Orson Card - Wyrms

"Like a fish wants water."

Patience shuddered. That's how it felt, even now, like needing to take a breath, a deep long draught of air. But if she took that breath, it would be her last.

"Sken," said Patience, "I'm made of paper."

Sken touched her gently, stroked the cold damp flesh of her arm with a single dry finger. "Flesh and bone."

"Paper. Folded this way and that, taking whatever shape they give me. Heir to the Heptagon House, daughter of Peace, assassin, diplomat, give me a shape, I'll wear it, I'll act the part, fold me again, again, I'll be his lover, the one who calls me, and if he ever gets me, he'll fold me down so small I'll disappear."

Sken nodded wisely, her whole body jiggling just a little with the movement.

"What if someone unfolded me all the way? What would I be then?"

"A stranger," said Sken.

"Yes, even to me," said Patience.

"Just like everybody else."

"Oh, do you think so! Do you think something like a normal woman lives inside this lovely delicate murderer's body?"

"Don't take on such airs," said Sken. "We're all folded up, and nobody knows what we really are. But I know. We're all identical, blank, empty pieces of paper.

It's the folding that makes us different. We are the folds."

Patience shook her head. "No, not me. Probably no one starts out blank and smooth, but certainly not me.

I'm more than what they've done to me. I'm more than I the roles I have to play."

"What are you, then?"

"I don't know." She rolled over, faced the wall to end the conversation. "Maybe I won't find out until just before I die."

"Or maybe just after, when they take your head."

Patience rolled back, caught the folds of Sken's robe in her tight-clutching fingers. "No," she whispered harshly. "If they ever do that to me, promise you'll split my head in two, you'll pour out the gools, something-"

"I won't promise, that," said Sken.

"Why not?"

"Because if you're in such a state that they could take your head, Heptarch, it means I'm already dead."

Patience relaxed her grip on Sken's clothing, lay back down. The knowledge of Sken's loyalty was a comfort. But it was also a burden. Patience was so tired. "Go to sleep," said Sken, "and don't dream of love."

"What should I dream of, then, since you're the master of sleep."

"Dream of murder," said Sken. "Knowing you, you'll sleep like a baby."

"I don't love death," whispered Patience.

Sken patted her hand. "No, I didn't think so."

"I didn't want my father to die. Nor Angel to be injured, I didn't wish for it."

Sken looked puzzled. Then she understood. "I know you didn't wish for it, girl," she whispered. "But it means you're on your own now, doesn't it? For a time at least. So of course that feels good."

"Exciting, sometimes. Scary."

"And knowing you face the strongest enemy in the world, alone-"

"Doesn't make me feel good."

"Don't lie," said Sken. "You love it, sometimes."

"I hate him for what he's making me want-"

"But to stand alone against him, you want that, you want to face him alone and win."

"Maybe."

"It's perfectly natural to feel that way. It's also perfectly natural to be an idiot."

"I can kill anybody."

"Anybody you want to."

The words sank in. "You're right," said Patience.

"How can I kill him, if he makes me love him?"

"You see? You can't do this alone," said Sken. "You need Angel. You need the goblins, disgusting as they are. Their pet giant, too. You may even need me."

"Even you," whispered Patience.

"Sleep now. We're all with you, you're at the center of everything, and we're all with you. Plenty of time to unfold yourself when this is over, and your lover's plow is hung on a wall somewhere."

Patience slept. She never spoke of the night's conversation again, but things were changed between her and Sken. They bickered as always, because Sken hardly knew another way to deal with people, but things were changed. There were ties between them, ties between sisters, strange sisters indeed, but good enough.

In the morning they traveled again, a queer caravan.

But Sken's words had made a difference in the way Patience saw the others, too. She looked at them with new eyes, thinking, how can I use him? Why do I need her? What is the strength he has that makes up for the weakness in me? They were all dangerous-to her, but' also to Unwyrm. The geblings especially, they were a mystery. The more Patience watched them, the more she realized that they did most of their communicating without speech, each seeming to sense when the other was in need. She was jealous of their closeness; she even tried to imitate them, going to Angel now and then, whenever she felt he might need her. Sometimes he did more often he didn't. Whatever the geblings had, she lacked it.

No special sensitivity. Geblings are too different from us.

This power of theirs is something of this world, not from ours. They're like Unwyrm. Both part of this place, and I'm a stranger here.

Then the days of land travel were over. The river stretched before them again, this time with a busy town along its bank. It was no trouble finding a merchant to buy the carriage and horses. This close to Cranning, all the buyers were geblings, of course. So Patience dressed herself as a wealthy young man, took Will with her so no one would try to rob her, and did all the bargaining herself, without Ruin or Reck present to foul the deal.

Geblings had a way of giving gifts to each other instead of making a profit, and though Patience knew that Angel's small treasury had money enough to buy as many boats as she liked, she didn't want to waste their resources.

When what he had was gone, it could not easily be renewed.

The carriage gone, the money in hand. Patience-still looking for all the world like a cocky young man-took Sken with her to buy a boat. Sken was a riverwoman, after all; who else could judge a boat's fitness for their upstream voyage? ;

"Not that one," said Sken, time after time. Too small, too deep a draft, in bad condition, doomed to sink, not enough sail for upriver travel, too hard to steer-reason after reason to reject boat after boat.

"You're too picky," said Patience. "I'm not planning to live the rest of my life on it."

"If you buy the wrong boat," said Sken, "that's exactly what you'll do."

As they walked the bustling wharf, Patience noticed that the boats were all being sold or hired out by humans.

"It was a gebling who bought our carriage," she said.

"Don't they travel by water?"

"Don't ask me about goblins," said Sken. "I hope those two don't travel by boat."

"They saved a life that's dear to me," said Patience.

"And if they do sail with us, I hope they remember who's captain of the ship."

"I'm captain of the ship," said Patience.

"Not any ship Til sail on, nor any sane person neither," said Sken. "You've got the money, that makes you owner. I've got the know-how, and that makes me captain."

"Supreme authority?"

"Not quite."

"Oh? Who's higher than the captain?"

It wasn't Sken who answered. The voice came from Patience's other side, and it belonged to a man. "Pilot!" he said.

Patience turned-and saw no one, just a monkey jumping up and down as it pumped at a bellows. The bellows was connected to a tube that ran down into a thick glass jar, then up into the windpipe of a head whose eyes just peered over the top.

"Pilot?" asked Patience.

Sken had not yet turned. "Yes, a pilot. Someone who knows the river. Every river is different, and different from year to year, as well." Then she saw the one who had spoken, the head perched in a thick glass jar. Sken wrinkled up her face. "A dead one," she said. "Lot of good he'll do."

"Been up and down Cranwater every one of the last two hundred years," said the head.