spoke sharply, letting her voice carry away some of the ever- increasing punishment the Cranning call was inflicting on her. Just climbing into the carriage made her feel ill; she was trembling and nauseated as Angel snapped the reins to start the horses out onto the cobbled lane. The stones were ancient and worn even and flat by years of traffic, but Patience felt the tiny breaks between them like ruts that jarred her until her head ached.

But she had learned all her lessons well. She kept her demeanor calm, managing to look slightly amused at moments that were far from amusing. She would not break under Unwyrm's twisting grip. She would not let Angel see that she suffered. If she could fool Angel, she knew she was still in control of herself.

The town was not very big, and soon the highway passed between fields of vegetables and orchards, where farmers hoed or harvested among the ruins of old mansions that had once been the pride of Waterkeep. It was part of the cycle of things, in the years of human life on Imakulata. Waterkeep had once been great; it would be great again, or it would disappear entirely, but nothing stayed. Even the religions had their changing fashions, the Keepers and the Brickmakers, the Rememberers and the Watchers, and, only in the last century, the Vigilants in their little hermit huts. They would also fall to ruin.

Nothing lasted.

Except the bloodline of the Heptarchy, which had gone on unbroken, the only institution that endured through all the millennia of mankind on Imakulata. It was a thing unknown in human history. She tried to remember anything comparable. The Romans were only a thousand years by the most generous count; the Popes only lasted some 2500 years. Even the patriarchate of Constantinople was gone now, though it had lasted long enough in a perverse and polluted form to send this colony to Imakulata.