Orson Card - Hart's Hope

He tried to think what it could be, wondered if there were some layer in the air, or if where the clouds began, his magic vision improved. But the sweetness hung too low, never rising much above the height of the tallest buildings—and suddenly Orem understood. The sweet sea of fog was not natural at all. It was Queen Beauty's Searching Eye. It was her magic, pervading everything. Of course she did not bother to maintain it much above the level where a man was likely to climb. It was men she meant to spy on.

Does she see me? Or does a Sink devour the magic of Queen Beauty? Daringly he dipped down into the sweet fog and, instead of moving through it, he tasted it the way he tasted the fires of the wizards. It had no center to it, no potent place to snuff out, but he found that he could easily erase wide patches of it like clearing chalk from a slate, with no effort at all, and what he cleared stayed cleared.

At first he was alarmed at what he had done. Surely Queen Beauty would notice the gap in her vision, would come searching for him. But as he lay on his bed, feeling a little sick with fear, he realized that if he could block her Searching Eye miles from Inwit, he could block it here as well. And so he did, clearing her vision out of Wizard Street, away from the edges of the bitter island of the Great Temple, and from other places, too, so that she could not pinpoint one gap as the source of her enemy.

Enemy? Am I Queen Beauty's enemy?

He remembered Palicrovol, looking up at him with golden eyes at the House of God in Banningside. Had he, or perhaps some god, called to Orem then so he would do this very work, blinding Queen Beauty? He had never heard of a wizard daring to challenge her Searching Eye; he had never heard of a wizard who even understood how she did it. For the first time it. occurred to Orem that his power as a Sink might have been given him, not to play pranks on the other wizards of Inwit, but to challenge Beauty herself. His father had found him soldiering in the dirt, childish games—but could he not now serve King Palicrovol as no other could serve him? Could he not, in fact, block Queen Beauty's power to make cowards of his men, and let his army come against an undefended city?

But before he acted, he remembered the Queen. She was the unspoken breath at the back of every speaker who fell silent, every lover who looked over his shoulder, every thinker who hummed to take a dangerous thought from his mind. He remembered that she was the helpless child raped on the back of the hart. Who was he to judge that her vengeance should be interrupted, that it was time to break her power?

You know what Orem decided, Palicrovol. You remember the night. Suddenly a wizard came in, his face white with terror, to say that the Queen had destroyed all their spells; then another came to say that the Queen's power, too, was gone. You did not dare believe that magic was so perfectly undone, until the itching at your groin let up for a few hours, your long-stopped bowels flowed normally, painlessly for a few hours, and you were able to sleep dreamlessly for the first night in three hundred years. Then you believed.

But why did Orem decide to do battle with the Queen? He did not suspect he was your son. You had done him no kindness. The Queen had done him no especial harm. It was simply this: If Orem had been alive when you ravished Asineth upon the hart's back, and he had had the power to stop you, he would have done it. He was one who instinctively fought against the strong, to help the helpless. It was his way, born into him. He hadn't the heart for necessary cruelty, the way you had. And so he challenged Queen Beauty, in part because he was brave and she was his only interesting adversary, but mostly out of pity for his weak and beaten King. Do not discount that when you judge him. There was a time when you were helpless, and he helped you.

That night Orem attacked incessantly, for hours, not just swallowing up all the magic anywhere near you, but spreading himself over as broad an area as he could, clearing away the Queen's sight, in hopes of disorienting her, distracting her, buying even more time for you. He had no hope of challenging her at the Castle, for his power was negation—he could do nothing to harm her person. But he could undo her work, and so he unwove her nets of seeing as long as he had strength to do it that night.

At last he slept, exhausted, and after several hours of searching, Queen Beauty found you again, Palicrovol, and your suffering began anew, and sharper than before, and many of your wizards died. Orem was young, and he did not know how angry she would be, or that you would bear the brunt of her quick revenge. He assumed she would know what he was, and that she would search for him. But even so, it told you things. You knew then that if Beauty was angry, it meant there was a force in the world that could thwart her, if only for a time. You did not know if one of the gods had broken free of her, or if Sleeve had managed to free himself and work some magic, but you knew that it was a good omen, and that you should try again to bring your armies to the gates of Inwit. Admit it, Palicrovol: It was Orem who summoned you to your final battle with the Queen.

The Wounding of the Hart

He would have slept late in the morning, but Gallowglass awoke him just after dawn. "What have you done?" demanded the wizard.

"Done?" asked Orem.

"Last night the house shivered, and I awoke this morning to hear the cries of a hundred thousand birds. I looked out the window and the sky was filled with them, wheeling and turning, and then suddenly they dispersed, they flew far, but all of them dipped and turned over this house. Was it real or a vision? Did you call them?"

"I don't know how to call."

"No, it was a vision, I know it was. No magic, I'd know magic, I'm not likely to mistake that. Don't you feel how the floor is trembling?"

Yes, there was a low, low hum that shook him in his bed. He was afraid now, remembering his foolish bravery of the night before. He dared not leave Gallowglass ignorant of what he had done, since only Gallowglass would know what he must do now. So he told him of last night's battle for Palicrovol against the Queen.

"Oh, Orem," whispered Gallowglass, "no sooner do you have a grasp than you try to overreach! Touch nothing of the Queen's!"

"Is it she who shakes the house?"

"No! No, not Queen Beauty. There's no way she could know where you are. It's bad enough she knows that you exist."

"She'll know that suddenly somewhere in Burland there's a wizard who can undo her doing. It will worry her. She'll search, she'll ask, and then she'll learn that here on Wizard Street also there are spells undone, and then she'll begin to wonder what's abroad in the world."

Up and down he walked, clapping his fist into an open hand. "It's a fool who tries to pit his power against the Queen! The Queen could crush us in a moment. She lets us wizards be because we do no harm. We can cure warts and other blemishes. We can do love words and vengeances on enemies, and pranks and little spies. We can even keep a hart's blood hot on the city wall and go invisible in the daylight when we have the need. But we do not darken skies or move the hearts of masses in the city. We do not question the Sweet Sisters and we do not shiver the earth. The river's course is beyond our reach, and the wind must not be spoken to, and we may not poison the milk within the breast or dry the semen in a man's loins."

Orem made no answer, for directly behind Gallowglass, stamping intermittently upon the floor, was a hart with a hundred-pointed head, his great neck high upraised to bear that impossible weight. Gallowglass heard the beast almost as soon as Orem saw him, and he turned and knelt, and said, "O Hart, why have you come?"

The Hart regarded him and did not stir to answer.