Orson Card - Hart's Hope

"Not Piss Gate, that's sure, you can tell Piss Gate by the stink of thieves and farmers who come down the river hoping to get rich in the city." The guards approached him, and now Orem saw that there were more than a dozen of them; they had been concealed in shadows or, he suspected, inside the shells of the buildings that were not totally boarded up.

"I'm not hoping to get rich," Orem said, trying to sound frightened and succeeding better than he had expected.

"Where you from, boy?"

"A farm. My father's farm. Upriver, near Banningside."

Now the guards were more alert, and Orem noticed that hands were on hilts and fingers had closed around ax-hafts. "An illegal person is near Banningside," said a guard.

"Illegal person?" The King, of course. And for a terrible moment Orem feared they would suppose him a spy. Spies, he knew, were skinned alive and forced to eat their own hearts. Should he pretend that he didn't know Palicrovol had been in the area? No, they'd never believe it. It was impossible not to know when that vast army came foraging in a countryside. "All I know is the sergeants were out pressing soldiers. I didn't want to go in the army."

The guard who seemed to be in command looked him up and down pointedly, then laughed. "If you were in danger of pressing then the rebels must be more desperate than anyone thought."

At the laughter, Orem tried a smile, hoping to join in the camaraderie. His mirth offended them. The commander did not take him by the shirt; he took him painfully by the skin at his waist, a crushing grip that brought an unwilling cry from Orem. "Do you know how close you are to death?"

"No, sir."

A guard had opened Orem's bag. In it was only his flask, still full of his father's spring water, and the last bit of bread that now was like rock. His coppers were in a better place.

"A rich one, that's plain," said the guard as he tossed the bag back to Orem.

Orem dared to ask a question. "Why is this gate closed?" he asked. "You're better off if you never learn the answer to that question."

"I say question him," said another.

The white-haired guard spoke even more softly. "I say eat shit. The spies all know their way into the city, and it isn't the Hole in midafternoon."

The commander pushed Orem from him, hurting his side again even as he released him. "Get away from here, boy, and don't come back. If you want Piss Gate, follow the north wall and stay close to the wall always."

"Or go home," said the white-haired guard. "There's nothing in Inwit for you. Don't you know this city devours children and flays strong men alive?"

Orem smiled uncomprehendingly and backed away from them. "Thank you, sirs. Good day to you. I'll never come here again."

"Your name, boy!" called the commander. "And don't lie!"

"Orem ap Avonap!"

The white-haired guard laughed aloud. "What a name! Only a farmer would think of that!"

The other guards nudged each other and laughed also. But they watched him out of sight all the same, and he suspected that one was following him much of his way north.

It made Orem angry that they laughed at him, but what made him angriest was that he had earned their laughter. A fool, that's what he had been, and it had not been a pose, no, not half.

The Beggars' Way of Death in Life

The farther north he got, the less dead the place appeared; a child played in the street, and then a beggar sprawled in sleep, and at last litter began appearing at the sides of the road and the sewer down the middle of the street began to be fetid with decomposing filth. Beggarstown was alive again, now that he was away from the Hole, and the faces that had seemed frightening to him before were a welcome sight now. Orem began to see, not their strangeness, not their darkness and filth, but their weakness and grief. They wore elegant clothes, most of them, but so tattered and soiled that the color that had once been bright was now a dull brown or grey. There was a dullness in the eyes, too, as if something in Beggarstown took the mind out of the head, as if the people could go through their days without ever quite awakening.

Orem began to pity them, and almost lost his fear, until a man with just such an empty face walked up to a man near Orem and calmly stabbed him deep in the eye with a dagger. His victim fell without a sound, blood pouring up and out of his face onto the road. Orem felt more anguish than fear, for if a man with such a dead face could kill, when the dead could reach out and drag the living into their graves, then what chance had he to hold onto his life here?

The knife stood upright from the victim's eye. On impulse Orem strode to the body and reached down to take the knife; at that same moment a long thin hand also reached to the corpse. For a moment Orem thought someone was challenging him for possession of the weapon, but no; it was an old woman, and she was holding a cup, catching the last of the flowing blood. A witch, then, who could make use even of unearned blood. Orem wondered what sort of filthy magic could be made of found death even as he backed off and let her take what she wanted.

She finished. She looked up and smiled at him. She bent and kissed the knife. For a moment Orem thought not to take it after all; who knew what the kiss might mean? But then he thought better of it. Even a boy trained as a priest could make use of a dagger if need were, and in this place he had no intention of passively submitting to what the walking corpses might decide for him. So he stepped forward again and drew the knife upward, drawing one last bubble from the man's eye. He cleaned the knife, for lack of a better place, on the man's clothing; then he put the knife in his bag.

The woman spoke, her voice hissing like the last breath of a butchered sow. "There are three things in nature that know no moderation, in goodness or in foulness." She cocked her head and waited.

Orem shuddered. He knew the litany, and knew as well that it could not be left incomplete. If she chose to stop and wait, he had to go on for her. "When they are governed by goodness," he said softly, "they are most excellent in virtue."

"The tongue," said the woman. "And a priestly man."

"But when they are corrupted, there is no bottom to stay their hellward plunge." Is that enough, or must I name the third name?

"And a woman." She smiled and nodded wisely at him, as if they had shared something lovely; then she took her cup of cooling blood and carried it away.

Orem felt the knife in his bag like a small fire, burning his skin though it could not touch him directly. What had she meant by making him chant the Ambivalence? Was she warning him to curb his own evil desires? But I have no truly unspeakable desires, he thought, and besides, I'm not a priestly man anymore. Why should I worry about the warnings of a woman already so corrupt as to use found blood? Yet still he shuddered. Still the knife burned his back. Still the knife froze his back until he had walked far enough and thought enough of other things and inwardly sung songs enough that the litany of the three boundless friends and enemies of God fled his mind and he forgot even the knife he carried.

Piss Gate at last. From a distance it looked like Swine Gate and the Hole; close up it had a character all its own. This place did not belong to the permanent residents. It was not silent and despairing. The line was long and jostled rudely, and only the presence of many guards kept quarrels from erupting into fights. As for the guards, they were grim and busy, and six of them were ahorse, patrolling up and down the line. There were no dead looks among the people in the line. They might be angry or stupid or frightened or awestruck or jocular, but they were not dead. Orem recognized himself in many places along the line, at once ashamed at the plain naivete of the others his age and relieved that it was indeed possible to stay hopeful here. People from the farms; people with dreams of finding some treasure in the city; Orem took his place in the line and felt smaller—but safer than he had in the streets of Beggarstown.