Orson Card - Wyrms

Let him think what he wants, but I know it isn't so. I don't feel all mankind as mine, though Father taught me often that that was what the Heptarch ought to feel. I am solitary, cut off from everyone and everything. But believe what you like, Angel. She changed the subject.

"Are you sure you're well enough to be up? And walking?"

"I'm not walking right now, am I? I'm sitting. Actually, though, I've felt much better for days. I just enjoy being lazy."

"I've needed you so much, these weeks-"

"You haven't needed me at all, and you've rather enjoyed finding out that you could do things on your own. But I'm glad you didn't decide to jettison me. I can be useful to you, you know. For instance, you don't need that poison."

"I might."

"You have something better."

"What?"

"The globe you took from your father's shoulder after he died."

Father had told her that no one else knew he had it.

"What globe is that?"

"For more than a week on the Glad River, every time we slept ashore you spent fifteen minutes sifting through your nightstools. There's only one thing you could have swallowed that was worth performing such a repugnant task."

"I thought you were asleep."

"Child, who could sleep through a stench like that?"

"Don't be foul. Angel."

"I assume you found it."

"Father told me to take it, but never what it did, or how to use it."

"Your father never used it. Or at least, not to its full capacity. To be fully useful, it must be placed somewhere else in your body. In the deepest place in your brain." Angel smiled. "And right now you have a very good surgeon."

"Father told me that I should never let a gebling know I have this."

"One must lake risks in this world."

"What is it?"

He switched into Gauntish. "Your scepter, my beloved Heptarch. But few of your recent predecessors have had the courage to wear it in their brain."

She answered in the same language. "You're saying Father wasn't brave enough for such an operation?"

"The operation is safe enough. But it's had such varying effects on different Heptarchs. Some have gone quite mad. One of them even murdered all his children, except one. Another started simultaneous wars with all his neighbors and ended up with the kingdom reduced to Heptam itself and a few islands to the west. Other Heptarchs have said it is like seeing the world for the first time, and they ruled brilliantly. But the odds are against you. Still, planted in your brain, it responds to your desires. Once it was there, if you ever truly wanted to die, you would die. So you might want to take the risk."

"What if it drove me mad?"

"Then you would probably become obsessed with going to Cranning to face the enemy of mankind, unprepared, uninformed, and unlikely to do anything but fail,"

"In other words, what I'm doing now?"

"How could you do anything more insane? Unless you decided to take along two geblings who no doubt mean to kill you as soon as you've got them safely to Unwyrm."

She remembered what he had said about geblings a moment ago. "Why am I forbidden to let a gebling see that I have this jewel?"

"Because it isn't a jewel."

"It isn't?"

"It's an organic crystal taken from the brain of the King of Cranning in the fifth generation of the world."

"The gebling king. What did he use it for?"

"The geblings were reluctant to discuss it with us. We know how it works on humans, but who knows what it did for him."

Patience nodded. "If it was stolen from the gebling king, I suppose by right it belongs to Reck and Ruin."

An expression passed suddenly across Angel's face, then vanished. Not a grimace that anyone else could see, for Angel was skilled at keeping his face blank. But Patience saw it, and knew that he was surprised, perhaps even frightened. What had surprised him? Didn't he know that, together, the brother and sister were king of the geblings? Of course he didn't know. Ruin had been sewing Angel's wound when Patience overheard the geblings' conversation that revealed to her who they were. Angel had been unconscious, and no one had spoken of it since.

"I'm sorry," she said. "Didn't you know they were king? It's something I overheard when you were not yet healed."

"No, I had no idea. I'll have to think about that," said Angel. "That might change things. It might indeed. It gives me pause." He smiled and patted her hand, looking mildly nonplussed.

But Patience was even more confused than before. For Angel was lying to her. She knew what he would look like if his words were sincere and he were hiding nothing.

But he was hiding something-all he showed right now was his mask. He had not been surprised at all, and he did not have to think about anything or change any plans. He had known all along who the geblings were.

And if that was so, then what he hadn't known was that she knew who they were.

There are two things to do with a lie: pretend you believe it, or confront the liar with your knowledge of the lie. The first is what you do with enemies; she could only think of Angel as a friend. "How long have you known?" she asked him.

He was preparing to lie to her again, then stopped himself. "No," he said. "You're the Heptarch now, and I can't hold back from you. Your father told me their names, many years ago, their names and where they lived. The Heptarchy has made it a point to keep track of the gebling kings."

"So you knew all along that they were in that village."

"Your father knew, and warned me. They add just one more uncertainty to the equation. It would have been better to pass them by. And I wouldn't have had an arrow in my throat, either." He chuckled. "But I don't mind."

She smiled at him, but he was still lying to her.

Something was wrong with what he said. Perhaps he hadn't known who they were. Perhaps Father hadn't warned him. It was impossible to guess, and she couldn't very well ask him now. With his first lie, he might still be a friend. With the second lie, she could only treat him as an enemy. Let him think his lie has succeeded. Father taught her, and your enemy won't be driven to more desperate measures.

What bothered her most was that never before in her life had she thought of Angel as her enemy. "What did Father fear they would do, when he warned you?"

"I don't know. I thought at the time he feared another gebling invasion. But I don't think it's human blood these two are thirsting for. The other kings called the geblings to Skyfoot with a cry of war on their lips. These two are almost in disguise. No gebling king has ever traveled in the company of humans. Living humans, anyway."

The more she listened to him, the more obvious it became that it was all lies, and Angel was growing more and more confident that she believed him. Angel had a plan, no doubt something he and Father had worked out some time ago, and part of the plan required him not to tell her all he knew. She was still a child in Angel's eyes, still not to be trusted with the knowledge to make an intelligent decision on her own. Angel was determined to keep her blind and force her down the road he and Father had chosen for her. Well, Angel, you may find I'm not quite the helpless babe you think I am. I can't force you to confide in me, but when the time comes, you'll wish you had, because I'll do as I have decided for myself, whether you like it or not, and if you try to stop me, Angel, even you might find that I'm too much for you.

She didn't believe it, though. Her bravado was a sham.

Never before had she felt so childish and weak as now. I am not Heptarch yet, she realized. I have no kingdom and no power, just the destiny that you and Father and Unwyrm and the geblings and the priests all have in mind for me. You have so many plans for me that no matter what I do, it's what someone wanted me to do. A single puppet with a thousand strings, and I don't know who is holding any of them.