Orson Card - Wyrms

She knelt by the man who had made the effort to tell her what he really was. "I know you now," she said softly. "We've come to give you back what he's taken, if we can."

"Why would he do this?" asked Reck.

"Gathering all the knowledge of the human species, so he could replace it, mind and body both," Ruin held his hands between his legs to warm them. "What I don't understand is why he left them alive."

"These can't be all the Wise in the world," said Reck.

"Unwyrm's call began sixty years ago," answered Patience. "These must be the ones who were young, who were brought most recently. Even they will die soon, and if it weren't for Heffiji's house, all that they knew would be lost."

"But there is Heffiji's house," said Reck. "And you did come to our village, despite Unwyrm's best efforts.

And when Ruin and I were in danger out there in the snow, Unwyrm's own cast-off manflesh saved us. Why?"

"Luck," said Patience. "It can't always go against us.

Chance."

"I hate chance," said Ruin. "I hate believing that the future of my people, of the whole world, depends on an accidental coming-together of events."

"Come away from the fire," said Reck. "You'll singe your hair."

He turned, silhouetted against the hotly burning fire. "What kind of majesty is there in a victory like that?"

"Maybe," said Patience, "with all the patterns of life on this world set against us, maybe a little luck is the only way we'll win."

"I'll take luck," said Reck. "I'll even take acts of the gods. Just so we win."

"Will would say that it was the hand of God that got us this far," said Patience.

"If God's hand is in the game, and on our side," said Reck, "why doesn't he just snuff out Unwyrm himself?"

"God doesn't have the power to act except through our hands," said Ruin. "He can only do what we do for him."

Reck laughed aloud. "What! Are you secretly a Watcher, my gebling, my sibling? In your wanderings through the forest, did you find religion?"

"What do humans know about their god? They want him to have power over earth and sky. But all he has power over is the human will. Because he is the human will-and a weak, feeble god he is. Not like the god of the geblings. We've seen it, haven't we? Together, all the geblings are one soul. We ignore it most of the time, but at a time of great need we act together, we do the thing that consciously or not we know must be done for the whole of us to survive. That is the god of the geblings-the common, unspoken and unspeakable will.

The othermind. Even the humans have a faint touch of othermind that lets Lady Patience hear a dim echo of our call, that lets Unwyrm speak to them. Together they create a god, which is the good of them all, and it rules.

Weakly, pathetically, in fits and starts, but it rules."

Ruin twisted the hair of his cheek. "It rules even Unwyrm.

Just like a gebling, he's half human, too. The human god lies like a root in his path; he doesn't see, he stumbles."

"I can't think of many priests who would like your theology," said Patience.

"That's why I'm not putting it up for sale," said Ruin. "But it's more than chance that helps us. We aren't lonely creatures trying to save our people. We are the instrument of our people, which they unconsciously created to save themselves."

Patience connected Ruin's view to something spoken to her on the boat not too many days before. "Will says that geblings-"

"What do I care what he says?" said Ruin. "It's his strength that we need now, not his ideas. We need the strength that let him stand against the Cranning call."

"He says that geblings and humans all have souls, and the same god means to save us all."

"If he does, then I adjure this god to bring us Will, to stand before Unwyrm and resist him for us." Ruin was mocking, but not to amuse them. His mockery was a mask for desperate faith, Patience could see that. He had invented for himself a god he could believe in, and now he prayed to that god.

And was answered.

Outside, during a lull in the wind, they could hear the high, sweet sounds of Kristiano and Strings singing harmony.

And another voice calling Patience by name.

"Angel," said Patience.

"He killed the others," said Reck. "Unwyrm has brought him to us."

There were footsteps crunching in the crisp dry snow outside.

"Patience!" cried Angel again. He knocked on the door.

"Go away!" shouted Patience. "I don't want to have to kill you."

Reck was knotching an arrow, and Ruin had his knife ready.

"Patience, I'm free of him!" shouted Angel. "Let me in, I can help you!"

"Don't believe him," said Reck.

"Go away!" shouted Patience. She held the blowgun near her lips. "I'll kill you!"

The door crashed open and swung back to bang against the wall. Immediately an arrow trembled in the door at belly height; Reck was preparing to shoot again, as soon as anyone entered.

Patience knew, however, that Angel hadn't the strength to kick in the door. "Will," she said. "You can come in, Will."

Will came in, followed by Angel, who was tightly bound and tethered to Sken. Strings and Kristiano came after. They were warmly dressed against the cold.

"Here we are," said Strings cheerfully. "The House of the Wise. And the Wise, as you can see, are asleep."

It was true; even the shouting and the banging of the door hadn't aroused them. It was a sign of Unwyrm's presence here, that he could keep them asleep through anything.

"Will," said Reck. "Why didn't you speak! We were sure Angel had-"

"He didn't speak," said Angel, "because he didn't know whether you were under Unwyrm's power. The arrow in the doorway was quite convincing,"

Patience looked at Angel. His bonds were a joke, of course-she knew that Angel could easily slip the knots, if he wanted to. It was his face she studied.

"I know why you look at me that way," said Angel.

"Do you think I haven't thought ten thousand times, what will she think of me, when she learns the truth?"

But Patience was not thinking of his betrayal now. She was thinking: the fire is gone from behind his eyes. He is weak and alone, and he was never alone before. Even though Unwyrm is your enemy. Angel, it strengthened you to have him always with you. And now, you have the look of a child whose parents have wandered off.

You are waiting for him to come back. You think you can carry on alone, but you wait for him all the same, to bring you back to life.

"But I'm not who I was," said Angel. "I don't need bonds now. I was young when he took me, young and unprepared. But I know him, and now that he's gone, I'll never let him back."

"Why did you bring him?" demanded Ruin of Will.

"Why didn't you just kill him down below?"

Will only glanced at Ruin, as if to say. Who are you to expect an accounting from me? Then he turned to Patience.

"My Heptarch," he said, "I brought your servant to you. He wanted to redeem himself."

"After Unwyrm is dead," said Patience, "then he can become himself, and my true servant. But as long as Unwyrm is alive, Angel is the wyrm's slave, and not the Heptarch's."

"No," said Angel. "I've faced him before. I know where he's weak-"

"You know nothing of the kind," said Ruin, "or you would have killed him before."

"All he's thinking about now is you, Patience," said Angel. "All he cares about is to stay alive long enough to impregnate you. He's waited seven thousand years, constantly renewing himself, until he hates the taste of his own life, but when you come, then he can achieve all he waited for. He cares nothing for me, or Will, or the geblings-"

"He leaves you free," said Ruin, "so we'll trust you and bring you with us. Then he'll rule you again and you'll betray us in our moment of greatest weakness."