The Call of Earth

by Orson Scott Card

  Now they sat in places of honor, not up among the benches on the upward slopes of the amphitheatre, but down on the Orchestra itself, to the righthand side of the low platform that had been erected in the center for the ceremony itself. They were the bride's party; on the other side, the groom's party consisted of many members of the city council, along with officers of the Basilican guard and a few-only a handful-of Gorayni officers. There was no sign of Gorayni domination here. Not that there needed to be. Elemak knew that there were plenty of Gorayni soldiers and Basilican guards discreetly out of sight, but close enough to intervene if something unexpected should happen. If, for instance, some assassin or other curiosity-seeker should attempt to cross the open space between the benches and the wedding parties around the platform, he would find himself sporting a new arrow somewhere in his body, from one of the archers in the prompters' and musicians' boxes.

  How quickly things change, thought Elemak. Only a few weeks ago I came home from a successful caravan, imagining that I was ready to take my place as a man in the affairs of Basilica. Gaballufix seemed to be the most powerful man in the world to me then, and my future as the Wetchik's heir and Gabya's brother seemed bright indeed. Since then nothing had stayed the same for two days at a time. A week ago, dehydrating mind and body on the desert, would he have believed he might be married to Eiadh in Rasa's house not a week thence? And even last night, when he and Eiadh had been the central figures in the wedding ceremony, could he have imagined that at noon the next day, instead of Nafai and Luet being the childish, pathetic hangers-on at Elemak's wedding, they would now sit on the platform itself, where Luet would perform the ceremony and Nafai would stand as General Moozh's sponsor?

  Nafai! A fourteen-year-old-boy! And General Moozh had asked him to stand as his sponsor for citizenship in Basilica, offering him to Hushidh as if Nafai were some important figure in the city. Well, he was an important figure-but only as the husband of the waterseer. Nobody could possibly think that he deserved any such honor in and of himself.

  Waterseer, raveler... Elemak had never paid much heed to such things. It was all priestcraft, a profitable business but one he didn't have much patience with. Like the foolish dream that Elemak had had out on the desert-it was such an easy matter to turn a meaningless dream into a plan of action, because of the gullible fools who believed that the Oversold was some noble being instead of a mere computer program responsible for pressing data and documents from city to city by satellite. Even Nafai himself was saying that the Oversoul was just a computer, and yet he and Luet and Hushidh and Rasa were all full of tales about how the Oversoul was trying to arrange things so the marriage wouldn't take place and they would all end up out on the desert, ready for the journey, before the day was over. What, could a computer program make camels appear out of nothing? Make tents rise up out of the dust? Turn rocks and sand into cheeses and grain?

  "Doesn't he look brave and fine?" asked Eiadh.

  Elemak turned to her. "Who? Is General Moozh here?"

  "I mean your brother, silly. Look."

  Elemak looked toward the platform and did not think Nafai looked particularly brave or fine. In fact, he looked silly, all dressed up like a boy pretending to be a man.

  "I can hardly believe he would walk right up to one of the Gorayni soldiers," said Eiadh. "And go speak to General Vozmuzhalnoy Vozmozhno himself-while everyone was still asleep!"

  "What was brave about that? It was dangerous and foolish, and look what it led to-Hushidh having to marry the man."

  Eiadh looked at him in bafflement, "Elya, she's marrying the most powerful man in the world! And Nafai will stand as his sponsor."

  "Only because he's married to the waterseer."

  Eiadh sighed. "She is such a plain little thing. But those dreams-I've tried to have dreams myself, but no one takes them seriously, I had the strangest dream last night, in fact. A hairy flying monkey with ugly teeth was throwing doo-doo on me, and a giant rat with a bow and arrow shot him out of the sky-can you believe anything so silly? Why can't I have dreams from the Oversoul, can you tell me that?"

  Elemak was hardly listening. Instead he was thinking of how Eiadh had clearly been envious because Hushidh was marrying the most powerful man in the world. And how she had admired Nafai for his damnable cheek, in going out and accosting General Moozh in the middle of the night. What could he possibly have accomplished, except to infuriate the man? Pure stupid luck that it had ended up with Nafai on that platform. But it galled Elemak all the same, that it was Nafai who was sitting there, with all the eyes of Basilica upon him. Nafai who was being whispered about, Nafai who would be seen as the husband of the waterseer, the brother-in-law of the raveler. And as Moozh installed himself as king-oh, yes, the official word for it would be consul, but it would mean the same-Nafai would be the brother-in-law of majesty and the husband of greatness and Elemak would be a desert trader. Oh, of course they would restore Father to his place as Wetchik, once Father realized that the Oversoul wasn't going to be able to get anybody out of Basilica after all. And Elemak would again be his heir, but what would that title mean anymore? Worst of all would be the fact that he would receive his rank and his future back as a gift from Nafai. It made him seethe inside.

  "Nafai is so impetuous," said Eiadh. "Aren't you proud of him?"

  Couldn't she stop talking about him? Until this morning, Elemak had known that Eiadh was the finest marriage a man could make for himself in this city. But now he realized that in the back of his mind he had really been thinking that she was the finest first marriage a young man could make. Someday he would need a real wife, a consort, and there was no reason to think that Eiadh would grow up into such a one. She would probably always be shallow and frivolous, the very thing that he had found so endearing. Last night when she had sung to him, her throaty voice full of rehearsed passion, he had thought he could listen to her sing forever. Now he looked at the platform and realized that it was Nafai, after all, who had made a marriage that would be worth having thirty years from now.

  Well, fine, thought Elemak. Since we won't get away from Basilica, I'll keep Eiadh for a couple of years and then gently ease her away. Who knows? Luet may not stay with Nafai. When she gets older she may begin to wish for a strong man beside her. We can look back on these first marriages as childish phases we went through in our youth. Then I will be the brother-in-law of the consul.

  As for Eiadh, well, with luck she'll bear me a son before we're through. But would that truly be luck? Should my eldest son, my heir, be a boy with such a shallow woman for his mother? In all likelihood, it will be the sons of my later marriages, my mature marriages, who will be the worthiest to take my place.

  Then, like a sudden attack of indigestion, there came the realization that Father, too, might feel that way. After all, Lady Rasa was his marriage of maturity, and Issib and Nafai the sons of that marriage. Wasn't Mebbekew walking, talking proof of the unfortunate results of early marriages?

  But not me, thought Elemak. I was not the son of some frivolous early marriage. I was a son he couldn't have dared to ask for-his Auntie's son, Hosni's son, born only because she so admired the boy Volemak as she introduced him to the pleasures of the bed. Hosni was a woman of substance, and Father trusts and admires me above his other children. Or did, anyway, until he started having visions from the Oversold and Nafai was able to parlay that into an advantage by pretending to have visions, too.

  Elemak was filled with rage-old, deep-burning rage and hot new jealousy because of Eiadh's admiration for Nafai. Yet what burned hottest and deepest was his fear that Nafai was not pretending, that for some unknowable reason the Oversoul had chosen Father's youngest instead of his eldest to be his true heir. When Issib's chair was taken over by the Oversoul and stopped Elemak from beating Nafai in that ravine outside the city, hadn't the Oversoul as much as said so? That Nafai would one day lead his brothers, or something to that effect?

  Well, dear Oversoul, not if Nafai is dead. Ever think of that?
If you can speak to him then you can speak to me, and it's about time you started.

  I gave you the dream of wives.

  The sentence came into Elemak's mind as clearly as speech. Elemak laughed.

  "What are you laughing at, Elya, dear?" asked Eiadh.

  "At how easily a person can deceive himself," said Elemak.

  "People always talk about how a person can lie to himself, but I've never understood that," said Eiadh. "If you tell yourself a lie, then you know you're lying, don't you?"

  "Yes," said Elemak. "You know you're lying, and you know what the truth is. But some people fall in love with the lie and let go of the truth completely."

  As you're doing now, said the voice in his head. You prefer to believe the lie that I cannot speak to you or anyone else, and so you will deny me.

  "Kiss me," said Elemak.

  "We're in the middle of the Orchestra, Elya!" she said, but he knew she wanted to.

  "All the better," he said. "We were married last night-people expect us to be oblivious to everything but each other."

  So she kissed him, and he let himself fall into the kiss, blanking his mind to everything but desire. When at last the kiss ended, there was a smattering of applause-they had been noticed, and Eiadh was delighted.

  Of course, Mebbekew immediately proposed an identical kiss to Dol, who had the good sense to decline. Still, Mebbekew persisted, until Elemak leaned across Eiadh and said, "Meb. Anticlimax is always bad theatre-didn't you tell me that yourself?"

  Meb glowered and dropped the idea.

  I am still in control of things, Elemak thought. And I am not about to start believing voices that pop into my mind just because I wish for them. I'm not like Father and Nafai and Issib, determined to believe in a fantasy because it feels so warm and cuddly to think that some superior being is in charge of things. I can deal with the cold hard truth. That's always enough for a real man.

  The horns began. From all the minarets around the amphitheatre, the horners began their wailing cries. These were ancient instruments, not the finely-tuned horns of theatre or concert, and there was no attempt to create harmony between them. Each horn produced one note at a time, held long and loud, then fading as the horner lost breath. The notes overlaid each other, sometimes with winsome dissonance, sometimes with astonishing harmonies; always it was a haunting, beautiful sound.

  It silenced the citizens gathered in the benches, and it filled Elemak with a trembling anticipation, as he knew it did with every other person in the Orchestra. The wedding was about to begin.

  Thirsty stood at the gate of Basilica and wondered why the Oversoul had failed her now. Hadn't she been helped every step of the way from Potokgavan? She had come upon a canal boat and asked them to let her ride, and they had taken her aboard without question, though she could give them no fare. At the great port, she had boldly told the captain of the corsair that the Oversoul required her to have the fastest passage to Redcoast ever achieved, and he had laughed and boasted that as long as he took no cargo, he could make it in a day, with such a fair wind. In Redcoast a fine lady had dismounted from her horse and offered it to Thirsty on the street.

  It was on that horse that Thirsty arrived at the Low Gate, expecting to be admitted easily, as all women always were, citizens or not. Instead she found the gate tended by Gorayni soldiers, and they were turning everyone away.

  "There's a great wedding going on inside," a soldier explained to her. "General Moozh is marrying some Basilican lady."

  Without knowing how, Thirsty knew at once that this wedding was the reason she had come.

  "Then you must let me in," she said, "because I am an invited guest."

  "Only the citizens of Basilica are invited to attend, and only those who were already inside the walls. Our orders allow no exceptions, not even for nursing mothers whose babes are inside the walls, not even for physicians whose dying patients are within."

  "I am invited by the Oversoul," said Thirsty, "and by that authority I revoke any orders you were given by a mortal man."

  The soldier laughed, but only a little, for her voice had carried, and the crowd at the gate was watching, listening. They had also been turned away, and were liable to turn surly at the slightest provocation.

  "Let her in," said one of the soldiers, "if only to keep the crowd from turning."

  "Don't be a fool," said another. "If we let her in we'll have to let them all in."

  "They all want me to enter," said Thirsty.

  The crowd murmured their assent. Thirsty wondered at this-that the crowd of Basilicans should heed the Oversoul so readily, while the Gorayni soldiers were deaf to her influence. Perhaps this was why the Gorayni were such an evil race, as she had heard in Potokgavan: because they could not hear the voice of the Oversoul.

  "My husband is waiting for me inside," said Thirsty, though not until she heard herself say the words did she realize it was true.

  "Your husband will have to wait," said a soldier.

  "Or take a lover," said another, and they laughed.

  "Or satisfy himself," said the first, and they hooted.

  "We should let her in," said one of the soldiers. "What if God has chosen her?"

  Immediately one of the other soldiers drew his lefthand knife and put it to the throat of the one who had spoken. "You know the warning we were given- that it's the very one that we want to allow inside who must be prevented!"

  "But she needs to be there," said the soldier who was sensitive to the Oversoul.

  "Say another word and I'll kill you."

  "No!" cried Thirsty. "I'll go. This is not the gate for me."

  Inside her she felt the urgency to enter the city increase; but she would not have this man be killed when it would not get her through the gate in any case. Instead she wheeled the horse and made her way back through the crowd, which parted for her. Quickly she made her way up the steep trail that led to the Caravan Road, but she did not bother trying the Market Gate; she made her way along the High Road, but she did not try to enter at High Gate or Funnel Gate, either. She hurried her mount along the Dark Path, which wound among deep ravines sloping upward into the forested hills north of the city until she reached the Forest Road-but she did not follow it down to Back Gate, either.

  Instead she dismounted and plunged into the dense underbrush of Trackless Wood, heading for the private gate that only women knew of, that only women used. It had taken an hour for her to go around the city, and she had gone the long way, too-but there was no horsepath around the east wall, which dropped straight down to crags and precipices, and to clamber that route on foot would have taken far longer. Now the wood itself seemed to snag at her, to hold her back, though she knew that the Oversoul was guiding every step she took, to find the quickest path to the private gate. Even when she entered there, however, it would take time to make her way up into the city, and already she could hear the horns beginning their plaintive serenade. The ceremony would begin in moments, and Thirsty would not be there.

  Luet moved and spoke as slowly as she could, but as she stepped and spoke her way through the ceremony, she did not have the option of doing what she desired in her heart-to stop the wedding and denounce Moozh to the gathered citizens. At best she would merely be hustled from the platform before she could say a word, as a more responsible priestess took over; at worst, she might actually speak, might be stopped by an arrow, and then riot and bloodshed would ensue and Basilica could easily be destroyed before another morning came. What would that accomplish?

  So she walked through the ceremony-with deliberation, with long pauses, but never stopping altogether, never ignoring the whispered promptings of the priestesses who were with her at every turning, at every speech.

  For all the turmoil inside of Luet, though, she could not see that Hushidh felt anything but perfect calm. Was it possible that Hushidh actually welcomed this marriage, as a way of avoiding life as a cripple's wife? No-Shuya had been sincere when she said that the Oversoul had reconci
led her to that future. Her calm must come from utter trust in the Oversoul.

  "She is right to trust," said a voice-a whisper, really. For a moment she thought it was the Oversoul, but instead she realized that it was Nafai, who had spoken as she passed near him during the processional of flowers. How had he known what words he needed to say just then, to answer so perfectly her very thoughts? Was it the Oversoul, forging an ever-closer link between them? Or was it Nafai himself, seeing so deeply into her heart that he knew what she needed him to say?

  Let it be true, that Shuya is right to trust the Over-soul. Let it be true that we will not have to leave her here when we make our journey to the desert, to another star. For I could not bear it to lose her, to leave her. Perhaps I would know joy again; perhaps my new husband could be a companion to me as Hushidh has been my dear companion. But there would always be an ache, an empty place, a grief that would never die, for my sister, my only kin in the world, my raveler who when I was an infant tied the knot that will bind us to each other forever.

  And then, at last, the moment came, the taking of the oaths, Luet's hands on their shoulders-reaching up to Moozh's shoulder, so hard and large and strange, and to Hushidh's shoulder, so familiar, so frail by comparison to Moozh's. "The Oversoul makes one soul from the woman and the man," said Luet. A breath. An endless pause. And then the words she could not bear to say, yet had to say, and so said. "It is done."

  The people of Basilica rose from their seats as if they were one, and cheered and clapped and called out their names: Hushidh! Raveler! Moozh! General! Vozmuzhalnoy! Vozmozhno!

  Moozh kissed Hushidh as a husband kisses a wife- but gently, Luet saw, kindly. Then he turned and led Hushidh down to the front of the platform. A hundred, a thousand flowers filled the air, flying forward; those thrown from the back of the amphitheatre were picked up and tossed again, until the flowers filled the space between the platform and the first row of benches.