Hart's Hope

Unbodied. He looked at the old man, who placidly regarded him with eyes of amber, lid to lid.

God smiled.

Orem arose, and reached for Timias's sword. "What do you plan to do with it?" Timias asked. "Let me do it. You're not much of a fighter."

"I don't mean to fight," Orem answered. Timias reluctantly surrendered the weapon. It was too heavy for Orem's hand, and he dreaded what he must do with it, but with all his strength he plunged it into the heart of God. Blood gouted forth, but Orem watched only the eyes, watched as the amber brightened, yellowed, whitened, dazzled like the source of sunlight. Suddenly the light leapt out, for a moment filled the cavern, and was gone.

Timias bent over the old man's corpse, put his finger into the empty socket that had held an eye. "Gone," he said.

Orem laid down the sword and covered his hands with the old man's hot blood. Then he strode to the Sisters, who also smiled at him. He wiped the blood all over the face of the faceless one, and on the blind side of the one-eyed Sister. The blood steamed and sizzled on their skin. And then he took each by the hair at the back of the neck and pressed their faces together as they had been faced at birth, one looking only into her sister, the other gazing with one eye out. The heads trembled under his hands, and then were still. He loosed his grip, and the women rose. Their clothing was gone; their arms and legs so enwrapped each other that no clothing was needed for their modesty. Their hair was all one, their flesh unseamed across the expanse of their two heads. "Ah," sang the half-mouth. "N

"Don't leave!" Orem cried.

"Free the Hart," mumbled their mouth, "and then stop Beauty. She's doing nothing that she hasn't done before. Avenge your nameless sister and your nameless son."

And they rose upward in the cavern, spi

"I've seen the Sisters with my eyes and I'm alive," said Timias.

Orem had three sisters and they all had names, and nothing had ever been done to them that called for vengeance. And his nameless son—what had happened to him that needed to be avenged? Orem did not understand, and so he turned himself to try to rouse the Hart.

He knew how the Hart should be—alive, and clothed in flesh and fur. But how was he to accomplish that, when he had no power in himself, no magic he could exercise?

"Will the old man's blood work on the Hart?" asked Flea. "I don't know," said Orem. Now the blood was cold, and he knew as he anointed the Hart's horns and head that it meant nothing, such blood meant nothing.

Timias had not seen the vision, but he knew the scar on Orem's throat. He guessed what the Little King was thinking when he touched the scar. "No!" he cried, and lunged. Orem was quick, but Timias reached the sword first and snatched it out of reach.

"Name of God, Timias, I must," said Orem.

"Have you gone mad?"

Flea did not understand at all, only knew that Orem wanted the sword and this half-chewed bastard wouldn't give it to him. It was a simple matter to knock down Timias with a blow to the balls; Flea retrieved the sword while Timias writhed, and tossed it hilt first to his friend.

He would have taken it back as quickly, if he could have, but before Flea could do more than cry out as Timias had done, Orem drew the sword hard and sharp across his throat. The blood filled his mouth and flowed down his chest, and the pain was more than he had known that he could bear. He gagged; the blood ran into his lungs; but it must not be in vain. He struggled toward the Hart's head, tried to raise himself so the blood would fall upon the horns. He hadn't the strength now, but his arms were taken by hands on either side. Timias and Flea lifted him up, and the horns were drenched with his blood.

Under him he felt the heat of the stag's body; felt it rise, felt the vast back and shoulders with their rippling muscles and the stink of strength lift him up. He saw the antlers pull away from the stone that bound them, saw the tips aglow like stars, like suns, like little jeweled worlds. And then he spun around, lost among the hundred horns, turning and turning.

He flew, he rose up with the water into the ceiling of the cisterns, to the place where it strained itself upward into the rock to emerge in the Water House. He was trapped in the water and he could not breathe. He had not had time to take a proper breath, and so he must rise, he must rise and breathe—

But no, above him he knew was fire. He must go down into the water, and then he would live. So down he sank, waiting to find the bottom. But he did not find it. Instead he despaired and breathed in deep gasps of water. But it was not water. It was pure air. He opened his eyes.

He was lying on the back of the Hart, but he was not weak now with the loss of blood. He reached his hands, took hold of the antlers, and lifted his head free from the nest of thorns. Then he swung himself down from the Hart's back.

"Orem," breathed Flea.

"My lord Little King," said Timias. Orem touched his throat. The wound was gone; the scar was gone; his neck was whole and new, as it had been before he ever had the vision of the Hart.

"You're alive."

They stood and watched the Hart as it stamped its hoof. The head lowered; only then did they realize that it meant to charge them.

"Name of God, doesn't it know we saved its life?" cried Timias.

There was no time for an answer. They scrambled for the downward path and scurried and tumbled along the narrow ledge along the riverside. They looked back only at the entrance to the hewn passage. The Hart was clearly visible, pacing back and forth along the platform of rock, tossing its head.

"How will it get out of here?" asked Flea.

"He knows the way," said Orem, though he didn't know why he was so sure of that.

Orem let Flea lead them, since he had come this way twice. Like Orem, though, the others were

thinking more of the future than of getting out of this path under the Palace. "What do they expect us to do now?" Timias asked.

"Not us," said Orem, "but I'm glad you're willing to share the burden."

"Did they mean that you're really Palicrovol's son?" asked Flea.

Orem nodded. "They showed me—how it came to be."

"She's doing nothing that she hasn't done before," said Timias. "Who's doing it?"

"Beauty," said Orem. "She means to renew herself. By killing me and using my blood."

"Well, at least you've had practice now," said Flea.

"But she's never killed a husband before," Timias said.

It was only then that Orem put together everything that he had learned. She has done nothing that she hasn't done before. More potent than a stranger's blood is the blood of a husband. He had got there before and stopped. But what is more potent than the blood of a husband? To a woman, the blood of her child. And a child who has taken no nourishment except from the mother's breast. Avenge your nameless son. Orem had a nameless sister, years before. Palicrovol's daughter, and Beauty had killed her for the power in her. Orem guessed it all at once, and believed it, too, and damned himself for a fool for thinking all this time that he was the one who was doomed. Youth! he cried out silently. Youth, my son, my son. "Leave me!" he shouted to his friends. "Get away from me!"

And then nothing.

Nothing at all. He could not find her. He was back inside his body and could not escape. All he could taste or touch was in himself. He opened his eyes. Beauty stood above him, looking down. She held Youth in her arms. "Papa," said the boy, reaching for him.