Hart's Hope

23

The Freeing of the Gods

How Orem spoke to God, and learned the way to the Rising of the Dead.

Father Orem We of the Palace were all too used to the ways of wealth, to nurses, governors, and tutors for a child. In all of Queen's Town was there anyone who knew what it meant to be a father? Fatherhood to us was an act of passion, soon forgot; but not to Orem ap Avonap. Never guessing that the blond and happy farmer was no blood of his, Orem had taken a part of that simple man into himself and saved it for this time. At any time in the Palace he might run by, Youth on his shoulders or, as time went by, toddling along behind. Their laughter could be heard almost everywhere. And anyone who wanted to be sure of seeing them had only to go out into the gardens, and soon they would appear, to roll together in the grass or pluck blades or play hide-and-go-find.

Every few hours Orem would bring the child back to Beauty to be nursed. Beauty watched Youth all the time; Orem drew his power inside himself when he was with the boy, so that Beauty would never be hindered from watching to be sure her son ate no food except what he drew from her. Orem silently gave her the child, and Beauty as silently surrendered him when he was satisfied.

Whenever Orem gave the child to Beauty, he believed that he would never see the boy again; whenever he took the child back, he regarded it gratefully, as an act of mercy, that he would be allowed to live another little while. And because he felt death to be so imminent, he wasted none of the time he had with Youth. In those days, if you wished to be with Orem you had no choice but to keep company with him when he was with Youth.

For in the evenings, when Youth slept his twelve hours, Orem retired to his chamber and spent the night battling with Beauty. Now that her child was born, she had more strength for the war, and it was a constant fight to keep her away from Palicrovol. Sometimes he even thought: I am hastening my own death by frightening the Queen. She will kill me and renew herself all the sooner. I should stop fighting her, and she might let me live.

But he knew that Beauty would not spare him, and as he watched Palicrovol's army grow, he began to hope that the King might come and save him. That's what he told Youth once: the King might save him.

Youth himself was another miracle. Like his father and grandfather, Youth was black of hair and white of skin; like his mother, he was beautiful of face. Being a twelve-month child, his life was quick, his growth all sudden. He could sit within a week or so, and stand himself within a month; before it was summer outside Palace Park the child could walk, could run his short-legged run along the paths, hiding and finding, calling for Papa or for Weel. If he had a name for Beauty he never said it in their hearing; at times Orem wondered if she spoke to the child at all, or merely fed him in silence. His teeth came in, but still she nursed him; Orem taught him to know the letters that he scratched in the dirt and name them in two orders, and still Queen Beauty nursed the child.

Orem also had some quiet hours with Youth, but they were not silent. They would lie together in the grass of the park and tell each other stories. No one was allowed to come near, for as if with one will, they fell silent at the approach of an audience. Beauty could listen, if she liked, with her arcane abilities, though usually she slept during the day when she wasn't suckling the child. But the only person permitted to attend them in the flesh was Weasel Sootmouth. Orem had told her of his game, hoping that she would pretend to be the true mother; she never said that she was playing, but her presence let him have his imaginary family if he liked. Youth, too, accepted her, as if he knew her heart.

And Youth, too, told stories. In his high, impossible infant's voice, lisping on Ss, turning J into GZ, he spun his tales with a serious face, and sometimes so grieved himself that he cried, and sometimes so delighted himself that he cried. There was wisdom in his stories, and they have not all been forgotten.

Youth's Story of the Suckling Calf

Once there was a calf that was hungry. It wanted to suckle, but his mother told him, "Go away, you make me tired." So he went to his father, but the bull said, "Go away, I've got no teat." So the calf drank from the pool in the woods and grew horns on its head that got so heavy that it couldn't hold its head up and it died.

Youth's Story of the Dead Flower

Once there was a flower that got brown. God took the brown flower and put it in his window and it wouldn't get alive again. The old stag wore it on its antlers and it wouldn't get alive again. The two sisters braided it into both their hair and it wouldn't get alive again. But Papa kissed the flower and it got alive again and turned into me.

Youth's Story of the Snowstorm

Once there was a snowstorm but it always fell on the city. Far away under the snowstorm there were hundreds and hundreds of people who weren't servants or soldiers or Papa or Weel or anybody at all. The snow always fell on them, and covered them up until they went away. The little boy told the snowstorm, come and fall on me. And the snowstorm did come and fall on him, and the little boy went away, just like the people who weren't anybody.

Youth's Story of the King

The King is little but the King is good. The King never gives you anything to eat and people laugh at him when he isn't there but the King knows all the paths in the woods and someday he will find the old stag that lives in the woods and he'll let me ride on him. Youth's Story of the River

Orem Cries for His Son's Tale

I do not know which of Youth's tales it was, but as he lay on his back listening, Orem cried. He cried silently, but Weasel and Youth both saw the tears well up in his eyes. One tear hovered at the corner of his eye, as if it were timid to fall and yet knew it must.

Orem noticed that Youth had stopped his story. "Go on," he said.

But Youth did not go on—instead he reached out to his father's eye and touched the tear. He gazed at it a moment on his hand, then put the hand into his mouth and tasted it, looking up at Orem with his marvelous quick eyes.

Orem looked worried for a moment; then he relaxed. "Beauty's asleep," he said. "I wouldn't want her to accuse me of feeding him." Weasel only laughed. By such small things do kingdoms rise and fall.

It was a golden summer in the Palace, the first good summer in three centuries. But then the snow began to fall again outside Palace Park. In the west King Palicrovol suddenly turned his army eastward, to Inwit. In the Palace Orem began to hope seriously that his life would be spared. But Urubugala rolled on the floor in the Moon Chamber and said,

Twelve months blossom on the tree,

Twelve months more and ripe you'll be.

The Low Way Out of the Palace

Orem was leaving the Queen's room, having brought Youth back to her for his evening meal. Over the Palace the clouds moved quickly, roiling with the storm that would bury Inwit if it could. Outside Queen Beauty's door, Belfeva met him, her voice and manner full of haste.

"Timias found someone in your room today," she said. "A boy. He says he knows you, but he was stealing all the same. Timias has him there."

So they hurried to Orem's chambers. Timias was leaning against a wall, holding onto the hair of an adolescent boy, who sat furious on a stool. Two years and puberty can change a child: Orem did not recognize him for a moment. Besides, the mutilation of his ears was all that could be seen at first—with the hair pulled up and away, the savage scars were ghastly. Only when he spoke did Orem know him.

"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?"

"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—

But no, above him he knew was fire. He must go down into the water, and then he would live. So down he sank, waiting to find the bottom. But he did not find it. Instead he despaired and breathed in deep gasps of water. But it was not water. It was pure air. He opened his eyes.

He was lying on the back of the Hart, but he was not weak now with the loss of blood. He reached his hands, took hold of the antlers, and lifted his head free from the nest of thorns. Then he swung himself down from the Hart's back.

"Orem," breathed Flea.

"My lord Little King," said Timias. Orem touched his throat. The wound was gone; the scar was gone; his neck was whole and new, as it had been before he ever had the vision of the Hart.

"You're alive."

They stood and watched the Hart as it stamped its hoof. The head lowered; only then did they realize that it meant to charge them.

"Name of God, doesn't it know we saved its life?" cried Timias.

There was no time for an answer. They scrambled for the downward path and scurried and tumbled along the narrow ledge along the riverside. They looked back only at the entrance to the hewn passage. The Hart was clearly visible, pacing back and forth along the platform of rock, tossing its head.

"How will it get out of here?" asked Flea.

"He knows the way," said Orem, though he didn't know why he was so sure of that.

Orem let Flea lead them, since he had come this way twice. Like Orem, though, the others were

thinking more of the future than of getting out of this path under the Palace. "What do they expect us to do now?" Timias asked.

"Not us," said Orem, "but I'm glad you're willing to share the burden."

"Did they mean that you're really Palicrovol's son?" asked Flea.

Orem nodded. "They showed me—how it came to be."

"She's doing nothing that she hasn't done before," said Timias. "Who's doing it?"

"Beauty," said Orem. "She means to renew herself. By killing me and using my blood."

"Well, at least you've had practice now," said Flea.

"But she's never killed a husband before," Timias said.

It was only then that Orem put together everything that he had learned. She has done nothing that she hasn't done before. More potent than a stranger's blood is the blood of a husband. He had got there before and stopped. But what is more potent than the blood of a husband? To a woman, the blood of her child. And a child who has taken no nourishment except from the mother's breast. Avenge your nameless son. Orem had a nameless sister, years before. Palicrovol's daughter, and Beauty had killed her for the power in her. Orem guessed it all at once, and believed it, too, and damned himself for a fool for thinking all this time that he was the one who was doomed. Youth! he cried out silently. Youth, my son, my son. "Leave me!" he shouted to his friends. "Get away from me!"

And then nothing.

Nothing at all. He could not find her. He was back inside his body and could not escape. All he could taste or touch was in himself. He opened his eyes. Beauty stood above him, looking down. She held Youth in her arms. "Papa," said the boy, reaching for him.

"Youth," Orem whispered.

Beauty smiled. Orem understood. Hadn't Gallowglass warned him? He had gone too far; he had told her who he was; he was bound. She could not destroy his gift, but she could turn him in upon himself, where he could do her no more harm.

"Always you," she said to him. "I should have known the Sisters would betray me. Did you join them again? No matter. In another week I'll separate them. And you, Little King, you'll be here to watch my work. You know at last how it's done, I think. Only you were stupid enough to take so long to guess the price."

"Do you want to hear a story, Papa?" asked the child.

He would have killed her with his hands, except the guards had him, and carried him away from the son who was his life, away from the frozen smile of his wife.