Free Songmaster by Orson Scott Card Page A

inattention to look around the High Room. I chose you for this place, Kya-Kya thought, trying to feel superior. It didn’t work. It was as Hrrai had said—she made the obvious choice. Anyone who knew the Songhouse would have named Esste to the office.
    The room was cold, but at least all the shutters were closed. There were drafts, but no wind. Apparently Esste did not intend to die soon. Kya-Kya looked at the window where she had almost fallen out. With the shutters closed, it was just another window, or part of the wall. The room was not kilometers above the ground; it was as low as any other building; the Songhouse was just a building; she did not care whether she never saw it again, felt no lingering fondness for its stone, refused to dream of it, did not even demean herself by disparaging it to her friends at the university.
    Her fingers brushed the stone walls as she left.
    Esste looked up at the sound of Kya-Kya’s leaving. Finally gone. She picked up the paper that concerned her far more than the needs of a Deaf who was trying to avenge her failure.
    Songmaster Esste:
Mikal has called me to Earth to serve in his palace guard. He has also instructed me to bring his Songbird back with me. It is my understanding that the child is nine. I have no choice but to obey. I have arranged my route, however, so that Tew is my last stop. You have twenty-two days from the date of this message. I regret the abruptness of this, but I will carry out my orders .
Riktors Ashen .
     
    The letter had been transmitted that morning. Twenty-two days. And the worst of it is, Ansset is ready. Ready. Ready.
    I am not ready.
    Twenty-two days. She pushed a button under the table. “Send Ansset to me.”

 

14

     
    Rruk had just entered Stalls and Chambers, right on schedule. She had no power in her voice, but she was a sweet singer, and pleased everyone who heard her. Still, she was afraid. Stalls and Chambers was a greater step than those between Groan and Bell or Bell and Breeze. Here she was one of the youngest, and in her chamber she was the youngest. Only one thing helped her forget her timidity—this was the seventh chamber. Ansset’s chamber.
    “Will Ansset come?” Rruk asked a boy sitting near her.
    “Not today.”
    Rruk did not show her disappointment; she sang it.
    “I know,” said the boy. “But it hardly matters. He never sang here anyway.”
    Rruk had heard rumors of that, but hadn’t believed them. Not let Ansset sing? But it was true. And she murmured a song of the injustice of Ansset’s banning.
    “Don’t I know it,” said the boy. “I once sang just such a song in Chamber. My name’s Ller.”
    “Rruk.”
    “I’ve heard of you. You’re the one who first sang the love song to Ansset.”
    It was a bond—they both had given something, even dared something for Ansset. Chamber began then, and their conversation ceased. Ller was part of a trio that day. He took the high part, and did a thin high drone that changed only rarely. Yet it was still the controlling voice in the trio, the center to which the other two voices always returned. By subordinating his own virtuosity, he had made the song unusually good. Rruk liked him even more, for his own sake now, not just for Ansset’s.
    After Chamber, without particularly deciding it, they went to Ansset’s stall. “He was called to the Songmaster in the High Room just before Chamber. Perhaps he’ll be back now. Usually Esste comes to him as master, so it may be that she called him up there to lift the ban.”
    “I hope so,” Rruk said.
    They knocked at Ansset’s door. It opened, and Ansset stood there regarding them absently.
    “Ansset,” Ller said, and then fell silent. Any other child they could have asked directly. But Ansset’s long isolation, his unchildlike expression, his apparent lack of interest—they were difficult obstacles to surmount.
    When the silence had lasted too long, Rruk blurted, “We heard you went to the High Room.”
    “I did,”