Orson Card - Hart's Hope

"Flea!" Orem cried.

"You know him?" Timias asked.

"Yes, I know him, I owe him my life a couple of times."

"And don't forget the three coppers you owe me," Flea said sourly.

"Flea! How are you?"

"Going bald. If I were six inches taller I'd teach this son of a puke to keep his claws in his own

nest."

"How did you come?" Orem asked. "It can't have been easy to get in here."

"I came the low way."

Timias would have none of that. "The postern gate has more guards than a two-copper whore

has lice." "I wouldn't know about two-copper whores," Flea answered. "I said the low way, not the back

way. Under the Palace."

Timias frowned. "There's no such way."

"Then I burrowed through the rock."

"Why do you think the aqueducts go over the walls? They built this place so there were no

passages underground." Flea pointedly turned his back on Timias. "Some people are so right they never learn a thing. I

came to take you."

"Take me where?"

"Where you're needed. They say the time is short. You have to come."

"Come where?"

"I don't know the name of the place," Flea said. "And I'm not so sure I'd find the way too

quickly on my own. I have a guide." Flea looked toward the porch. Standing at the balustrade was a shadow Orem recognized. "God," Orem said.

Orem strode through the outer door and touched the half-naked servant on the shoulder. "What do you want with me?"

The old man turned around, and his eyes were dark; in the light from the room Orem could see that there was no white at all—iris only, staring through his face to see what lay behind.

"Time," the old man said. "You delay too long."

"Delay what? What have you come for?"

"You blinded her, yet still you do not act."

Orem wanted to ask for explanations, but Flea tugged at his arm. "He's just the guide," Flea said. "The others want you—they found me, brought me down, and sent me here to get you because they figured that you'd come if I asked. You can trust me, Orem—it's not a trick or a trap. They say it's too important for delay."

"I'll come then."

"Wait!" Timias stopped him. "You're not following this little thief down into God knows what pit—you don't believe him, do you?"

"Before you were my friend, he was," Orem said, "and with less reason."

When he saw that Orem meant to go, Timias insisted that they stop at his room for him to get a sword. The old man seemed to sneer at him for it, but what of that? Orem didn't mind knowing that Timias was with him, and armed.

The old man led them a twisted route, all through the Palace itself, sometimes up, sometimes down, into places Orem had never seen, and finally into places that seemed to have been abandoned years before, dust thick on the floor, furniture nested with rats. They left the candled rooms behind, and carried lamps to light the way, all except the old man, though he led them into the darkness. At first Flea was full of talk, but later on that stilled.

Through one door, and now the stairs were wooden, and so ancient that they walked only on the outmost parts of the treads, for fear the lumber of the middle would give way beneath them. And when the stairs ended, the floor was stone, the walls rock, the ceiling moist and dripping here and there, and shored with timbers. It reminded Orem of his trip into the catacombs with Braisy. But the catacombs had been outside the city walls, on the west side, and they were in the east here, and within the mount of Queen's Town. And still down.

The manmade tunnel widened and became a cave; narrowed again into a natural crevice in the rock, through which they made their way with difficulty, forced to bend their bodies at odd angles. Always the old man was waiting for them, not too patiently, on the other side. "I'd like to know how that old man makes it through some of those places," Timias whispered.

"Look at his eyes. Have you seen his eyes?"

They traversed a ledgeless slope over a pit so deep the stones they dropped never made a

sound at all. They shimmied down a chimney in the rock, scraping their knees and covering each over with the dust of passage. "How were you so clean in my room?" Orem asked. "I took a bath," Flea answered. "What else did I have to do while I was waiting? I was only borrowing some clothes when your friend came in. What are you looking at?"

Orem was looking at three barrels against a wall that was only faintly lit by Flea's lamp. Orem walked closer, knowing what he would see. But the tops were off, and the barrels were empty. He breathed again in relief.

"What's written on them?" Timias asked. Orem lowered his light. He had seen the words before, of course, and remembered well how they were written.

Sis Go Ho terd rn

Slu Sla St t ve one Yo Yo Yo u u u

MMM ust ust ust

Se Se Sa e rve ve

He remembered another message that once had been written on these barrels: Let me die. He had obeyed that command; the rest of the message waited. Now he knew he had to understand if he was to do what must be done.

"You know this writing?" Timias asked. "You know what it means?"

"Not what it means. But it was written to me. Two years ago."

God slave you must serve. Orem looked at the old man. "You are what you say you are, I

think." The eyes blazed. "I will serve you if I can." "At the Rising of the Dead," God whispered. Then he turned his back on them, ducked down into a low passage, and disappeared. They followed him closer to the sound of rushing water.

Orem had no answer. And then they emerged into a vast chamber, the Rising of the Dead, where all the answers would be given.

The Rising of the Dead

There was no need of lamps here, for above them were holes that let in daylight—dim, but bright enough to see by, if they didn't look up at them and dazzle their eyes.

"The cisterns," Flea whispered.

And sure enough, there were the voices of the cisterns, rising and falling, crying out in terrible mourning. There was a river rushing along the bottom of the cave, so wide that Orem could not see across, a vast but shallow flow. And the stench was so vile that as they approached they could not breathe. The sound came from the water's edge.

"The sewers of the city," whispered God. "They all flow here."

They did not come nearer the water. The old man led them off along a ledge that paralleled the flood.

"Are we going downstream?" Timias asked.

"Yes," Orem said.

"But we're climbing, aren't we?"

Unmistakably they were. And yet they got no higher above the water. It had to be an illusion. Still, the farther they went, the steeper became their path along the ledge, while the water seemed to rise with them. It was definitely flowing uphill.

The old man clambered up the last and steepest portion of the narrow path, almost straight up and down; soon they were all gathered on a much wider ledge. It was plainly level. Just as plainly the river had no such notion: it hurtled upward, soared in an impossible cascade. The spray of it covered them—and the drops drifted downward, as they should. Orem noticed that here the water did not smell; no odor at all, and he walked near the flood and wet his hand, and tasted the water. It was pure. It was as pure as—

"The springs in the Water House." Timias looked at him in awe. He turned and shouted to Flea. "This is the source of the springs in the Water House!"

"Come and see what cleans it!" Flea called back. They followed his shout to the lip of the ledge and looked down. "With the light behind it, you can see now," Flea said. At first Orem did not know what it was that he was looking at; then his vision adjusted, and he realized that both banks of the river were writhing, twisting, heaving.

Like the rush and retreat of the waves the serpents heaved themselves into the water, flowed back out. Millions of them, as far as the light from the cistern mouths would let them see. "They're eating it," Flea said. "What else could it be?"