Orson Card - Wyrms

"She's still holding it," said Ruin. "She's not gone!"

Sken raised her voice to taunt them. "King of the geblings! Why did you come alone? Where are your armies when you need them most!"

"Geblings," whispered Reck. And in that moment she and Ruin both knew that they had one tool that might free Patience's mind from Unwyrm's control.

"We must call the geblings-" murmured Ruin.

"The geblings must call her," said Reck.

They cried out with their silent mind. Feel and repeat this urgent need-to kill Unwyrm, to kill the child-killer, the mother-eater.

Geblings in the highest reaches of Cranning fell the urgent call in their othermind. They stopped what they were doing; it was the king, they knew who called them, it was the king and all unknown to them the final battle had already been joined. Kill Unwyrm! They echoed the silent shout, passing it on to the other geblings farther down the mountain.

Cart drivers let their oxen walk on unattended; geblings in conversation fell silent; workers let their tasks slip from their hands. All joined in the fervent call: Kill Unwyrm.

In moments, the message passed silently to every part of Cranning. It was echoed by ten million gebling minds.

Every other time that Cranning had cried out together, the geblings had gathered from every part of the world to join battle against the human kingdoms and strike them down. This time, the message was much simpler. Death to their brother, their enemy, their satan, the wyrm.

And in Patience's mind that same cry also arose, stronger and stronger, making its way against the perfect pleasure that Unwyrm gave her. She felt the knife in her hand again, knew that the desire to kill him was her true self even though her body cried out against it. She felt his blood spill almost before she felt the knife enter his body. Unwyrm arched backward, then slapped himself forward on top of her. She screamed in pain, then jabbed at him again. He whipped away, slithered toward his upper chamber, then writhed out his dance of death, smearing himself across the ice as he whipped to and fro.

All that he desired in the last moments of his life Patience felt, for the bond was still firm between them. She screamed his scream for him. At last he was still, and her voice was her own again.

Except for their labored breathing, the room was silent.

Patience curled up on her side and sobbed quietly, Unwyrm's blood slowly freezing on her.

Sken let go of Reck and leaned back against the ice behind her. Reck fell forward, gasping for breath. "Will," she whispered.

Ruin crawled to Will, dragging his broken leg behind him. He pulled the large man over onto his back. His face was blue from the cold, but the icy water had slowed the bleeding of his arm. "Save him if you can," whispered Reck. Ruin at once drew a threaded brass needle from his kit and began feverishly sewing the severed arteries and veins together.

Reck looked back at Sken. "Help the Heptarch, can't you?" She did not wait to see if Sken would obey. She slid across the ice to where her brother labored over Will. "He held us here, he got us here when no one else could have-"

"Get me a leather pouch," said Ruin. "Not that one, no, sniff it, like krisberries, yes, that's it." Reck opened the pouch and Ruin dipped his tongue into it, then smeared it on the severed surfaces. It would make the cells of Will's body grow again; it would stimulate the living nerve ends to grow out and find new connections.

Then Patience cried out. Softly. Reck looked up. Patience had rolled over and was lying on her stomach, her head toward the others. Her body heaved twice.

"What's happening?" whispered Reck.

Ruin looked up in time to see the head of a half- developed fetus rise up from between Patience's legs.

"The wyrm's child!"

"We were too late!" shouted Sken.

Reck reached for her bow and arrow, but Sken was stumbling along the ice, her hatchet in hand, blocking a clear shot. And by the time Sken got there, Patience was standing up, holding the infant, shielding it. "I'm going to kill it!" Sken shouted.

Patience nodded, but she still held the child out of Sken's reach. Was it an illusion, or had the child grown?

Yes, it was larger, and it was no longer fetal-it was a fully developed infant.

"Take the baby!" shouted Reck.

"It's going to die anyway!" Patience cried. "Can't you see? I killed his father too soon, he's going to die."

It was true. They could almost see that as the child grew taller, feebly wiggling its limbs, the skin tightened, grew tight around the bones, like a victim of famine. The baby opened its mouth, and spoke its only words: "Help me." They were grotesque, coming from a body so young. It was clearly Unwyrm's child, clearly a monster, yet from the sight of him he was any infant, helpless, demanding their compassion and getting it.

The baby died. Patience felt it, the sudden slackness of the body. She relaxed her protective posture. Only then could Sken reach the body, tear it away, cast it to the ground, and raise her hatchet to hack at it.

"It's dead!" shouted Patience.

"It was growing!" Sken cried. "It spoke!"

"But it's dead!"

Sken lowered her hatchet. Reck took Patience's garment from the cave floor and carried it to her. "Only the one," said Reck. "And Unwyrm didn't have time to give it strength to live. We did it. In time."

Patience turned away and pulled the chemise over her head.

There were shouts and footfalls in the tunnel leading up from the golden door. Armed geblings rushed a few steps into the room, then stopped to take in the scene.

The corpse of Unwyrm, split open and spilt on the ice; the starved, skeletal body of a human infant. A few of the old men came in, not looking half so doltish now.

"Behold," said Sken bitterly, "the gebling kings.

Behold the Heptarch!" Her face worked to keep from crying. She flung out her hand toward the baby lying on the ice. "Behold the child of prophecy!"

Reck hushed her. "The baby was no Kristos. It was a wyrm, it was death to humans and geblings, and if it hadn't died I would have killed it with my own hands."

The old men walked toward Unwyrm's body. One of them took Angel's other knife, the one that Patience hadn't used, and sliced Unwyrm's head from snout to crown. The skin burst apart as if it had been under pressure, revealing the shining facets of a green crystal.

"His mindstone," whispered Reck. She walked toward them, looked at the crystal.

It was not a single mindstone, but many hundreds of them, fused together. The old men pulled the flaps of skin farther apart, and the crystal toppled forward onto the ice.

"Here," said one of them.

"This is where he kept all the gifts we gave him," said another.

"Everything we knew."

The old men knelt, touched the crystal, as if to find where in the living jewel their own knowledge lay. The youngest one lifted his head and cried out like a dog baying. "Give it back to me!"

Reck turned from the old men and walked slowly, wearily to Patience. They embraced, and Reck helped the exhausted woman walk across the ice, out of the room.

Geblings were already helping Ruin, preparing to carry him out. Others were binding up Will's arm and wrapping him in blankets.

Sken looked up when Patience passed. "Heptarch," she said. "Did we sin?"

Patience stopped, stood before the fat woman with her twisted, tear-stained face. She touched Sken's cheek with her bent fingers.

"Did I raise my hatchet to murder God's own son?"

Her voice was high and weak, like a child's. "Am I damned forever?"

In answer, Patience pulled her close, embraced her.

"No sin," she whispered. "This day's work honors us all forever."

THE FIRES ROARED IN THE HOUSE OF THE WISE. It was afternoon, but outside it was dark with clouds and falling snow. The cold seeped in through the shutters and under the door, but the fires in the two hearths fought it back to the edges of the room.