Orson Card - SEVENTH SON

"As long as you're the only one that can see him, though, you're also the only one who has a hope of beating him."

"Maybe."

Another long silence. Taleswapper knew it was time to go.

"Wait."

"I've got to leave now."

Alvin caught at his sleeve. "Not yet."

"Pretty soon."

"At least—at least let me read what the others wrote."

Taleswapper reached into his bag and pulled out the book pouch. "I can't promise I'll explain what they mean," he said, sliding the book out of its waterproof cover.

Alvin quickly found the last, newest writings.

In his mother's hand: "Vigor he push a log and he don die til the boy is bornd."

In David's hand: "A mil ston splits in two then it suks bak not a crak."

In Cally's hand: "A sevent sunn."

Alvin looked up. "He ain't talking about me, you know."

"I know," said Taleswapper.

Alvin looked back at the book. In his father's hand: "He dont kil a boy cus a stranjer com in time."

"What's Pa talking about?" asked Alvin.

Taleswapper took the book from his hands and closed it. "Find a way to heal your leg," he said. "There's a lot more souls than you who need it to be strong. It's not for yourself, remember?"

He bent over and kissed the boy on the forehead. Alvin reached up and held him with both arms, hanging on him so that he couldn't stand up without lifting the boy clear out of bed. After a while, Taleswapper had to reach up and pull the boy's arms away. His cheek was wet with Alvin's tears. He didn't wipe them away. He let the breeze dry them as he trudged along the cold dry path, with fields of half-melted snow stretching left and right.

He paused a moment on the second covered bridge. Just long enough to wonder if he'd ever come back here, or see them again. Or get Alvin Junior's sentence for his book. If he were a prophet, he'd know. But he hadn't the faintest idea.

He walked on, setting his feet toward morning.

The visitor sat comfortably upon the altar, leaning casually on his left arm, so that his body had a jaunty tilt. Reverend Thrower had seen just such an informal pose taken by a dandy from Camelot, a rakehell who clearly despised everything that the Puritan churches of England and Scotland stood for. It made Thrower more than a little uncomfortable to see the Visitor in such an irreverent pose.

"Why?" asked the Visitor. "Just because the only way you can maintain control over your bodily passions is to sit straight in your chair, knees together, hands delicately arranged in your lap, fingers tightly intertwined, does not mean that I am required to do the same."

Thrower was embarrassed. "It isn't fair to chastise me for my thoughts."

"It is, when your thoughts chastise me for my actions. Beware of hubris, my friend. Do not fancy yourself so righteous that you can judge the acts of angels."

It was the first time the Visitor had ever called himself an angel.

"I did not call myself anything," said the Visitor. "You must learn to control your thoughts, Thrower. You leap to conclusions far too easily."

"Why have you come to me?"

"It's a matter of the maker of this altar," said the Visitor. He patted one of the crosses Alvin Junior had burnt into the wood.

"I've done my best, but the boy is unteachable. He doubts everything, and contests each point of theology as if it were required to meet the same tests of logic and consistency that prevail in the world of science."

"In other words, he expects your doctrines to make sense."

"He is unwilling to accept the idea that some things remain mysteries, comprehensible only to the mind of God. Ambiguity makes him saucy, and paradox causes open rebellion."

"An obnoxious child."

"The worst I have ever seen," said Thrower.

The Visitor's eyes flashed. Thrower felt a stab in his heart.

"I've tried," said Thrower. "I've tried to turn him to serve the Lord. But the influence of his father—"

"It is a weak man who blames his failures on the strength of others," said the Visitor.

"I haven't failed yet!" said Thrower. "You told me I had until the boy was fourteen—"

"No. I told you I had until the boy was fourteen. You only have him as long as he lives here."

"I've heard nothing about the Millers moving. They just got their millstone in place, they're going to start grinding in the spring, they wouldn't leave without—"

The Visitor stood up from the altar. "Let me put a case to you, Reverend Thrower. Purely hypothetical. Let us suppose you were in the same room with the worst enemy of all that I stand for. Let us suppose that he were ill, and lay helpless in his bed. If he recovered, he would be removed from your reach, and would thus go on to destroy all that you and I love in this world. But if he died, our great cause would be safe. Now suppose that someone put a knife into your hand, and begged you to perform a delicate surgery upon the boy. And suppose that if you were to slip, just the tiniest bit, your knife could cut a great artery. And suppose that if you simply delayed, his lifeblood would flow out so quickly that in moments he would die. In that case, Reverend Thrower, what would be your duty?"

Thrower was aghast. All his life he had prepared to teach, persuade, exhort, expound. Never to perform a bloody-handed act like the one the Visitor suggested. "I'm not suited for such things," he said.

"Are you suited for the kingdom of God?" asked the Visitor.

"But the Lord said Thou shalt not kill."

"Oh? Is that what he said to Joshua, when he sent him into the promised land? Is that what he said to Saul, when he sent him against the Amalekites?"

Thrower thought of those dark passages in the Old Testament, and trembled with fear at the thought of taking part in such things himself.

But the Visitor did not relent. "The high priest Samuel commanded King Saul to kill all the Amalekites, every man and woman, every child. But Saul hadn't the stomach for it. He saved the king of the Amalekites and brought him back alive. For that crime of disobedience, what did the Lord do?"

"Chose David to be king in his place," murmured Thrower.

The Visitor stood close to Thrower, his eyes wounding him with their fire. "And then Samuel, the high priest, the gentle servant of God, what did he do?"

"He called for Agag the king of the Amalekites to be brought before him."

The Visitor would not relent. "And what did Samuel do?"

"Killed him," whispered Thrower.

"What does the scripture say that he did!" roared the Visitor. The walls of the meetinghouse shook, the glass of the windows rattled.

Thrower wept in fear, but he spoke the words that the Visitor demanded: "Samuel hacked Agag in pieces in the presence of the Lord."

Now the only sound in the church was Thrower's own ragged breath as he tried to control his hysterical weeping. The Visitor smiled at him, his eyes filled with love and forgiveness. Then he was gone.

Thrower sank to his knees before the altar and prayed. 0 Father, I would die for Thee, but do not ask me to kill. Take away this cup from my lips, I am too weak, I am unworthy, do not lay this burden upon my shoulders.

His tears fell on the altar. He heard a sizzling sound and jumped back from the altar, startled. His tears skittered along the surface of the altar like water on a hot skillet, until finally they were consumed.

The Lord has rejected me, he thought. I pledged to serve Him however He required, and now, when He asks something difficult, when He commands me to be as strong as the great prophets of old, I discover myself to be a broken vessel in the hands of the Lord. I cannot contain the destiny He wanted to pour into me.

The door of the church opened, letting in a wave of freezing air that rushed along the floor and sent a chill through the minister's flesh. He looked up, fearing that it was an angel sent to punish him.