Wyrms

Chapter 12. THE SCEPTER

RUIN CAREFULLY SHAVED PATIENCE'S HAIR FROM BEHIND the ear almost to the middle of the back of her head.

"You'll have to wear your wig now," said Angel.

"This new hairstyle might attract some attention."

Ruin chewed a leaf, then licked the shaved area with his rough tongue. He jabbed her skin many times with a dry needle. Patience did not feel it except as a tiny pressure-the nerves of pain had already gone numb.

"I won't care how my hair looks," she said. "I'll be lucky if I come out of this remembering I'm a girl." She was trying to show her confidence by joking, but she surprised herself by sounding frightened instead. "Or even a human."

Reck touched her hand. Patience vaguely remembered that only a month ago, if a gebling had touched her it would have taken concentration to avoid showing revulsion.

Now the touch came as a comfort to her. Beware of liking her too much, she told herself. Beware of affection, the great deceiver.

"Patience," whispered Reck, "it isn't good if you aren't sure who you are. You'll have the memories of hundreds of men and women in your mind when this is done. Some of them are very strong-especially the geblings. The gebling kings have always been very, very strong."

"I know who I am," Patience whispered. But it was a lie. If she knew who she was it was a secret even from herself. A secret she would at last discover, she hoped.

Having the mindstone would unfold her, back to what she was before she learned the roles assigned to her in life. If she was blank, if she was nothing but her roles, then the mindstone would fold her back again, and she would disappear in a storm of memories and selves long dead. But if she had a real self deeper than the faces painted on her by others, she would find her way out, she would keep control, she would survive.

Either I am someone, and I'll live, or I am no one, and my self dies.

She felt Ruin lift a flap of her skin and pin it out of the way. From the grinding sound, he was cutting at her skull, but she felt no more than if her head were a slab of stone. He was a stonecutter, turning her own brain into a sort of heads hall, with all of the heads alive and staring down at her, yammering at once from their jars of gools and headworms. She shuddered.

"Hold still," murmured Ruin.

Angel began a steady monologue to calm her. "Obviously, Patience, this information about Unwyrm and the origin of the geblings and dwelfs and gauints was not discovered for the first time by whoever left these answers here. The prophecies themselves, the very name of Unwyrm, the traditions of the nonhumans that they are descended from a prehuman ancestor and that Unwyrm is their brother-these all imply that this information has been known before, perhaps many times."

Ruin pried out a section of skull and set it on the table.

It made a little clunking sound.

"But knowledge comes and goes. For instance, what happened the first time a human and a gebling met? Had the geblings already developed a language? A society?

Or did they fashion their social patterns after those of human beings?"

Ruin held the tiny scepter in his hand. "This is my heritage," he whispered. "No human being could have made this. It belongs to me and Reck, and you have no right to it."

For a moment Patience thought he was reneging on his agreement, that he would put it in his mouth, swallow it, and himself walk along the brink of madness. She was relieved, for just a moment, not to have to do it herself.

But then he set it at the base of her brain and she trembled to know it was her ordeal after all. His tongue pushed it through the small incision he had made, until it rested where he wanted it, exactly on the middle of her limbic node. Then he withdrew his tongue, licked a small dish covered with a fine powder, and reinserted it to smear the powder into place.

"And another question that intrigues me," said Angel, going on as if Ruin had not spoken, as if Patience were not now irrevocably committed to a journey that could destroy her. "How does the crystal relate to nonhuman intelligence? The geblings, of course, have humanlike brains, but the dwelfs don't. You all have the crystals, but the gaunts have no will, no sense of identity-the mindstones can't be the seat of personality. And you geblings, you and Unwyrm have in common your means of communication that transcends anything possible to human beings. And yet Unwyrm can use it to call to humans-there must be something in it that is at least latently possible to us."

"You're such an ass when you try to talk like a scholar," whispered Patience.

Angel ignored her. "And the wyrm that originally called the Starship Captain-it had that same ability, and perhaps more."

Ruin spoke without looking up from his work. "No doubt the wyrms used their ability to lure their prey and repel their enemies. One wyrm used it with your Starship Captain, but no doubt it doesn't depend on any intelligence on the part of the victim."

"And instead of eating the captain, they mated," said Reck.

"I wonder which he would rather have done, in the end, mate or die," said Angel. "I wonder how much abasement a human being can bear, and still desire to live." He sounded sad.

"With his right hand he drew what the wyrm wanted him to draw," whispered Patience. "With his left hand he warned us. He still had some part of his human will, even though the wyrm controlled most of his actions."

"Yes, a fragmentation, that's it, a breaking down. Part of the will carried in the brain, created and shaped by memory, by experience. The conscious mind, the controllable mind, the mind of words. And part of the will carried-where? In the genes? Certainly the genes are the only part of us that has any hope of surviving our death- what more appropriate place for a seat of a part of the unconscious mind ..."

Patience's vision suddenly focused. She had not realized it was blurred before. But it was not Angel speaking at all, it was old Mikail Nakos. Whose voice had she thought it was? She couldn't remember. Mikail, he was the one who had taken it upon himself to study these creatures, the geblings. I thought it could do no harm. But now he wants to implant this organic crystal in someone's mind. He doesn't understand the implications of it.

"What if the crystals actually enhance human mental abilities, make it possible for human beings to communicate telepathically, the way the geblings seem to?"

Then another voice. "It might be possible." It was her own voice, she knew, but not what she expected. For some reason she expected it to be a girl's voice, trained to be mellifluous, soothing; instead it was harsh, commanding, male. Why not male? Am I not a man? The Heptarch listened to himself, trying to remember why his own voice didn't sound right to him.

"I suspect, though, that the telepathic communication has more to do with the molecules than the crystals. The crystal is more likely to be memory. Incredibly well- ordered, clear, and powerful memory." He did not doubt his ability to converse intelligently with a brilliant scientist.

But then the old Heptarchs had been scientists, in the beginning. But why am I calling him an old Heptarch?

It's not me, then. Not really me talking, though I remember it as being myself. "I'm guessing-but the little ones, you see, the ones they call dwelfs, they can remember with absolute perfection everything that they've ever done, even though they can't hold an idea more complex than their name for very long. They store millions of items of data, but have no organizing principle."

"Not implausible, sir. Not at all. The crystal would be the data storage. The brain, the systematizer. But the telepathy-it might be in the crystal."

"I'm not even sure I believe there is any telepathy. It's only speculation. The geblings are certainly not telling, bless their murderous little viper souls."

"Still, sir, combined with a human brain, the crystal could provide a great enhancement of mental abilities."

"If it can combine. If it actually has anything to do with mentation."

"Difficult to answer. But the geblings aren't answering -and they probably don't know, anyway. Ignorant little devils."

For some reason the Heptarch wanted to correct him.

To tell him the truth about geblings. But he couldn't remember why he thought he knew geblings so well, so he said nothing.

"You see, sir, if the geblings weren't so dangerous, so deadly, we might be able to leave it alone. But they're cannibals-we saw how they eat each other's brains- and they've murdered almost a dozen of our people already. We have to understand all we can about them.

What they want, where they come from-"

"So you need a little white mouse to test the crystal."

"Unfortunately, it needs to be a highly intelligent white mouse. I intend to have it implanted in my own brain, sir."

"Nonsense. If you implant it in anyone, implant it in me."

"You're the Heptarch. I can't do that."

"I'm the Heptarch, so you must do it. There is no duty so difficult or dangerous or unpleasant that one of my people can do it, and I cannot."

Patience was suddenly aware that she was not the man who chose to have the mindstone placed in his brain.

That was long ago, another person. But how could the crystal contain a memory of an event that obviously took place before the crystal was implanted?

No sooner had the question occurred to her than the answer came, a mother speaking to a daughter; she was the mother and the daughter, hearing the conversation from both sides, speaking both sides of the conversation herself. It was confusing, but exhilarating.

"When the scepter first enters your brain, it searches for your most potent memories and copies them and keeps them."

"You won't know my memories, will you?"

"No, darling, but you'll know mine. You'll know what I'm thinking at this very moment, how much I love you, to give you this gift while I'm still alive."

"I'm afraid."

"The first thing you think of is always our great ancestor, who first chose to bear the scepter. He is our courage, and part of him becomes part of you."

Why didn't Father help me, as this mother helped her daughter? Then she couldn't remember who Father was, or who she was, except the mother, except the daughter.

"You're safe as long as you don't think of certain things."

"What things?"

"If I tell you what they are, my foolish child, then how will you stop yourself from thinking of them?"

I know what they are, thought Patience. They are the gebling kings in whose brain the crystal first grew. They are the wyrm-hearted gebling kings that I mustn't think of.

And that very thought brought her to the memories most to be feared, a terrible alien viewpoint. She knew at once that she had taken the step into the abyss. She could feel a faint buzz of feeling, like peripheral vision, like background noise, like a metallic taste in her mouth, like a smell redolent of sweet and bitter memories, like the touch of a thousand tiny flies upon her skin; gradually she realized, as the gebling whose mind now dwelt in hers realized, that these were her brothers, her sisters, the life of them speaking to the firstborn, the gebling king, myself.

The other geblings are still tearing their way out of their soft-skinned shells, their hair curled and matted. I am curled by my mother's exhausted body, her black segments trembling from her labors. Beside me lies my father, his poor, weak, hairless body covered with sweat.

Come to me, Father, open my mouth-

"Full-grown. Whatever it is, it's no baby." The voice is soft. "Haven't you heard of babies around here?"

His mouth moves and the sounds are beautiful. Teach me how to make these sounds.

Father's face is twisted as he looks at me. "Full-grown little apes." He touches me. He pushes me. "You brought me here so you could give birth to these!"

Another egg opens, but with something black inside.

Black like Mother. The tiny, tiny head like Mother. It's hungry. I can feel it being hungry. It wants to kill Father.

It wants to kill me. It wants to kill everybody and eat all the world.

Father taught me what to do. Already he saved me.

Father taught me pushing. I push the black one, I push him but he hurts me very much. I cry out with my fear.

Mother, help me. Father, save me. I hear a terrible frightened sound and it is my own sound coming out of my own mouth like Father. I scream and scream.

They fight, Mother and the black one. Father is shouting and shouting-

"Stay here and die, all of you stay and for God's sake eat each other!"

The sound of his voice says fear and I am also afraid.

Father goes through a hole in the wall of the birthing place. Father knows the way. Father we are coming! Come with Father I shout with my silent voice and they hear me with their othermind. I go and so all the others go, all those who look like me, and some of the littler ones and taller ones, all who can move, all who do not writhe on the ground dying because their bodies don't work. We cry out to him we're coming, Father, but he doesn't hear us because we don't make a sound and in the silence he is deaf. I see it in his eyes when he looks at us, he doesn't understand our cries, he only hears our screaming.

Behind us the black one that looks like Mother is eating her belly out and he will eat us all if he can.

Hungry, hungry, he pushes his hunger out into all of us. Come to me, says his hunger, come and fill me, and I can feel my brothers and sisters yielding to him, stopping, going back toward the birthing place. No! I cry!

No! Come with Father, come away. With Father with Father tell everyone to come with Father.

And the strongest ones take up my call, they call also, Come with Father, and we are stronger as we call together, stronger and stronger until we have overcome the Mother-eater's hunger.

Down into the black tunnel, all of us in the black tunnel, where are you, Father? Where are you?

I see you, bright sisters and brothers, I feel your path in the darkness, I know where you are, every one of you, in so many different tunnels. From Father's footsteps splashing ahead of me I know the path outward. Follow the water. Follow the running water. It goes away from the birthing place, follow the water-

Patience cried out with joy as she saw the light of the world for the first time. From a cavern's mouth in the face of a high cliff she looked down on a vast forest, with the heads of the River Cranwater joining to form a single river flowing away from Skyfoot. Even as she remembered she was Patience, she could also remember being the first gebling king, feeling the presence of every other gebling as each came out of his or her own tunnel to find the sky, the water leaping out from each cavern mouth. Again she saw through the gebling's eyes.

We all stand here, looking at the bright light, like-me and bigger and littler, I can feel us all here at the edge of the world. And beside me is Father, I have found him, there is water on his face. "I sold my soul for you," he says. "All I wanted was that wyrm back there. How could I want her." He shudders. "It was eating her.

What kind of monsters-"

I try to feel him, too, like I can feel all the others, but he isn't there, my eyes see him, my nose smells him, but my othermind can't find him. I touch his cheek and taste the water on his face. It is salt, not like the clear water of the cave. He sees my tongue and wrinkles his face. Then he reaches to me and touches my cheek and his mouth says, "You're not a wyrm, though, are you? It's not your fault, is it?"

Then he stands and takes my hand and leads me to the edge and holds out his hand to point to the bright blue dazzle that blinds me and all the children of man and wyrm.

"Sky," he says.

"Sick." I speak. I am like him, not like Mother.

She was eaten by the wyrm in the birthing place, but Father lives and I am like him.

"Born an hour ago, and already you can talk. What have I made here? What can you become?" Patience watched the time flow faster. The babies born, the Starship Captain teaching them everything. To build houses, to hunt for food, to tend their children and teach them. Language came easily, all learning came easily to these new people who never forgot anything once they had done it a single time. They invented their own words faster than Father could teach them, until they hardly came to him for learning anymore.

The gebling king, who never had a name for himself, he came to Father often. "Wyrm," Father said. "Your mother is the wyrm, and I am your father, but most important of all is the monster that ate your mother and drove us from the birthing place. He looks like a wyrm but he isn't a wyrm. He's your brother and he'll kill you all if he can, and if he ever comes out of the mountain you must kill him first."

So the gebling king was the first gebling who learned to kill, and he used the secret knowledge of murder just as human beings had used it from the start-to gather power to himself. I have the terrible secret. I can kill you if you disobey. But if you obey me, I can share the secret with you and you, too, can have power-

Until Father says one day, when he finds me covered with blood, "I wish Unwyrm had killed you that day in the birthing place, I wish he had killed me and eaten me rather than let me live to make you what you are. I'm sorry that I taught you, any of you."

So I kill him and eat his brain in front of the others, even though I find no mindstone in it; I don't tell them that he had no stone. And now my power is perfect, even greater than Unwyrm's power, because he has no one to obey him and I have all of these.

Patience screamed at the memory, at the taste and smell of Father's blood, at the look of horror and awe and admiration in the other geblings' eyes. I couldn't do this, I never could have done this, she cried out in revulsion. And yet this is what I was raised for, to kill in order to get power, to devour anything that threatens to block me from my will-

"It's maddening her," said Angel.

"Give her time to find herself," said Reck.

The voices meant nothing to Patience. For all she could see was the bloodshed through the years. The murders of the gebling kings, the murders of the Heptarchs.

Wars and assassinations, tortures and rapes, she remembered committing all the crimes of seven thousand years of power and she hated herself for all that she had done-

Nothing in my life except death and terror, she thought.

And then her own mother's face (or was it her mother?

She had three hundred mothers) smiling at her, touching her, saying, "Broken heart, don't cry. Don't cry at the' things that have been done in your name. For every life that was taken, there were ten thousand who lived in peace with your protection. Do you think your power would last for a moment if all you had was the power to kill? They would rise up and strike you down. You have the power to draw them together, to make them act as one. You have made the weak strong by the sound of your voice, and they love you forever."

Patience clung to the message of that voice. I have made the weak strong by the sound of my voice. They love me forever.

And at last, having found a thread to cling to so she would not fall into the abyss, she slept.