Wyrms

"So my birth ... served the purpose of the Cra

"Angel and I argued over it. Better to be castrated than to give in to what this enemy wants, I said. But it came to this: We didn't know what purpose the Cra

She told us, 'The prophecies are ambiguous. The seventh seventh seventh daughter is called the destruction of the world, and the salvation of the world. Why not let her be born, and then teach her to be a savior?' So I took Lady Hekat as my second wife, and Angel made the change in me, and you were born."

"Lady Hekat." Patience saw her mother's face as it had been the last time she saw her. Weeping as the soldiers took Patience away from her. Crying out, My daughter, my daughter, my child, God be with you, always with you; and then the knock on Father's door, and the sudden cry of agony as father looked into the bag that was delivered there. I saw his face. His face, Mother's face, the same agony. "And you trained me to be an assassin," she said.

"I taught you to serve the King's House. However much you think you hate me now, I know you. You will always act for the good of the King's House. You are the hope of humanity. Not as the Watchers and Vigilants believe, as the mere mother of some imagined god. You yourself. I know it."

"I'm a child, fifteen years old. I'm the hope of nothing.

I have no great purpose."

"If you have no purpose of your own, then you will fulfill the purpose of the Cra

"You don't know anything Father. You don't know who is calling from Cra

"How could I know you, Patience? I felt the Cra

"Ready for what?"

"To face whatever waits there."

"Am I ready now?"

"How can I know? But you're as ready as I could make you in my life. Trust Angel now. He is the last of the Wise, the only one who can protect you from the thing that calls. From Unwyrm."

"You know its name?"

"One prophecy says that you will take the world into Unwyrm's lair and give it to him, and all mankind will die and be reborn. It's the only prophecy that gives a name."

"Who made the prophecy?"

"A prophet, I suppose. What matters is that the Cra

"There's no such thing as an undefeatable power," said Patience. "You always taught me that."

"Go now, Patience. I've told you everything. Now don't let them find you here, or my whole life was for nothing. And if they ask me, I'll have to tell them that I saw you. It'll give them a fresh trail."

Almost she obeyed him. But then she realized that he had not fully answered her. There was still a twitching in his face, a sign that he was resisting, that he had not told her all that she had asked for.

"One more story," she said.

"No more."

"The one you don't want to tell me."

The face grimaced as the head tried to resist the urging of the worms. "Leave me in peace, child! Let my name be something more than a terrible irony."

"Whatever you want so badly not to tell, that is the thing I most badly need to know."

"You're wrong, you fool! If you needed to know I would have told you! Leave me this one secret to take to the grave."

"I'll have it from you, Father! I'll have it, or wait here until Oruc takes me!"

Finally, sweating and weeping, the head spoke. Patience pumped steadily, but the voice was high and strange.

"The priests say that the Starship Captain was taken in the spirit by God, made some prophecies, and then disappeared into heaven."

"I know the tales."

"I know the truth. The captain of the starship Konkeptoine went mad as our ancestors orbited the world. It's true that he wrote the prophecy with his right hand in the ship's log. He also drew the map of the world, showing all the great deposits of iron and coal, the stuff that steel is made of. Then he .used the ship's powers to destroy those deposits. In that one act he determined the future of the world. Imakulata is not naturally poor in iron. Because of his insane act of destruction, we children of the great engine builders are deprived of steel. We have no great machines. We are weaker in this world than human beings have ever been before."

"If he was insane enough to do that, why did anyone think he was a prophet?"

"Because his map was more accurate than the one the ship's own mind drew. He knew things about the world that could not be known. They said at the time he seemed to be possessed. I who have felt the Cra

"If something like this happened, why isn't it in any of the histories?"

"There are stories passed from Heptarch to Heptarch that none of the historians know. I meant you to know this much, anyway; I told Angel, and he was to tell you.

The priests know only of the map he drew with his right hand, and the words he spoke with his mouth. The words that his possessor wanted us to believe. Words about how Kristos would come to Imakulata and make the human race new and perfect. But his daughter Irena, the first Heptarch, she saw something that only the Heptarchs know: As he spoke the prophecy and drew the map with his right hand, his left hand slowly tapped out into the mind of the ship, 'Save my daughter from the lair of the wyrms, or they will devour all mankind.' "

"His daughter-"

"Not Irena, child. You. His distant daughter. At first they didn't know how distant. There were prophecies that it would be the seventh seventh daughter. Magic numbers.

Only in the last thousand years have there been prophets who said that the Daughter of Prophecy, the Mother of God, is to be the seventh seventh seventh daughter of the Starship Captain."

"Then there's no reason to believe that the prophecy is anything more than the raving of a Vigilant."

"Of course. Except that the Cra

"But what is the lair of the worms-this? The headworms?"

"He wrote a word that in Star Speech, the most ancient of languages, means 'monster,' and not just any ' monster, but the most dangerous and cu

"A gebling then. They were the highest native life, as intelligent as humankind-"

"Were they? Then why is Geblic merely another corrupt form of Star Speech? And Dwelf and Gauntish, why did they have to take their language from mankind? They rose to where they are when humanity arrived; there was, something more powerful, an intelligence older than they.