Orson Card - Earthfall

I wasn't entirely right for kTi to get all the credit for cleverness. Often when the two of them were flying together, watching over one of the village herds or scouting for devils or chasing crows away from the maizefields, it was Kiti who said, One of the goats is bound to try to go that way, or, That tree is one that's likely for the devils to use. And at the beginning of their most famous exploit, it was Kiti who said, Let me pretend to be injured on that branch, while you wait with your spear on that higher perch. But when the story was told, it always seemed to be kTi who thought of everything. Why should people assume otherwise? It was always kTi who acted, it was always kTi whose boldness carried the day, while Kiti followed behind, helping, sometimes saving, but never leading.

Of course he could never explain this to anyone. It would be deeply shameful for one of a birthpair to try to take glory away from his otherself. And besides, as far as Kiti was concerned it was perfectly fair. For no matter how good an idea of Kiti's might have been, it was always kTi's boldness that brought it off.

Why did it turn out that way? Kiti wasn't lacking in courage, was he? Didn't he always fly right with kTi on his most daring adventures? Wasn't it Kiti who had to sit trembling on a branch, pretending to be injured and terrified, as he heard the faint sounds of a devildoor opening in the tree trunk and the tiny noises of the devil's hands and feet inching their way along the branch behind him? Why was it that no one realized that the greatest courage was the courage to sit still, waiting, trusting that kTi would come with his spear in time? No, the story that was told in the village was all about kTi's daring plan, kTi's triumph over the devil.

It was evil of me to be so angry, thought Kiti. That's why my otherself was taken from me. That's why when the storm caught us out in the open, kTi was the one whose feet and fingers Wind pried away from the branch, kTi was who was taken up into heaven to fly with the gods. Kiti was not worthy, and so his grip on the branch help until Wind went away. It was as if Wind were saying to him, You envied your otherself, so I have torn you apart to show you how worthless you are without him.

This was why Kiti meant to sculpt the face of his otherself. And this was why, in the end, he could not. For to sculpt the face of kTi was also to sculpt his own face, and he could not, in his deep unworthiness, bear to do that.

Yet he had to sculpt something. Already the saliva was flowing in his mouth to moisten the clay, to lick it and smooth it, to give a lustrous patina to the finished sculpture. But if he did not sculpt his otherself s face, so soon after kTi's death, it would be scandalous. He would be seen as lacking in natural affection. The ladies would think that he didn't love his brother, and so they wouldn't want his seed in their family. Only some mere woman would offer to him. And he, overwhelmed with clay fever, would accept that offer like any eager boy, and she would bear his children, and he would look at them every year from then on remembering that he was the father of such low children because he could not bring himself to sculpt the face of his beloved kTi.

I did love him, he insisted silently. With all my heart I loved him. Didn't I follow him wherever he decided? Didn't I trust him with my life again and again? Didn't I save him time after time, when his impetuosity brought him into peril? Didn't I even urge him to turn back, a storm was coming, let's find shelter, we have to find shelter, what does it matter if we find the devilpath on this flight or the next, turn back, turn back, and he wouldn't, he ignored me as if I didn't exist, as if I were nothing, as if I didn't even get a vote on my own survival, let alone his.

The clay was growing moist, balling up and beginning to flow in his hands, but it was as much tears as saliva that moistened it. O Wind, thou tookest my otherself, and now I cannot find his face in the clay. Give me a shape, O Wind, if I am worthy! O Maize, if I am to bring you daughters to tend your fields, then give my fingers knowledge even if my mind is dull! O Rain, flow with my saliva and my tears and make the clay live under my hands! O Earth, thou deep-burning mother, make my bones wise, for they will someday belong to you again. Let me bring other bones, young bones, child bones out of your clay, O Earth! Let me bring young wings into your hands, O Wind! Let me make new grains of life for thee, O Maize! Let me bring new waterdrinkers, new weepers, new sculptors for dice to taste, O Rain!

Yet despite his pleading, the gods put no shape under his hands.

His tears blinded him. Should he give up? Should he fly up into the sky of the dry season and search for some faraway village that might want a sturdy male and never see Da'aqebla again? Or should his despair go even further? Should he put the clay out of his hands and yet remain there at the riverbank, exposed, for the watching devils to see that he had no sculpture in him? Then they would take him like an infant back to their caves, and devour him alive, so that in his dying moments he would see the devil queen eating his own heart. That was how his end should come. Carried down into hell, because he was not worthy to be taken by Wind up into heaven. kTi would have all the honor then, and not have to share it with his low, unworthy otherself.

His fingers worked, though he could not see what they shaped.

And as they worked, he stopped mourning his own failure, for he realized that there was a shape now under his hands. It was being given to him, in a way that he had only heard about. As a child, playing at sculpture with the other boys, he had been the cleverest every time, but he had never felt the gods interceding with his hands. What he shaped was always from his own mind and memory.

Now, though, he didn't even know what it was that was growing under his hands, not at first. But soon, no longer grieving, no longer fearful, his vision cleared and he saw. It was a head. A strange head, not of a person or a devil or any creature Kiti had ever seen before. It had a high forehead, and its nose was pointed, hairless, smooth, the nostrils opening downward. Of what use was such a snout as this? The lips were thick and the jaw was incredibly strong, the chin jutting out as if it was competing with the nose to lead this creature forward into the world. The ears were rounded and stuck Out from the middle of the sides of the head. What kind of creature is this that I am shaping? Why is something so ugly growing under my hands?

Then, suddenly, the answer came into his mind: This is an Old One.

His wings trembled even as his hands continued, sure and strong, to shape the details of the face. An Old One. How could he know this? No one had ever seen an Old One. Only here and there, in some sheltered cave, was there found some inexplicable relic of their time upon the earth. Da'aqebla had only three such relics, and Da'aqebla was one of the oldest villages. How could he dare to tell the ladies of the village that this grotesque, malformed head that he was shaping was an Old One? They would laugh at him. No, they would be outraged that he would think they were foolish enough to believe such a nonsensical claim. How can we judge your sculpture, if you insist on shaping something that has never been seen by any living soul? You might have done better to leave the clay in a shapeless ball and say that it was a sculpture of a river stone!

Despite his doubts, his hands and fingers moved. He knew, without knowing how he knew, that there must be hair on the bony ridge over the eyes, that the fur of the head must be long, that there must be a depression centered under the nose and leading down to the lip. And when he was through, he did not know how he knew that it was finished. He contemplated what he had made and was appalled by it. It was ugly, strange, and far too large. Yet this way how it had to be.