The Worthing Saga

by Orson Scott Card

  But he knew that in a land where life was easy, no one could keep them together except with magic or religion, and he wasn't much with either—he wasn't cynic enough for the trickery of the first, or believer enough for the latter. “Go,” he said. “I wish you well.” They moved off into the desert at mid-morning, the wind whipping across their path, erasing their footprints almost before they were made, the sand whipping out from under their feet with every step. “Live,” Stipock said.

  For three more days, Stipock, Wix, Hoom, Dilna, and the children survived by living in the mine, sealing it off as best they could by tearing apart an empty house and rebuilding the walls at the mine entrance. At the back of the mine, in the darkness, they could breathe more easily. On the third day, they awoke to the sound of rain.

  They ran to the entrance, tore away the wall, and caught their first glimpse of hell. It was as if the whole sea had fallen on them. The ground was all mud, and the houses themselves were sliding along the gentle slope as the mud flowed slowly toward the river. Yesterday the river had been dry. Now it was a torrent, well over its banks.

  “Rain,” said Wix. “Should we stay?”

  It was a bitter joke. Wix and Hoom plunged out into the rain, which soaked them by the second step, and they went from house to house, gathering up what they could salvage before the houses were swept into the river. As it was, they barely made two trips each before the river lapped out to carry the huts away. Then they watched from the mine entrance, glad that it sloped upward so they were in no risk of drowning. They drank and drank, filling and refilling the same jars. Well back from the mine entrance they poured water over the children, washed them and let them play naked on the blankets. They had never been so clean, it seemed, and the sound of their laughter made the rain joyful.

  Until the storm ended. The sun came out within minutes, and before nightfall the ground was baked and cracked. A few sticks remained of one house, all the rest were gone. The river continued to flow well into the night, but by morning it was back down to a mere trickle, a few stagnant ponds.

  The heap of iron ore was gone. It had been too close to the river.

  There was no need for discussion. They had little food and only the water in their jars and water bags. It was madness to go anywhere but south; So they went east, following Stipocks memory of the maps that Jason showed him. Cammar walked, and Hoom and Wix each carried a child. Dilna and Stipock carried their pitiful belongings. A few blankets, an axe, a few knives, crumbly bread, clothing. “We need clothing and blankets,” Stipock warned them, “because it's going to be cold a few times on the way home.”

  Now, on the journey through the desert, it was harder for Wix and Dilna to pretend they did not love each other. Sometimes, in their weariness, they would lean on each other as they walked on. Stipock watched Hoom at such moments, but he only held Bessa or Dallat and walked on, perhaps singing or telling a story to the child. Hoom is not blind, Stipock decided. He sees but chooses not to see.

  Before night the dust began to rise again, and Stipock led them south into the shelter of the ironwood forest. The next day they moved eastward among the trees, and the next day did the same, until they came to a broad riverbed heading northeast. It flowed, not strongly, but with water they could drink. So they followed its course for five days through desert and occasional grassland to the sea.

  One of the days along the river, Stipock crested a hill and stood beside Hoom and saw what he was watching: Wix and Dilna embracing. It was just for a moment; they must have thought they were far enough ahead not to be seen; or perhaps they didn't care anymore. It was not passionate but weary, their embrace, like a husband and wife long married and returning to each other for familiar comfort. It occurred to Stipock that this might well be more galling to Hoom than if they had looked furtive and eager.

  Hoom stepped down from the rise, and the lovers were suddenly out of sight behind a low ridge of dirt. “I thought,” said Hoom with a self-deprecating laugh, “I thought that of the two of us, she felt that way toward me.”

  Stipock set his hand on Hoom's shoulder. Little Bessa breathed hotly on his hand. “They both love you,” he said. It was inane to think that such words would comfort Hoom.

  To Stipock's surprise, however, Hoom smiled as though he needed no comfort at all. “I've known since we lived in Stipock's city. It began not long after we were married. Before Cammar was conceived.”

  “I thought—that it began here.”

  “I think it was something they couldn't help. It was here that they stopped trying to hide it. How could they?” Hoom held Bessa tightly to him. “I don't much care whose seed it was that grew. I'm the one who hoed, and I will harvest. These children are mine.”

  “You're a kinder man than I am.”

  Hoom shook his head. “When Jason was with us, before he brought us here, and I was trying to take the blame for my father's death, he said to me, You are forgiven as you forgive Wix and Dilna. I do, you know. It's not a lie. I had already forgiven them before Jason said that. And because I knew that I had no blame or hate for them, I believed Jason when he said there was no blame or hate to hold against me, either. Will you tell them that? If I should die sometime before the journey's through, will you tell them that I forgive them— that it's all right?”

  “You won't die, Hoom, you're the strongest of us.”

  “But if—”

  “I'll tell them.”

  “Tell them that it's true. That I meant it. Tell them to ask Jason if they doubt it.”

  “Yes.”

  Then they crested the low ridge, and Wix and Dilna were there resting, playing with Cammar, trying to pretend that they were only friends weary from the journey.

  From the mouth of the river eastward until they finally reached the isthmus leading north, it was the worst desert they had yet crossed. Stipock warned them, and they filled their water jars and water bags and drank from the river for two days until they could hardly bear to drink. “Keep this up and we can all piss and float home,” Wix said, and they laughed. It was the last time they laughed for a while. The desert was longer to cross than Stipock had thought. The smooth and sandy beach gave way to cliffs and crags. There was as much vertical and horizontal travel, and each day Stipock insisted that they drink less and less. They ran out of water anyway, except for the little bit they had saved for the children. “It's not that far,” Stipock told them. “There are streams on the isthmus, and it isn't far.” Indeed, from the tops of hills they could look across the sea and catch a glimpse of land going northward, a coastline leading toward the land of pure water.

  It was too far, though. They buried Bessa under a pile of rocks before dawn one day, and walked on more slowly, even though their burden was lighter by her scant weight. That night they reached an oasis of sorts, and drank the foul-tasting water, and filled their water bags and jars again. They thought they had made it. An hour later all were vomiting, and Dallat died of it. They buried him by the poisoned pool, and weakly walked on, emptying their jars and bags along the way through the sand. They did not weep. They hadn't the water in them to make tears.

  The next day they reached a clear spring in the side of a hill, and the water was good, and they drank and didn't get sick. They stayed at the spring for several days, building back their strength. But now their food was getting low, and with full jars and bags they set out again.

  Two days later they reached the top of a rocky rise, and stopped at the edge of a cliff that plunged nearly a kilometer, almost straight down. To the west they saw the sea, and to the east another sea, the water winking blue in the sunlight of early morning. At the bottom of the cliff the land funneled into a narrow isthmus between the seas. The isthmus was green with grass.

  “Do you see the green down there, Cammar?” asked Hoom. The boy nodded gravely. “That's grass, and it means we'll find water, and perhaps something more to eat.”

  Cammar looked annoyed. “If we were going where there was food, why didn't you br
ing Bessa and Dallat? I know they were hungry.”

  No one knew how to answer, until Hoom finally said, “I'm sorry, Cammar.”

  Cammar was a forgiving child. “That's all right, Papa. Can I have a drink?”

  They found a way down the cliff before noon; it was not sheer, but broken with many possible paths. They slept on the grass that night, and in the morning, for the first time in years, they awoke to a world that was wet with dew. Only then, with Cammar throwing wet grass at them, only then did they cry for the ones who died.

  Lared shook himself, looked around. The horses were stopped facing a thicker. Behind him Father was moaning softly. It was afternoon. Lared could not remember any of the journey until now. Where was he? He looked behind him at the trail left by the sledge. It wound well enough among the trees. Had he guided the horses? Or had he slept? All he could remember was the desert, and Hoom and Wix and Dilna, and the children dying, and how at last it looked like life. But Father was moaning on the sledge behind him. Lared dismounted and walked stiffly back to see him.

  “My arm,” Father whispered, when he saw Lared. “What happened to my arm?”

  “A branch broke clear through it, Father. You told me to cut it off.”

  “Ah, God,” cried Father, “I'd rather die.”

  Lared had to know where they were. He walked back into an open area, found the rise of the mountains to the south. He was still headed in the right direction. But he couldn't picture this place in the summer. It looked all new to him. And if it was new, it meant he must have drifted far to the south, so far that he was in forest that he didn't wander in. Or perhaps he had passed Plat Harbor entirely.

  Then, suddenly, he felt something shift in his mind and he recognized where he was. The clearing he was standing on was a pond, that's why it was so unfamiliar. He was on thick snow over the ice of the pond. There was the low mound of the beaver house. Somehow, in his sleep, in his dreams, he had followed the right course. Only the thicket stopped the horses, and it was a simple matter to turn them and follow the course of the frozen stream for a while, leading the horses to bring some life back into his own legs.

  “Lared,” Father called out. “Lared, I'm dying.”

  Lared did not answer. There was no answer to that. It was probably true, but it didn't stop him from pushing on. The trees opened into meadow, and he mounted again. And again the snow and the sound and the movement dazed him, and Justice brought him onward with a dream.

  Stipock was tired. They had been climbing every day for a week, rising into the highest mountains in the world. Nowhere near the peaks, of course, but still fighting through incredible country. These were fairly old mountains, with many rolling hills—but the rolls were steep and high, and many times what looked from a distance to be an easy stroll turned out to be hands-and-knees climbing up the face of what lacked only two or three degrees to be a cliff.

  Now they crested another grassy hill, with higher, craggier mountains on either side; but this time, instead of another, higher hill beyond, there were only lower hills, and clearly visible beyond them was an endless sea of deep green.

  The others had reached the top before him. Cammar was running around in erratic circles—the child had energy left to spare while the others contemplated the scene ahead.

  “I feel like I'm falling,” Dilna said. “It's been so long since anything ahead of us was down. Are we almost there?”

  “More than halfway, now, and the worst behind us. No more desert. We should reach a large river soon, and we follow that for a long, long way. We might build a raft, and float down until it meets with a river nearly as large from the south. Then we go north, straight north, and cross low and gentle mountains, and soon we'll strike the Star River and follow it on home.”

  “No,” Wix said.“Tell me that we only have to go down this slope and Heaven City will be there. The world should not be any larger than this.”

  “How do you keep the map in your head like that, Stipock?”

  “I studied the map in the Star Tower. Searching for iron. I once thought of leading an overland expedition. I didn't expect Jason would be willing to fly us there.”

  “Will they be glad to see us?” Dilna asked. “We didn't leave under happy circumstances.”

  Stipock smiled. “Do you really care how glad they are? We've had our stab at trying to build a perfect place. The climate was bad and the goal was all wrong. It isn't iron that makes a civilization.” He thought of Hoom, loving his children and tolerating. the intolerable between his wife and his friend. That is civilization, to bear pain for the sake of joy; Hoom grew up before I did, Stipock realized. He found out that if you try to eliminate the pain from your life, you destroy all hope of pleasure, too. They come from the same place. Kill one, you've killed all. Someone should have mentioned that to me when I was younger. I would have acted differently when Jason put me in his world. I was the devil, when I might have been an angel if I tried.

  “People,” Dilna said.

  “What?”

  “Civilization. People, not a metal, not a parchment, not even an idea.”

  Wix eased himself to a sitting position on the grass, then lay back. “Stipock, admit it! All your talk of Jason being just a man was sham. You and Jason are both gods. You made the world together, and now you're here just to see what use we're making of it. And to impress us with miracles.”

  “Mine haven't been too impressive so far.”

  “Well, it takes a while to get in practice. Like chopping wood. The first few strokes are never right. That's when people lose legs and feet, the first few strokes, when they aren't accustomed to it.”

  “A clumsy god. Well, I confess it. That's what I am.” He was about to say, And so are you, but a piercing scream interrupted them, and they jumped to their feet. “Cammar!” Hoom shouted, and they quickly saw that he wasn't on the crown of the hill. They ran in different directions; Stipock went to the northwest brow of the hill, and saw with hope that there were depressions marking small footprints in the grass; then saw, with horror, that the running steps had carried the child, unsuspecting, to the brink of a cliff. For once the roundness of this country had failed. There was a mark of scraping at the very brink, torn grass where Cammar had clutched. If we had been watching, if we had been near, we might have saved him before he fell.

  “Here!” Stipock called.

  As the others ran up, Cammar's voice came from below the edge of the cliff. “Stipock! Where's Papa! I'm hurt!”

  Hoom ran along the edge of the cliff, out to an angle where he could see. “Cammar! Can you see me!”

  “Papa!” Cammar cried.

  “He's just over the brink, on a ledge. Almost in reach!” Hoom shouted, and he ran back to them. “I can reach him. Stipock and Wix, hold onto my legs. Dilna, stay near the edge to help me with him when we get him near the top. Don't lean out, though. The edge isn't too secure.”

  His confidence, his air of authority calmed them all. It will turn out all right, thought Stipock. It only vaguely occurred to him that this was Hoom's blind spot, that he might not be willing to believe that saving his son was impossible. Still, the child was alive. There were piles of stone in the desert for the other two; Dilna was pregnant again, but the unborn child could not compare with Cammar, the oldest and the last now alive. They had to try, even at risk of their own lives.

  Hoom lay on his back, not on his belly—it was an admission that Cammar was so far down that he could not be reached by a man bending at the waist, only by a man bending at the knees. Stipock gripped his leg and together he and Wix lowered him backward over the cliff.

  “Almost there!” Hoom shouted. “Just a little farther.”

  “We can't,” Stipock said, because they were already so close to the edge themselves that he had to double his legs up under him to keep them from dangling over the edge. Stipock only had Hoom by the ankle now, and his grip was none too sure. But somehow they lowered him another few centimeters.

  “Almost!
A little farther!”

  Stipock was going to protest, but saw that Wix was grimly moving closer to the edge. Of all people, Wix cannot fail to help Hoom save his son, Stipock knew that, and so he began to carefully adjust his grip to allow him to lower Hoom a little more.

  Then, suddenly, Hoom screamed, “No, Cammar! Don't jump for me! Stay there, don't jump for me!” And then a high-pitched child's scream, just as Hoom kicked powerfully, lunged downward, pulling his leg out of Stipock's grasp.

  By some miracle Wix held on, crying out in the pain of the exertion. Dilna held onto Wix to keep him from falling over, too. Stipock could not get near enough to help Wix hold onto Hoom; he could only help Dilna in her effort to keep him from following Hoom over the edge.

  “We could use a miracle now,” whispered Wix.

  “Cammar!” cried Hoom, his voice echoing among the mountains. “Cammar! Cammar!”

  “He doesn't even know that he's in danger,” Dilna said, panting and whimpering from grief and terror and despair. Stipock knew the feeling. They were safe. They had come this far, they were surely safe now. Something was very, very wrong with the world.

  Then Wix screamed and his fingers gave way and Hoom slipped over the edge. They heard him strike ground; they heard him strike again. Not far away. Not all the Sway down. But definitely, definitely out of reach.

  Dilna screamed and struck at Wix. Stipock got above them, pulled them both until they came up with him, up away from the lip of the abyss. Only when he was sure they would not accidently follow Hoom, only then did he shout “Hoom! Hoom?”

  “He's dead, he's dead!” Dilna cried.

  “I tried to hold him, I really tried!” Wix sobbed.

  “I know you did,” Stipock answered. “You both did. Neither of you could have done more. You did the best you could.” Then he called again for Hoom.

  This time Hoom answered, sounding exhausted and afraid. “Stipock!”