Orson Card - Hart's Hope

"It rises," Timias said. "What could make it rise?"

"It rises," said a woman's voice behind them, "because it wants to rise."

Orem whirled. He knew that voice—at once dreaded and longed for the sight of the speaker. She looked at him with a single eye, a twisted face, a body that was perfect as the limb of an upreaching tree. "Follow me," she said. He followed.

Her sister sat on a rock behind the rush of the water. It was bright here, though none of the sunlight could have touched the place; the light had no source and cast no shadow, merely was, merely illuminated this pocket in the rock so all that was there could be seen. The mist-faced woman moaned.

"My sister greets you."

"And I her," Orem said.

"She says that all things come together in the end."

"Is this the end?"

"Nearly."

"Why am I here?"

"To free the gods, Orem son of Palicrovol."

Orem shuddered. "My father's name is Avonap."

"Do you think the Sweet Sisters make mistakes in such things? We know all motherhoods and

fatherhoods, Orem. Avonap is your mother's husband, but Palicrovol sired you."

In a moment the whole dream of his own conception flashed through his mind from the crossing of the river until Palicrovol left the cave of leaves.

"Queen Beauty took the forbidden power, which never a man can take, and never another woman would. She bound us, Orem, bound us as you see us now."

Orem looked at them, looked at God. "How are you bound?" The old man turned his head. Orem followed his gaze. On the floor of the cave lay the skeleton of a great hart. The bones were so dry they should have been scattered, but instead they were all connected, as if the animal still lived. The skull hung in the air, suspended by the great antlers; the hundred horns were embedded in the solid stone of the cavern wall.

"What do you want me to do?"

But Orem knew the answer. God slave you must serve. Sister slut you must see. Hart stone you must save. But how?

"I have no power. How can I unbind what I can't see?"

"Have you looked?"

And so he looked, cast his nets. Yet there was no spark for the Hart, for the Sisters, or for God. He searched, but all the magic he could find was the simple spell that Timias had upon his sword.

"What am I to see?" he asked.

"We cannot tell you," said the speaking Sister. "We are bound."

Shantih moaned.

"My sister says that you must restore us as we were before black Asineth undid all."

But I don't know what you were like before—I was only born some eighteen years ago, and all these things were done before I was conceived, before my mother or her mother or her mother were alive. "I can't!"

"Be at peace," whispered God. "Only think of what you know of us; we will wait a while longer, after all this time."

Orem sat on the stone floor, reached out and touched the cold bone of the Hart's corpse. He heard Flea gasp behind him; a keener whined and unentwined itself from the Hart's ribs. It slithered off another way; it was not seeking Orem's death today.

He started with God, for he had studied Him for years in Banningside. What was God supposed to be? Kind, the father of all, perfector of the Seven Circles, raising all who would into the inmost round with him, to join in his unbodied labor, to gather all disorganized intelligence and teach it form, and—

Unbodied. He looked at the old man, who placidly regarded him with eyes of amber, lid to lid.

God smiled.

Orem arose, and reached for Timias's sword. "What do you plan to do with it?" Timias asked. "Let me do it. You're not much of a fighter."

"I don't mean to fight," Orem answered. Timias reluctantly surrendered the weapon. It was too heavy for Orem's hand, and he dreaded what he must do with it, but with all his strength he plunged it into the heart of God. Blood gouted forth, but Orem watched only the eyes, watched as the amber brightened, yellowed, whitened, dazzled like the source of sunlight. Suddenly the light leapt out, for a moment filled the cavern, and was gone.

Timias bent over the old man's corpse, put his finger into the empty socket that had held an eye. "Gone," he said.

Orem laid down the sword and covered his hands with the old man's hot blood. Then he strode to the Sisters, who also smiled at him. He wiped the blood all over the face of the faceless one, and on the blind side of the one-eyed Sister. The blood steamed and sizzled on their skin. And then he took each by the hair at the back of the neck and pressed their faces together as they had been faced at birth, one looking only into her sister, the other gazing with one eye out. The heads trembled under his hands, and then were still. He loosed his grip, and the women rose. Their clothing was gone; their arms and legs so enwrapped each other that no clothing was needed for their modesty. Their hair was all one, their flesh unseamed across the expanse of their two heads. "Ah," sang the half-mouth. "Nnn," sang the other into her sister's cheek, so that both tones were a single song coming from the same mouth. Together they rose from the ground.

"Don't leave!" Orem cried.

"Free the Hart," mumbled their mouth, "and then stop Beauty. She's doing nothing that she hasn't done before. Avenge your nameless sister and your nameless son."

And they rose upward in the cavern, spinning round and round each other, joined blindly again at the face, spinning up and around and madly through the cavern like a shuttlecock, and they were gone.

"I've seen the Sisters with my eyes and I'm alive," said Timias.

Orem had three sisters and they all had names, and nothing had ever been done to them that called for vengeance. And his nameless son—what had happened to him that needed to be avenged? Orem did not understand, and so he turned himself to try to rouse the Hart.

He knew how the Hart should be—alive, and clothed in flesh and fur. But how was he to accomplish that, when he had no power in himself, no magic he could exercise?

"Will the old man's blood work on the Hart?" asked Flea. "I don't know," said Orem. Now the blood was cold, and he knew as he anointed the Hart's horns and head that it meant nothing, such blood meant nothing.

Timias had not seen the vision, but he knew the scar on Orem's throat. He guessed what the Little King was thinking when he touched the scar. "No!" he cried, and lunged. Orem was quick, but Timias reached the sword first and snatched it out of reach.

"Name of God, Timias, I must," said Orem.

"Have you gone mad?"

Flea did not understand at all, only knew that Orem wanted the sword and this half-chewed bastard wouldn't give it to him. It was a simple matter to knock down Timias with a blow to the balls; Flea retrieved the sword while Timias writhed, and tossed it hilt first to his friend.

He would have taken it back as quickly, if he could have, but before Flea could do more than cry out as Timias had done, Orem drew the sword hard and sharp across his throat. The blood filled his mouth and flowed down his chest, and the pain was more than he had known that he could bear. He gagged; the blood ran into his lungs; but it must not be in vain. He struggled toward the Hart's head, tried to raise himself so the blood would fall upon the horns. He hadn't the strength now, but his arms were taken by hands on either side. Timias and Flea lifted him up, and the horns were drenched with his blood.

Under him he felt the heat of the stag's body; felt it rise, felt the vast back and shoulders with their rippling muscles and the stink of strength lift him up. He saw the antlers pull away from the stone that bound them, saw the tips aglow like stars, like suns, like little jeweled worlds. And then he spun around, lost among the hundred horns, turning and turning.

He flew, he rose up with the water into the ceiling of the cisterns, to the place where it strained itself upward into the rock to emerge in the Water House. He was trapped in the water and he could not breathe. He had not had time to take a proper breath, and so he must rise, he must rise and breathe—