“I know that you don’t know anything, either. In fact, you know less than nothing, because the things you think you know are wrong.”

  “It’s the madness of power on you, boy. You think you’re the first? You realize you’ve got something that nobody else has, you realize you’ve got your hands on something powerful, and suddenly you think you’re omnipotent. But go look at your brother. See what you think about his omnipotence!”

  “No, I don’t think I’m powerful,” said Jam. “Just more powerful than you.”

  “But not more powerful than the one I serve. Never more powerful than that. And every word you say, every push you make with that fending power of yours will only draw attention to you. Attention you truly do not want.”

  “But I do want it,” said Jam. “I want the emperor to come here! I want the emperor to judge between us!”

  Where had that idea come from?

  Gan? Was it Gan, telling him what to say?

  “You tell the emperor who your master is, and how he trapped Gan, and how he’s using you to gather power.”

  “It’s for the emperor, I told you, all the power I’ve gathered.”

  “Then let the emperor come, and I’ll give the stone to him!”

  “So you do have it.”

  Jam rolled his eyes. “Duh.”

  “That’s all I needed to hear,” said Laudon. He stood up. Started walking toward Jam.

  Jam fended him. Laudon didn’t even pause. “I can feel your little pushes, boy,” he said. “That made it easy to pretend you had power over me. But you don’t. You’re like a baby with a squirt gun.” Laudon reached out and took Jam by the throat. “Where is it? Not in your head—though that wouldn’t stop me, I’d have your head, it belongs to my master just like everything else does.”

  “Nothing belongs to your master!” cried Jam. “It all belongs to the emperor!” Or at least it would if this magic society worked like feudalism.

  “Do you think the emperor cares what happens to you?” Laudon ran a finger down Jam’s neck and chest until it rested directly over his heart. “Which arm?” he asked. Then his finger traced out and down to Jam’s right hand. “I’ll have that back now, thanks.”

  “No you won’t,” said Jam. He rammed his knee into Laudon’s groin.

  “Owie owie,” said Laudon, sarcastically.

  “I should have known,” said Jam. “You gave your balls to your master along with everything else.”

  “Open your hand.”

  “Open it yourself.”

  “Right down to the bone if I have to,” said Laudon. Then he pulled a sharp piece of obsidian from his pocket and prepared to slice Jam’s palm open.

  So all his bravado had come to nothing. And yet there was a power that could save him—or destroy him—but what else could he call upon? He had only just learned that there was an emperor, and yet somehow he knew all about him. No, he knew nothing about him but his true title—and the only other thing that mattered. That Jam could trust him.

  He pulled away from Laudon and fended him with all his might. “I call upon the Emperor of the Air, to come and judge between you and me!”

  His fending was more powerful than Jam had dared to hope—Laudon flew away from him clear to the fence and fell into the cucumbers.

  “Oh, master!” cried Laudon, reaching out his arms beseechingly.

  Oh. It wasn’t Jam’s power that had thrown Laudon so far. Jam had called on an outside power, but it wasn’t the emperor who had come.

  Jam turned to see Mother standing in the back door. “Why did you come back here!” she demanded of Laudon.

  “He has it,” Laudon said. “I told you he had it.”

  “I would have known,” she said. “Do you think he could have it, and I not know?”

  “He admitted it! And he can fend. He has power.”

  “He has no power,” said Mother. “Do you think I can’t tend my own house?”

  Jam’s mind reeled. Was it possible that his own mother was his enemy?

  “No, baby,” said Mother. “This man is a fool. He has no business here.”

  “You know about all this,” said Jam. “About the stone, and collecting power, and Gan being enchanted.”

  “I only know that my boy is standing in the back yard in his underwear while a high school teacher is lying in the cucumbers,” said Mother. “That’s enough for me to call the cops.”

  Laudon chimed in. “He already called somebody.”

  “Do you think he’d waste his time?”

  “Are you still loyal to him?” demanded Laudon. “I haven’t been helping you commit treason, have I?”

  “Shut up, Laudon,” said Mother. “Nobody wants to hear what you have to say.”

  Jam turned to see how Laudon would react, but saw instead that Laudon had no mouth. Just a smooth expanse of skin from nose to jaw.

  Mother reached out her arms to Jam. “Come on inside, baby.”

  “He was going to cut me with this,” said Jam, holding up the obsidian blade.

  She held out her hand for it. “That’s too dangerous for you to play with it.”

  “Dangerous for me, Mama? Or you?”

  “Come inside.”

  “Are you the one who locked Gan inside his body? Are you the one that made him a vegetable?”

  “A talky vegetable, judging from your attitude right now. Jamaica, don’t make me cross with you. We’re too close for such a spat between us.”

  “You haven’t denied it yet.”

  “Oh, how television of you. No, darling, I didn’t hurt Gan. But if I had hurt him, would I tell you? So why bother asking a question that has only one possible answer, whether it’s true or not?”

  “Has it all been an act? All your tears for Gan?”

  “An act? Gan is my son! Gan owns my heart. Do you think I could do this to him?”

  “I don’t know,” said Jam. “I don’t know anything. Nobody’s who I thought they were. Nothing’s what it seemed like up to now.”

  “My love for you is real.”

  “Are you Laudon’s master?”

  “Jam, I’m not anybody’s master.”

  “You’ve got Gan on a bed where he can’t do anything, not even speak.”

  “And that is the greatest tragedy of my life,” said Mother, starting to cry. “Are you going to find a way to blame me for that?”

  Arms closed around Jam from behind. “I’ve got him now, Master,” said Laudon.

  Jam fended him viciously, and abruptly he was free. He glanced over his shoulder and saw Laudon sprawled on the grass.

  “Oh, very nice,” said Mother. “Is that how I taught you to treat company?”

  “What I want to know is, does Father have any of this power? Are we all magicians?”

  “You’re not, and your father isn’t, and Gan was but now he’s not,” said Mother.

  “But if you have so much power, Mother, why don’t you heal Gan?”

  “Heal him? He chooses to be the way he is.”

  “Chooses!”

  “He was not a dutiful son,” said Mother.

  “And what about me?” said Jam.

  “There has never been a better boy than you.”

  “Unless I refuse to give you the stone.”

  Her face grew sad. “Ah, Jamaica, baby, are you going to be difficult too?”

  “Was that what happened to Daddy? He got ‘difficult’?”

  “Your father is an animal who doesn’t deserve to be around children. Or anybody, for that matter. Now come here and open your hand to me.”

  “It doesn’t show,” said Jam.

  “Then open your hand so I can see for myself that I can’t see it.”

  Jam walked to her, his hand open.

  “Don’t try to deceive me, Jamaica,” said Mother. “Where is it?”

  “This is the hand it’s in,” said Jam.

  “No, it’s not,” said Mother. Then she pressed her ear against Jam’s chest. “Oh, Jamaica, baby,” she said. “Why did you have to do that?”

  “Do what?”

  “Swallow it.”

  “But I didn’t.”

  “I’m going to get it from you,” said Mother. “One way or another.” She reached out a hand toward Laudon. In a moment, the obsidian knife was in her grasp and she was singing something so softly that Jam couldn’t catch a single word of it.

  She reached out with the obsidian blade toward Jam’s bare chest. “It always hides in the heart,” she said. “I’ll have it now.”

  “Are you going to kill me, now, Mother?” asked Jam.

  “It’s not my fault,” she said. “You could give it to me freely, though—then I wouldn’t have to cut.”

  “I don’t control the thing,” said Jam.

  “No,” said Mother sadly. “I didn’t think so.”

  The obsidian flashed forward and she drew it down sharply.

  But there wasn’t a mark on Jam’s skin.

  “Don’t try to outmagic me,” she said. “Your father tried it, and look where he is.”

  “He’s better off than Gan.”

  “Because he’s not so dangerous to me. I trusted Gan before he turned against me. Now stop fending.”

  “It’s a reflex,” said Jam. “I can’t help it.”

  “That’s all right,” said Mother. “I can get inside your fending.”

  “Not if don’t let you.”

  “You’re part of me, Jam. You belong to me, like Gan.”

  “As you told me growing up, if I can’t take care of my toys, I’m not entitled to have them.”

  “You’re not my toy. You’re my son. If you serve me loyally, then I’ll be good to you. Haven’t I always been till now?”

  “Till now I didn’t know what you did to Gan.”

  “I must have that stone!” she said. “It’s mine!”

  “That’s all I needed to hear.”

  Mother and Jam both turned to see who had spoken—the voice certainly wasn’t Laudon’s.

  In the middle of the back yard, standing on the lawn, was a slim, young-looking man with flashing eyes.

  “Who are you?” asked Jam.

  “I’m the one you called,” said the Emperor of the Air. “Now your mother has admitted that the stone is for her.”

  “For me to give to you,” she said, sinking to her knees.

  “What would I do with it?” he asked.

  “Why, how else do you get your vast powers?

  “Virtue,” said The Emperor of the Air. “You hid your deeds for years, but you should have known you couldn’t hide forever.”

  “I could have, if this boy hadn’t—”

  “She’s not really your mother,” the Emperor of the Air said to Jam. “No more than Gan is your brother. She took you, as she took Gan, because you had the power. She tried to use Gan’s power as a wizard, but he rebelled and she punished him. You’re the substitute. She stole you when Gan was confined to bed.”

  “She’s not my mother?”

  The Emperor of the Air waved his hand and suddenly the dam inside Jam’s mind broke and he was flooded with memory. Of another family. Another home. “Oh, God,” he cried, thinking now of his real father and mother, of his sisters. “Do they think I’m dead?”

  “That was not right,” said Mother—no, not Mother—she was Mrs. Fisher now. “We were so close.”

  “Not so close you weren’t willing to tear his heart out to get at the stone. But you wouldn’t have found it,” said the Emperor of the Air. “Because you never knew what he was—and is.”

  “What is he?” demanded mother.

  “His whole body is a philosopher’s stone. He gathers power from everyone he touches. The stone flew to him the way magnets do. It went inside him because it was of the same substance. You can’t get it out of him. And that knife of yours can never cut him.”

  “Why are you doing this to me?” she cried out from her heart.

  “What am I doing to you?” asked the Emperor of the Air.

  “Punishing me!”

  “No, my love,” said the Emperor. “You only feel punished because you know you deserve it.” He held out a hand to Jam.

  Wordlessly, Jam took his hand, and together they passed Mrs. Fisher by, entering the house without even glancing at her.

  The Emperor led Jam to Gan’s bed. “Touch the lad, would you, Jamaica?”

  Jam leaned down and touched Gan.

  Gan’s eyes opened at once. “My lord,” he said to the Emperor of the Air.

  “My good servant,” said the Emperor. “I’ve missed you.”

  “I called out to you.”

  “But you were weak, and I didn’t hear your voice, among so many. Only when your brother called did I hear—his voice is very loud.”

  Jam wasn’t sure if he was being teased or not.

  “Take me home,” said Gan.

  “Ask your brother to heal you.”

  Jam shook his head. “I can’t heal anybody.”

  “Well, technically, that’s true. But if you let your brother draw on the power stored up inside you, he can heal himself.”

  “Whatever I have,” said Jam, “belongs to him, if he needs it.”

  “That’s a good brother,” said the Emperor.

  Jam felt the tingle, the flow, like something liquid and cold flowing through his arm and out into Gan’s body. And in a few moments he was out of breath, as if he had been running for half an hour.

  “Enough,” said the Emperor. “I told you to heal yourself, not make yourself immortal.”

  Gan sat up, swung his legs off the bed, rose to his feet, and put his arm around Jam’s shoulders. “I had no idea you had so much strength in you.”

  “He’s been collecting it his whole life,” said the Emperor of the Air. “Everyone he meets, every tree and blade of grass, every animal, any living thing he has ever encountered gave a portion of their power to him. Not all—not like that trivial stone—but a portion. And then it grew inside him, nurtured by his patience and wisdom and kindness.”

  Patience? Wisdom? Kindness? Had anyone every accused Jam of such things before?

  Gan hugged Jam. “We can go home now,” he said. “I to the Emperor’s house, and you to your true family. But you’re always my brother, Jamaica.”

  Jam hugged him back. And with that, Gan was gone. Vanished. “I sent him home,” the Emperor explained. “He has a wife and children who have needed him for long years now.”

  “What about Mother? I mean Mrs. Fisher? What she did to Gan. To me. Taking away even my memories of my family!”

  The Emperor nodded gravely, then gestured toward Gan’s bed.

  Mrs. Fisher lay there, helpless, her eyes open.

  “I’m kinder to her than she was to Gan,” said the Emperor. “Gan did no wrong, yet she took from him everything but life. I’ve left her eyes and ears to her, and her mouth. She can talk.”

  Then Mr. Laudon stood beside the bed. “And that will be Laudon’s punishment, won’t it, dear lad? To take care of her as Jam once cared for Gan—only you get to hear what she has to say.” The Emperor turned to Jam. “Tell me, Jamaica. Am I just? Is this equitable?”

  “It’s poetic,” said Jam.

  “Then I have achieved even beyond my aspirations. Go home now, Jam, and be a great wizard. Live with kindness, as you have done up to now, and the power that flows to you will be well-used. You have my trust. Do I have your loyalty?”

  Jam sank to his knees. “You had it before you asked.”

  “Then I give you these lands, to be lord where once this poor thing ruled.”

  “But I don’t want to rule over anybody.”

  “The less you rule, the happier your people will be. Assume your duties only when they demand it. Feel free to continue high school, though not at Riddle High, alas. Now go home.”

  And at that moment the house disappeared, and Jam found himself on the sidewalk in front of the home where in fact he had lived for the first twelve years of his life. He remembered now, how he met Mrs. Fisher. She came to the house as a pollster, asking his parents questions about the presidential election. But when Jam came into the room, she rose to her feet and reached for his hand and at that moment he was changed, he remembered growing up with her as his mother, and being Gan’s brother, and the tragic incident where “father” knocked him down and damaged his brain. None of it true. Nothing. She stole his life.

  But the Emperor of the Air had given it back, and more besides.

  The door to the house opened. His real mother stood there, her face full of astonishment. “Michael!” she cried out. “Oh, praise God! Praise him! You’re here! You came home!”

  She ran to him, and he to her, and they embraced on the front lawn. As she wept and kissed him and called out to everyone in the neighborhood that her son was home, he came back, Jam—no, Michael—murmured his thanks to the Emperor of the Air.

  2008

  Ender’s Homecoming

  To: jpwiggin@gso.nc.pub, twiggin@uncg.edu

  From: hgraff%educadmin@ifcom.gov

  Re: When Andrew Returns Home

  Dear John Paul and Theresa Wiggin,

  You understand that during the recent attempt by the Warsaw Pact to take over the International Fleet, our sole concern at EducAdmin was the safety of the children. Now we are finally able to begin working out the logistics of sending the children home.

  We assure you that Andrew will be provided with continuous surveillance and an active bodyguard throughout his transfer from the IF to American government control. We are still negotiating the degree to which the IF will continue to provide protection after the transfer.

  Every effort is being made by EducAdmin to assure that Andrew will be able to return to the most normal childhood possible. However, I wish your advice about whether he should be retained here in isolation until the conclusion of the inquiries into EducAdmin actions during the late campaign. It is quite likely that testimony will be offered that depicts Andrew and his actions in damaging ways, in order to attack EducAdmin through him (and the other children). Here at IFCOM we can keep him from hearing the worst of it; on Earth, no such protection will be possible and it is likelier that he will be called to “testify.”

  Hyrum Graff

  Theresa Wiggin was sitting up in bed, holding her printout of Graff’s letter. “ ‘Called to “testify.” ’ Which means putting him on exhibit as—what, a hero? More likely a monster, since we already have various senators decrying the exploitation of children.”