Orson Card - Wyrms

While he waited, he talked to Reck-in Geblic, of course, so the humans wouldn't understand. "The girl- who is she, and why is Unwyrm calling her?"

"How should I know?" asked Reck.

"You're the one who knows all the wyrmlore. She's too young to be one of the Wise."

"Maybe she's wise beyond her years. I think she's more dangerous than she looks. She isn't afraid of anything.

She said nothing of it, but I think she's the one who killed most of Tinker's men."

"With her bare hands?"

"You know the human woman that Unwyrm wants.

The Vigilants tell everyone the prophecy of the seventh seventh seventh daughter-"

"I pay no attention to humans, least of all to their religions."

"The seventh seventh seventh daughter was born fifteen years ago, to the deposed Heptarch of Korfu, which claims to rule the world. She could be of that age."

"It's too much to believe that of all the ways to Cranning, he would lead her right to us."

The spores had done their work; the bleeding stopped.

Ruin took hold of the arrowshaft and jerked it out. The man cried out in his sleep, more blood flowed, but again the spores sealed off the wound. Ruin hooked his finger around the tattered esophagus and pulled it to where he could see it. Then he deftly made vertical cuts, removing the torn edges.

While he sewed the wounds with the wireweed, he spoke to Reck in Geblic. "It doesn't matter if she's the one or not, though, does it? She won't go to Cranning without us."

"I have no interest in Cranning," said Reck.

"You're as much in this as I am," said Ruin. "He presses you away as much as me."

"Except I don't try to go there, so it doesn't hurt me.

You shouldn't try either, Ruin. Why do you think our family has stayed in exile all these generations, if not to be far from Cranning at just this time?"

"But he wants us to stay away. That changes everything.

Every other time, he wanted the king to be there with him."

"So we go just because he doesn't want us to? Then he controls us as surely as he ever did."

"Every other time, Sister, he wanted to use the geblings to destroy whatever it was the humans had been building.

He hasn't the strength to compel us all, but he compelled the king, and the king called the others to the common task. This time, though, it's all different. He doesn't plan to have the geblings act together. Perhaps he plans for us not to act together. And that's why we have to go."

"Give up the governing purpose of our ancestors, on a guess?"

"The ancestor who first made this plan had been in Unwyrm's control. That's why he decided on exile. But how can we be sure our exile wasn't what Unwyrm wanted him to decide?"

"There's no way out of that circle, Brother. Who knows if anything we do will play into his hands?"

"You see? So we decide for other reasons. And here is A one: without Unwyrm's breath in my face, Sister, I can - finally breathe. Whether Unwyrm means it that way or not, she can take us through to him."

"Until the moment he stops calling her."

"It all depends on whether he wants her more than he fears us."

"So you believe she's the one."

"Maybe fortune smiles on us." Ruin finished with the esophagus and put it back in place. "Tell her that his throat will heal in a few days. It'll be tighter than it was.

He'll have to chew his food."

Reck turned and, in Agarant, gave the news to the others. Ruin was still sewing up the outside wound, this time using common thread, when Reck finished and touched his shoulder.

"Does it make a difference to you whether the girl knows our plans or not?"

"How would she know?" asked Ruin, tying off the thread.

"Because I just discovered that she understands Geblic."

Ruin turned and looked at the girl. Her face was blank.

"What makes you think so?"

"Because she was already relieved about Angel before I told her he would be all right. And then she pretended to be relieved again after I told her. But her sweat was all wrong."

Ruin grinned at the girl, letting his tongue hang out a little. He knew how the slender forked tongue of a gebling unnerved human beings, though in fact she showed no sign that it bothered her. He spoke to her in Geblic.

"Never try to deceive a gebling, human. You're the true Heptarch's daughter, aren't you?"

The girl answered as smoothly and easily as if they had been conversing all day, and Ruin noticed that she spoke Geblic without a trace of the awkwardness humans often had in trying to form sounds with their blunt and stubby tongues. "No, sir. I am the Heptarch."

So her father was dead. Ruin felt no sympathy for the death of a human. Humans put on a good show of grieving, but they didn't really understand the bonding of a true family. They had no othermind, and could speak only in words. They remained strangers from each other all their lives. What was the life of a creature like this?

So he offered no commiseration. "You know the payment that I want for your friend's life."

"He's my slave, not my friend," she said.

"You'll take me with you. You'll make no effort to go without me."

"Maybe I'm not going where you think I'm going."

"You're going to Cranning to destroy my people, and I'm going to save them."

"Then why not kill me now, and save us both a good deal of trouble?"

"He wants you, but if I killed you he might make do with someone else. At least we know who and where you are. So when Unwyrm brings you to his nest, we'll be there, too. I think that means that we're friends." He smiled at her and let the tips of his tongue show.

Reck stood by the stewpot, the tasting spoon in hand.

"Why do you keep saying we, when I have no intention of going?"

Ruin did not look at her. "Because you'd never let me face Unwyrm alone."

Reck shrugged. "Will's stew is ready."

Ruin leaned closer to the Heptarch. Though she was sitting and he was standing up, he did not have to bend far for their eyes to meet. "Will you give me your word?

In payment for your slave's life?"

"You have my word, but not in payment for anything.

Angel's life is his own to repay, and my word is my own to give."

Ruin nodded solemnly. "Then come join us at table."

Reck laughed aloud. "It was worth all this trouble just to see this moment-you, Ruin, inviting a human to eat with you."

"But she's not a human, is she. Reck? She's Unwyrm's woman and the mother of death."

"I am no one's woman," said the girl. "And my name is Patience."

It was Ruin's turn to laugh. "Patience," he said in Agarant. "Come and eat. Patience."

The table was designed for the comfort of geblings. It was too low for Patience to sit on a chair, so she sat on the floor. She was the only human at the table. When Sken took a step toward them. Ruin's look was enough to drive her back to her stool near the fire. Will made no effort to sit. He served them, then took a bowl to Sken.

Ruin noticed that Patience observed all the proper forms of respect. She had been well enough taught that it seemed as natural to her as to a gebling, to offer every few bites from her dish to him or to Reck, and to nibble at the bites they offered her. On those rare occasions when humans were invited to share a gebling meal, they usually showed what a great effort and sacrifice it took to eat from a gebling spoon. But Patience showed nothing but deference and grace. Unwyrm's woman should be loathsome, not gracious, thought Ruin. But it makes no difference. Before all this is over, I'll probably have to kill her after all. What's the death of a human, if it might save my people?

When the food was finished off, they drank hot water from the pot by the fire. Ruin offered to take them through the forest, but Patience would have none of it.