EPILOGUE

  General Moozh succeeded as he had hoped. He united the Cities of the Plain and Seggidugu, and thousands of Gorayni soldiers deserted and joined with him. The Imperator’s troops melted away, and before the summer was out, the Sotchitsiya lands were free. That winter the Imperator huddled in the snows of Gollod, while his spies and ambassadors worked to persuade Potokgavan to put an army like a dagger in Moozh’s back.

  But Moozh had foreseen this, and when the Potoku fleet arrived, it was met by General Bitanke and ten thousand soldiers, men and women of a militia he had trained himself. The Potoku soldiers died in the water, most of them, their ships burning, their blood leaving red foam with every wave that broke upon the beach. And in the spring, Gollod fell and the Imperator died by his own hand, before Moozh could reach him. Moozh stood in the Imperator’s summer palace and declared that there was no incarnation of God on Harmony, and never had been— except for one unknown woman who came to him as the body of the Oversoul, and bore two daughters for the husband of the Oversoul.

  Moozh died the next year, poisoned by a Potoku dart as he besieged the floodbound capital of Potokgavan. Three Sotchitsiya kinsmen, a half-dozen Gorayni officers, and Rashgallivak of Basilica all claimed to be his successor. In the course of the civil wars that followed, three armies converged on Basilica and the inhabitants fled. Despite Bitanke’s brave defense, the city fell. The walls and buildings all were broken down, and the teams of war captives cast the stones into the lake of women until all were gone, and the lake was wide and shallow.

  The next summer there was nothing but old roads to show that once there had been a city in that place. And even though some few priestesses returned, and built a little temple beside the lake of women, the hot and cold waters now mixed far below the new surface of the lake, and so the thick fogs no longer rose and the place was not so holy anymore. Few pilgrims came.

  The former citizens of Basilica spread far and wide throughout the world, but many of them remembered who they were, and passed the stories on, generation after generation. We were of Basilica, they told their children, and so the Oversoul is still alive within our hearts.

  “The emphasis in The Call of Earth is on a family saga, centering around the remarkable matron in Basilica, and a political upheaval instituted by one brilliant, ambitious general. A genuinely interesting feminist quasi-utopia clashes with power politics, while the Oversoul plies its wiles and the book’s Biblical elements raise odd echoes, with their patriarchs and Cities of the Plain, their prophets and tempters, Jezebels and wise virgins.”

  —Faren Miller, Locus

  “Like any Card book, this sequel to The Memory of Earth involves many complicated decisions made by machines as well as humans. . . . Well-rounded characters keep [the plot] viable, and the dialog is superb.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “Involving and persuasive.”

  —Kirkus Reviews

  “As a maker of visions and a creator of heroes whose prime directive is compassion, Card is not to be outdone.”

  —Library Journal

  “Some science fiction series are simply accretions of novels tied together by common characters or settings, but Mr. Card’s ’Ender’ books form one long philosophical rumination on the question of whether taking life can ever be morally justified. The Memory of Earth poses the same question in the context of a planetary civilization, 40 million years in the future, that has been preserved in a kind of stasis by a nearly omniscient global computer. ... As always, Mr. Card writes with energy and conviction.”

  —The New York Times Book Review

  TOR BOOKS BY ORSON SCOTT CARD

  Empire

  The Folk of the Fringe

  Future on Fire (editor)

  Future on Ice (editor)

  Hart’s Hope

  Lovelock (with Kathryn Kidd)

  Pastwatch: The Redemption of Christopher Columbus

  Saints

  Songmaster

  The Worthing Saga

  Wyrms

  ENDER

  Ender’s Game

  Speaker for the Dead

  Xenocide

  Children of the Mind

  Ender’s Shadow

  Shadow of the Hegemon

  Shadow Puppets

  Shadow of the Giant

  THE TALES OF ALVIN MAKER

  Seventh Son

  Alvin Journeyman

  Prentice Alvin

  Red Prophet

  Heartfire

  The Crystal City

  HOMECOMING

  The Memory of Earth

  The Call of Earth

  The Ships of Earth

  Earthfall

  Earthborn

  WOMEN OF GENESIS

  Sarah

  Rebekah

  Rachel & Leah

  SHORT FICTION

  Maps in a Mirror: The Short Fiction of Orson Scott Card (hardcover)

  Maps in a Mirror, Volume 1: The Changed Man (paperback)

  Maps in a Mirror, Volume 2: Flux (paperback)

  Maps in a Mirror, Volume 3: Cruel Miracles (paperback)

  Maps in a Mirror, Volume 4: Monkey Sonatas (paperback)

  “The Memory of Earth promises to be volume one of five in the Homecoming series. And I’m hooked.... A thoroughly enjoyable piece of storytelling. What the heck—bring on number two.”

  —Chicago Tribune

  THE CALL OF EARTH

  As Harmony’s Oversoul grows weaker, a great warrior has arisen to challenge its bans. His name is Moozh, and he has won control of an army using forbidden technology. Now he is aiming his soldiers at the city of Basilica, that strong fortress above the Plain.

  Basilica remains in turmoil. Wetchik and his sons are not strong enough to stop an army. Can Rasa and her allies defeat him through intrigue, or will Moozh take the city and all who are in it?

  “Superb.”—Publishers Weekly

 

 

  Orson Scott Card, The Call of Earth: 2 (Homecoming)

 

 

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