Hart's Hope

The manmade tu

"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 co

"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 ca

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 Ba