Hart's Hope by Orson Scott Card Page A

just stared straight ahead as the crowd cheered and threw roses at him.
    He came closer, and Orem winced as the sun shone brightly, reflected off King Palicrovol’s eyes. Where his eyes should have been there were two gold balls, shining in sunlight, so that the King could not possibly see anything. “The Queen looks through Palicrovol’s eyes today,” said Orem. “Why does she do it, when she has the Searching Eye?”
    Dobbick was surprisingly angry when he answered. “If you had ever learned anything of God, you’d know that her Searching Eye can’t penetrate a temple or a House of God, or the seventh circle of the seven circles. So why do you think King Palicrovol doesn’t surround himself with priests to keep her sight out? Because he’s black, too, at heart. Because he’s the kind of man who’d rape a child on the steps of Faces Hall in order to steal the crown that was her only gift to give. God has no part of him, Orem. And God will have no part of you, if you draw yourself to magic the way you—”
    But now it was Dobbick who stopped the conversation and turned to look out the window. For the crowd had fallen silent outside, and when Orem looked where the halfpriest was staring, he saw that King Palicrovol had stopped, had taken the Antler Crown from his head and now held it before him.
    The King turned his blind eyes from one side to the other, as if he could see to search. “No!” cried a strange, moaning voice, and it took Orem a moment to realize that it was the King who spoke so mournfully. “Oh, Inwit, not here, not through my eyes!” And then the King looked up, and the golden balls seemed to fix on Orem’s face, and the King pointed at Orem’s heart and cried, “Mine! Mine! Mine!”
    Soldiers leapt out of line, and suddenly Orem felt himself being jerked back into the House of God. It was Dobbick, and his voice was thick with fear. “O God, O God, O seven times seven the dark days that come from incaution. O God, Orem, he wants you, he wants to have you—”
    Orem was confused, but made no resistance as Dobbick dragged him out of the room. Compliance had so long been Orem’s way that he had no strategy to escape the halfpriest’s grip as he pulled him up and down stairs, through doors usually locked, and finally into a trap door leading to a hidden path.
    â€œThe House of God is old,” said Dobbick, “from the dark days before God had His victory over all the strangers and all the powers. This path comes out near the river, well outside the stockade. Go home. Go to your father’s farm and bid good-bye to your family, and then get away. Far away, to the sea, to the mountains, wherever the King can’t find you.”
    â€œBut what does it mean!”
    â€œIt means the King has some use for you in his battle. And you can trust this—it will be to your cost. A man like Palicrovol hasn’t lived his three black centuries by paying his costs himself. In the games of power, there are only two players, and all the rest are pawns. Oh, Orem—” and the halfpriest hugged the boy at the secret postern gate, “Orem, if you had only stepped within the seven circles, just a step, you would have nothing to fear from him. God knows I hate to let you go.”
    â€œWhat’s happening to me?” Orem asked, frightened as much by Dobbick’s sudden expression of love and regret as by what had happened with the King.
    â€œI don’t know. Whatever it is, you don’t want it.”
    But in that instant Orem realized that he did want it. In that instant he knew that the safety of the House of God was itself what he most hated. In the House of God he would never make a name for himself, or find a place, or earn a poem. Here at the postern gate he was at the verge of all three, he could feel it in the fear of his belly and the clarity of his vision.
    â€œYou’re