City at the End of Time
Page 55
CHAPTER 125
* * *
Daniel has never seen anything so beautiful.
He has fought and clawed through countless adversities and fates, and countless bodies, to return to this beginning point. He carries the small rounded piece of green stuff that Mnemosyne left for him in Bidewell’s empty room, an impossible time and distance behind him now. Back then the muse gave him a catalytic remembrance, a trigger of transformation, as if in the future they would meet and know each other again.
What shall he do?
The glowing female pushes through the fog and his knees go weak.
All are here. Who are you?
The face is so lovely—the shape, compelling and impossible, alien and comforting at once; so many shapes, so many limbs, so much power. Something very old, long suppressed, a condensation no more or less mysterious than the time-worn piece in his left hand, rises up in him.
Daniel tries to speak.
I am Sangmer.
You?
Then,
Where have you gone, Pilgrim? Husband? And what have you brought with you?
Daniel holds up his right hand, empty.
You have delivered them?
He nods.
Then it is done. A quorum of shepherds has arrived.
That time-tumbled ovoid in his other hand is like a hardened and constricted piece of the lake that churns and quakes beneath them. Like the pieces that the Shen gathered from all the galaxies they visited, after the Brightness and the end of creation.
A lost piece of Mnemosyne. It will quicken Ishanaxade and return her to what she must become. He can withhold it, deny it, and claim the woman he sought across the Chaos. Or he can present it and lose her forever.
CHAPTER 126
* * *
Ishanaxade looks down upon his sad, ancient body, surrounded and filled by so much pain, travel-worn, cruel, determined to finish his task and return—whatever the cost.
What have we done? she asks him.
What we always do. What we promise to do. Rebirth.
He holds out his left hand.
Ishanaxade unfolds his fingers and takes the fragment. It is not glass, of course. It is a piece of the mother of all thought, of those who see and think, including Daniel—and Sangmer. It is reconciling, which allows memory, and shapes the creation of the Sleeper, when he chooses not to sleep.
If I take this—I will become what I was. What will we be to each other then?
The body of Daniel is pitiful with fear. Already the lake is rising through the base of the glowing triangle, through her blur of feet and glowing legs.
Every few rounds, out of all infinity, we will meet, he tells her. For me, that has to be enough.
The armillary expands again. They cannot see its boundaries.
CHAPTER 127
* * *
Ginny and Jack feel the nightmares pass away. They know that no one will forget them unless it should be so. They see Jebrassy and Tiadba nearby—and together they make four points within the storm as ancient matter reacquaints, according to old rules that come into play only within the Sleeper’s spinning fortress—and just for this moment.
Tiadba and Jebrassy have joined in so many ways, Ginny and Jack are confused—and envious.
Jack and Ginny collect Daniel’s two sum-runners. Daniel is not with them—they do not know where he is.
“Should we?” Jack asks, and holds up the stones and the polyhedron.
“Bidewell would say we should,” Ginny says. “So much pain and effort.”
Jack juggles the remaining pieces, smiling at Ginny. He is thinking of the last words of the Keeper. “I’m not asking Bidewell. I’m asking you.”
“Don’t be arrogant,” she says.
“That’s what I am,” Jack says.
“I do not find it charming.”
“The old gods watch. They’ll forgive us—won’t they?”
“I’m not so sure…”
Jack continues to juggle. His smile is infinitely sweet and distracting. “You choose,” he says.
ENTR’ACTE
* * *
This is the unexpected moment. Gods will never be predicted or judged, their motivations will never be known. Ishanaxade enjoys a brief respite before her own tasks resume. Sangmer is there.
When they part, it will start again—her labor and his solitary quest.
The Sleeper will take over soon. Until then the children will play, all of them, and their play is crude and primal and sweet, the stuff of which dreams will always be made.
Out on a formerly gray domain, Ginny is taking advantage of this interludium, the malleable between-world, and has shaped a vision of Thule. The snowy crags and sun-pinked clouds, the green and yellow and purple fields, the immense patches of bird-haunted heather, the shore-scattered string of ancient castles between which the children can flee and find refuge…her own place, their own adventure.
Jack is content to let her lead.
Jebrassy and Tiadba find this open land enchanting, with its wide blue sky. They particularly love the lingering times between night and day, dusk and dawn. There are no stars, of course. But the sun is bright and full and warm—when clouds don’t gather and rain isn’t falling. The rain is unexpected and delightful.
They have built a small hut in a hidden valley, and have learned how to gather berries and make a fire. Jebrassy, of course, is learning to hunt—after a fashion. There is usually bread on the hearth, should he return empty-handed, which is often, since there are so few animals, and those not very convincing.
Tiadba is growing rounder. They wonder: What happens when a child is born between creations?
Throughout Thule the detail grows. There is a town, with its own library—and a bookstore, already filled with books and a few cats, some with burned toes and singed ears. In the bookstore, five green books appear. On the spine of each is the number—or is it a year?—1298.
One day Ginny opens the first of the five books to read, and notices that the tiniest spider is crawling across the page. She is about to brush it away, but realizes it is the first spider she has seen here. It is not part of the text, and it is not paying any attention to the words beneath its little legs.
The spider between the lines.
In the library, on a windowsill, sits a small round piece of wave-tossed beach glass, the color of pale jade, refracting the changing light of each new dawn.
Then it is gone.
Memory is returning.
Some say, even now, Jack travels with Ginny on all the roads anyone can imagine. Some say you will find them on every street corner, accompanied by two or more cats, asking those who watch what they should do next—how should the puzzle pieces fall?
All stories forever, shaping all fates, until the end of time—or is one story, one life filled with love, sufficient to rekindle time and make paradise?
Waiting for the Sleeper to finally awake.
To this very day, Jack juggles. He never drops anything.
Others say—
In the beginning is the Word.
Lynnwood, Washington
September 28, 2007
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
GREG BEAR is the author of more than twenty-five books, which have been translated into nineteen languages. His most recent novel is Quantico. He has been awarded two Hugos and five Nebulas for his fiction. He is married to Astrid Anderson Bear, and they are parents of two children, Erik and Alexandra. Visit the author’s website at www.gregbear.com.
And there’s more at www.cityattheendoftime.com.
BY GREG BEAR
Darwin’s Radio (Winner of the 2001 Nebula Award for Best Novel)
Darwin’s Children
Dead Lines
Vitals
Blood Music
Moving Mars
and many more
City at the End of Time is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used
fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2008 by Greg Bear
Map copyright © 2008 by Casey Hampton
Impossible armillary sphere design copyright © 1984 by Greg Bear
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Del Rey Books, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
DEL REY is a registered trademark and the Del Rey colophon is a trademark of Random House, Inc.
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA
Bear, Greg.
City at the end of time / Greg Bear.
p. cm.
1. Young adults—Fiction. 2. Time travel—Fiction. 3. Seattle (Wash.)—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3552.E157C58 2008
813'.54—dc22 2008006643
www.delreybooks.com
eISBN: 978-0-345-50713-6
v3.0