Orson Card - Songmaster

The last one was Warvel, who was utterly certain that he would die--five had already been passed over. And Kyaren, her arms around Josif, who wept softly beside her, found herself inwardly pleased, sickeningly pleased, that Warvel would also die. If Bant, then surely Warvel.

Then the ferret snaked out his hand. But not to kill. For the hand now was empty, and he caught Warvel by the neck, pulled him forward away from the guard. Warvel stumbled, nearly fell, his knees were so weak. But the vids carried the sound of Ferret's voice. Pardon this one. The emperor pardons this one.

And Warvel's bonds were loosed as the announcer's voice began talking about how the emperor was to be remembered always-because when someone cheated or abused the people, the emperor would be the people's champion and carry out their vengeance. But always the emperor's justice is tempered with mercy. Always the emperor remembers that even the worst of criminals is still one of the emperor's people.

Warvel.

Bant.

Whatever the ferret wanted to teach us, Kyaren whispered silently, so that even she could hardly hear the thought as her lips moved. Whatever the ferret wanted to teach us, we have learned. We have learned.

And that was why Kyaren and Josif were in Babylon when Ansset was placed there.

4

For the first time in his life, Ansset lost songs.

Up to now, everything that had happened to him had added to his music. Even Mikal's death had taught him new songs, and deepened all the old ones.

He spent only one month as a prisoner, but he spent it songless. Not that he meant to keep his silence. Occasionally, at first, he tried to sing. Even something simple, something he had learned as a child. The sounds came out of his throat well enough, but there was no fulfillment in it. The song always sounded empty to him, and he could not bring himself to go on.

Ansset speculated on death, perhaps because of the constant reminder of the urn that had held Mikal's ashes, perhaps because he felt entombed in the dusty room with its constant reminders of a long-gone past. Or perhaps because the drugs that delayed the Songbird's puberty were now wearing off, and the changes came on more awkwardly because of the artificial delay. Ansset awoke often in the night, troubled by strange and unfulfilling dreams. Small for his age, he began to feel restless, an urge to grapple violently with someone or something, a passion for movement that, in the confines of Mikal's rooms, he could not fulfill.

This is what the dead feel, Ansset thought. This is what they go through, shut up in their tombs or caught, embarrassingly, in public without their bodies. Ghosts may long to simply touch something, but bodiless they cannot; they may wish for heat, for cold, for even the delicious-ness of pain, but it Is all denied them.

He counted days. With the poker from the fire he notched each morning in the ashes in the hearth, in spite of the fact that the ashes were of Mikal's body-or perhaps because of it. And, at last, the day came when his contract was expired and he could finally go home.

How could Riktors have misinterpreted him so? In all his years with Mikal, Ansset had never had to lie to him; and in his time with Riktors, there had also been a kind of honesty, though silences fell between them on certain matters. They had not been like father and son, as he and Mikal had been. They were more like brothers, though there was some confusion as to which of them was the elder brother, which the rambunctious younger one who had to be comforted, checked, counseled, and consoled. And now, simply by being honest, Ansset had touched a place in Riktors that no one could have guessed was there-the man could be vindictive without calculation, cruel even to the helpless.

Ansset had thought he knew Riktors-as he thought he knew practically everyone. As other people trusted their sight, Ansset trusted his hearing. No one could lie to him or hide from him, not if they were speaking. But Riktors Ashen had hidden from him, at least in part, and Ansset was now as unsure as a sighted man who suddenly discovered that the wolves were all invisible, and walked beside him ravening in the night.

On the day Ansset turned fifteen, he waited expectantly for the door to open, for the Mayor or, better yet, someone from the Songhouse to come in, to take his hand and bring him out.

The Mayor did indeed come in. Near evening he came and wordlessly handed a paper to Ansset. It was in Riktors's handwriting.

I regret to inform you that the Songhouse has sent as word that you are not to return to them. Your service of two emperors, they said, has polluted you and you may not go back. The message was signed by Esste. It is unfortunate that this message should have come when you are no longer welcome here. We are currently holding meetings to decide what we can possibly do with you, since neither we nor the Songhouse can find any further justification for maintaining you. This undoubtedly comes as a blow to you. I'm sure you can guess how sorry I am.

Riktors Mikal, Imperator

If Ansset's long silence in Mikal's rooms had ended with a return to the Songhouse, it might have helped him grow, as the silence and the suffering in the High Room with Esste helped him grow. But as he read the letter, the songs drained out of him.

Not that he believed the letter at first. At first he thought it was a terrible, terrible joke, a last vindictive act by Riktors to make Ansset regret wanting to leave Earth and return to the Songhouse. But as the hours passed, he began to wonder. He had heard nothing from the Songhouse in his years on Earth. That was normal, he knew-but it was also distancing him from his memories there. The stone walls had faded into the background, and the gardens of Susquehanna were more real to him. Riktors was more real to him than Esste, though his feelings for Esste were more tender. But with that distance he began to think: perhaps Esste had merely been manipulating him. Perhaps their ordeal in the High Room had been a strategem and nothing more-her complete victory over him, and not a shared experience at all. Perhaps he had been sent to Earth as a sacrifice; perhaps the skeptics were right, and the Songhouse had given in to Mikal's pressure and sent him a Songbird knowing he was unworthy, knowing that it would destroy the Songbird they sent and they could never bring him home.

Maybe that was why, when Mikal died, the Songhouse did the unthinkable and let him stay with Riktors Ashen.

It fit, and the more Ansset thought about it, the better it fit, until by the time he was able to sleep he had despaired. He still harbored a hope that tomorrow the Song-house people would come in and tell him it was a cruel joke by Riktors, and they had come to claim him; but the hope was slimmer, and he realized that now, instead of being one of the few people on Earth who could regard himself as independent of the emperor, almost his equal, he was utterly dependent on Riktors, and not at all sure that Riktors would feel any obligation to be kind.

That night his Control failed him, and he awoke from a dream weeping out loud. He tried to contain himself, but could not. He had no way of knowing that it was the onset of puberty that was weakening, temporarily, his knowledge of himself. He thought that it was proof that the Songhouse was right-he was polluted, weakened. Unworthy to return and live among the singers.

If he had been restless before, now he was frantic. The rooms were smaller than they had ever been before, and the softness of the floor was unbearable. He wanted to strike it and find it hard; instead it yielded to hurt. The dust, which his constant walking had pushed to the edges and corners of the room, began to irritate him, and he sneezed frequently. He constantly caught himself on the edge of tears, told himself it was the dust, but knew it was the terror of abandonment. All his life that he could remember he had been surrounded by security, at first the security of the Songhouse, and later the security of an emperor's love. Now, suddenly, both of them were gone, and a long-forgotten abandonment began to intrude into his dreams again. Someone was stealing him away. Someone was taking him from his family. Someone was vanishing his family in the distance and he would never see them again and he woke up in darkness full of terror, afraid to move in his bed, because if he so much as lifted an arm they would cease to forbear; they would take him and he would never be found again, would live perpetually in a small cell in a rocking boat, would always be surrounded by the leering faces of men who saw only his nakedness and never his soul.