by Tad Williams
"Like that Tinto from the Venetian simulation," Paul said. "I was right." Jongleur raised an eyebrow at the name but said nothing. "How did the . . . how did Ava—all those Avas—get into the system? Why did she keep appearing to me?"
Jongleur shrugged. "After she died, when I found that all the stored copies, even those made of Finney and Mudd, had been dumped, I thought there had been some malfunction in the Grail system. It is a huge and fearfully complex enterprise, after all." His eyes narrowed. "I did not realize that the Other—the operating system—had broken the bonds of its confinement, had made its way out of the strait-jacket of the network and into my own system. Even when I . . . saw her for the first time in one of my simulations, I did not understand how one of the copies could have made its way into the Grail network." His back straightened and his jaw set; Paul thought he looked like someone trying to mask either great pain or anger. "I was visiting my Elizabethan simworld. I saw her in Southwark, near the Globe Playhouse, being pursued by two cutthroats who looked like Mudd and Finney. I caught them and immobilized them for later study but she escaped. It was then I realized that all the missing copies must have somehow been dumped into the Grail network, but I still did not suspect the operating system."
"So . . . all the versions of the Twins are just copies?"
It was horrible having to cajole information out of this cruel man, this murderer, but the hunger for answers was too strong.
"No, Finney and Mudd still exist. After . . . what happened with Avialle they were punished—imprisoned, in a sense—but they still work for me. They are the ones that pursued you through the Grail network after your escape."
"But why, damn it?" For a moment the anger came back again in a surge of heat up his spine. It was all he could do to remain seated. "Why me? Why am I so damned important?"
"You? You are nothing. But to my Avialle you were something." The old man scowled and lowered his eyes. "The copies of her, all those ghosts—they were drawn to you. Not that I knew it at first. After Avialle was lost, I kept you imprisoned and unconscious. I still had many questions about what had happened. I implanted a neurocannula and brought you into one of my Grail network simulations so I could . . . investigate."
"So you could torture me," Paul spat.
Jongleur shrugged. "Call it what you will. I have almost no physical life anymore. I wanted you in my realm. But I soon noticed that you had attracted attention from . . . something. It was always fleeting, but I was able to capture traces. It was Avialle—or rather, the duplicate versions of Avialle. They were drawn to you, somehow. They could not keep away from you for long."
"She loved me," Paul said.
"Shut your mouth. You have no right to speak of her now."
"It's true. And my sin was that all I could truly offer her was pity. But that's still more than you can say, isn't it?"
Jongleur stood, pale with fury, and raised his clenched fists. "Pig. I should kill you."
Paul rose too. "You're welcome to try. Go on—you've done everything else to me that you could."
Paul's companions had turned as his argument with Jongleur grew louder. Azador hurried over to them. "Please, my friends, no more fighting. We have an enemy already—and he is enough for us all, eh?"
Paul shrugged his shoulders and sat down. Azador whispered something in Jongleur's ear, then went back to the group gathered around Orlando. Jongleur stared at Paul for a long moment before lowering himself back to the ground. "You will speak no more of that," he said coldly.
"I will speak of what I want. If you hadn't imprisoned her, treated her like something in a museum, none of this would have happened."
"You understand nothing," Jongleur said, but the fire was gone from his voice. "Nothing."
For a while Paul only listened to the distant hissing and popping of the fire, his companions' murmuring conversation. "So you stuck me in that simulation of the First World War," he said at last. "You staked me out. I was the bait,"
Jongleur looked at him as if from a great distance. "I hoped to bring her close enough to capture, yes. Perhaps eventually to gather enough of the copies to reconstitute something close to the real Avialle."
"Why? Was it anything so normal as a father's love? Or was it something less pleasant? Was it just because she was yours, and you wanted back what belonged to you?"
The old man was rigid. "What is in my heart . . . is for no man to know."
"Heart? You have a heart?" He expected anger, but this time Jongleur seemed too chilled and weary even to respond. "So what was it all about, then? All that madness, that bizarre museum of a house and grounds—what did you intend?"
Jongleur did not speak for a long time. "Do you know what an ushabti is?" he said at last.
Paul shook his head, puzzled. "I don't know the word."
"It does not matter," Jongleur said. "In fact, all this talk is worthless. We will both be dead soon. When the system collapses everyone here will die."
"Then if it doesn't matter, you might as well tell me the truth." Paul leaned forward. "You were going to kill me, weren't you? Ava was right about that. You were going to kill me—swat me like a fly. Weren't you?"
Felix Jongleur looked at him for a long, calculating second, then looked down at the fire. "Yes."
Paul sat back with a sick little feeling of triumph. "But why?"
Jongleur shook his head. "It was a mistake—a bad idea. A failed project. It was named for the ushabti of the Egyptian tombs, the tiny statuettes that were meant to wait for the dead Pharaoh in the afterlife."
"I'm not following you. You wanted me to work for you after you were dead?"
Jongleur showed a wintry smile. "Not you. You give yourself too much importance, Mr. Jonas. A common problem with the people of your small island."
Paul swallowed a retort. So the ancient Frenchman wanted to insult the Brits—let him. He had never imagined he would actually get the chance to speak to this man face-to-face. He could not waste the opportunity. "Then who? What?"
"I began the Ushabti Project several years ago, at a time when I felt quite certain that the Grail process was going to fail. The first results on the thalamic splitter were very bad and the Grail network's operating system—the Other, as some call it—was unstable." Jongleur frowned. "I was already very, very old. If the Grail Project did not succeed, I would die. But I did not want to die."
"Who does?"
"Few have the resources I do. Few have the courage to flout humanity's cowardly surrender to death."
Paul held in his impatience. "So . . . you started this . . . Ushakti Project?"
"Ushabti. Yes. If I could not perpetuate my actual self, I would do the next best thing. Like the pharaohs, I would keep my line alive. I would save the sacred blood. I would do this by creating a version of me that would survive my death."
"But you just said that the technology wasn't working. . . ."
"It was not. So I came up with the best alternative I could. I could not escape death, it seemed, so I created a clone."
A number of terrible thoughts began fizzing in Paul's head. "But that's . . . that doesn't make sense. A clone isn't you, it's just your genetics. It would grow up into a very different person, because its experiences . . . would be different. . . ."
"I see you begin to understand. Yes, it would not be me. But if I gave it an upbringing as close to my own as I could, then it would be more like me. Enough like me to appreciate what I had done. Perhaps even enough to resurrect me someday from the Grail copies we had already made, flawed as they were." Jongleur closed his eyes, remembering. "All was prepared. When he reached his maturity and spoke his true name—Hor-sa-iset, Horus the Younger—to my system, it would have served as his access code. That is the true Horus of Egyptian mythology—the Horus born from the dead body of Osiris. All of my secrets would have been his." He frowned, distracted. "If I had already conceived of the Ushabti Project when I was founding the Grail Brotherhood, I would never have given 'Horus' as a code n
ame to that imbecile Yacoubian. . . ."
"Hang on a bit. You . . . you were going to use a clone to recreate your own childhood?" Paul was stunned by the magnitude of the man's lunacy. "On top of a skyscraper?" A thought struck him like a stone. "Oh, my God, Ava? She was going to be. . . ."
"The mother. My mother—or at least the mother of my ushabti. A vessel for the preservation of the blood."
"Christ, you really are mad. Where did you get the poor girl? Was she some actress you hired to play your sainted Mama? She couldn't have been your real daughter, unless you raised her in a genetics lab too." It struck him then, sapping the strength from his body, chilling him to the bone. "Jesus. You did, didn't you? You . . . made her."
Jongleur seemed wearily amused by Paul's astonishment. "Yes. She was another clone of me—modified so she would be female, of course, so actually quite a bit different. You need not look so shocked—the Egyptians married brother to sister. Why should I do less for my own posterity? In fact, I would have used my real mother as the source for Avialle's genetic material, but I could not bring myself to exhume her body. She had rested in the cemetery in Limoux for almost two centuries and she still does. Her bones were left undisturbed." He waved his hand dismissively. "But it made little difference, in any case. The mother was to provide no DNA, after all. She was only to be the host—to carry and bear and then raise my true son."
"God help me, it just gets worse and worse. So Ava was right—she was pregnant!"
"Briefly. But we had a breakthrough on the Grail Project and so I abandoned Ushabti."
"And so you took the embryo back. Then you just . . . kept Ava anyway. Kept her a prisoner."
For a moment, Jongleur's mask of disdain slipped. "I . . . I had come to care for her. My own children have been dead for years. I scarcely know their descendants."
Paul put his head in his hands. "You . . . you. . . ." He took a deep, shuddering breath. "I should just stop, but I can't help asking. What about me? What did you intend to do before Ava ruined your plans by falling in love with me?"
The cold smile returned. "She ruined nothing. I expected her to do just that. My own mother was in love with her tutor. He committed suicide. In her misery she allowed her parents to marry her off to my father but the sadness never left her—it was the thing that shaped the rest of her life. If it had not happened, she would not have been the mother I knew." His smile twisted. "It was those fools Mudd and Finney who let things get out of control. They should have left the two of you alone until we were ready to dispose of you. I had just canceled the Ushabti Project, so what did it matter, anyway?"
"It mattered to me," Paul said, shaken but angry. "It mattered to me and to Ava."
"You are not to speak further of Avialle. I am tired of your familiarity."
Paul squeezed his eyes closed for a moment, fighting the rage that would end all questions and answers. "Then just tell me this—why did you pick me out of all the poor sods in the world? Was it just random? Did you simply choose the first acceptable applicant for this little . . . honor? Or was there something particular about me?"
When he looked up, the old man's eyes were glassy and dead again. "Because you went to Cranleigh."
"What?" It was the last answer he expected. "What are you talking about—my public school?"
Jongleur's sneer was almost a sign of weakness—the first such sign from him Paul had seen. "I was sent there as a child. The English boys singled me out as a foreigner and a weakling. They tortured me."
"And because of that you chose me? You were going to murder me just because I went to Cranleigh?" Paul laughed despite himself, a painful, near-hysterical flutter at the top of his lungs. "Christ, I hated that place. The older boys treated me just like they treated you." Except for Niles, he remembered, and the thought brought another with it. "So what happened to me afterward—the real me. Am I dead like Ava? Did you have me killed?"
The old man had lost his fire. "No. We arranged an automobile accident, but not with your real body. That is still quite safe in one of the project's laboratories and, as far as I know, quite alive. The remains that were sent back to England were those of a vagrant. There was no need for British authorities to doubt the identification of the body."
But even if I'm not really dead, I might as well be, he thought. Niles isn't shifting heaven and earth to find me, that's certain. He's given that "remember good old Paul Jonas?" speech a long time ago now. "How long?" he asked.
Jongleur looked at him in confused irritation. "What?"
"How long have I been in your damned system? How long since you killed your daughter and as good as killed me?"
"Two years."
Paul struggled up onto his feet, legs weak, knees trembling. He could not sit across from the murderer any longer. Two years. Two years obliterated and his life ruined, for nothing. For a failed, insane project. Because he had gone to a particular school. It was the bleakest joke imaginable. He stumbled away from the fire, toward the Well. He wanted to weep but he couldn't.
Orlando was stirring, even fighting a little. Reluctantly, Sam let go of him and sat up. "Is he okay?"
"He is just awakening, I think," said Florimel.
Over T4b's shoulder, Sam saw Paul Jonas abruptly stand and stagger away across the camp, heading toward the pit. Remembering !Xabbu, she was torn between fear for Paul and an absolute unwillingness to leave Orlando, but Martine was already rising to her feet.
"I will go with Paul," she said. "I can wait to speak to Orlando."
Orlando's eyelids flickered, then opened. He looked at the faces leaning over him. "I had the most amazing dream," he said after a few seconds. "You were in it—and you, and you, and you!" His lips trembled. "That's kind of a joke." He burst into tears.
Sam wrapped her arms around the weeping barbarian. "It's okay. We're here. I'm here. You're okay."
Florimel cleared her throat and stood. "There are many injured all around. I will see if I can be of any help." None of the others had risen. Florimel looked sternly at T4b. "Javier, I am still upset that you lied to us, but I will be closer to forgiving you if you come and help me."
"But, want to check out Orlando, me. . . ." he began, then the look on Florimel's face sank in. "Yeah, seen, coming." He stood, then reached back down to pat Orlando. "Lockin' miracle, you got. Praise God, seen?"
"Nandi, Mrs. Simpkins, perhaps you could help me, too?" asked Florimel. "And Azador—surely some of your people are in need of attention as well."
"All right, I don't need to have a house fall on me," said Bonita Mae Simpkins. She too leaned down to touch Orlando before she got up. "Javier's right, boy—it's a miracle you're back with us. We'll leave you young ones alone for a little while. Sure you got lots to talk about."
Sam made a face at their retreating backs. "You'd think we were in love or something."
Orlando smiled wearily. "Yeah, you'd think." His eyes and cheeks were still wet. He rubbed at his face with the back of his hand. "This is so embarrassing—Thargor never cries."
Sam's heart was pierced again. "Oh, Orlando, I missed you so much. I never thought I'd see you again." Now she was crying, too. She angrily dabbed at her eyes with the tattered sleeve of her Gypsy shirt. "Damn, this is so stupid. You're going to start thinking of me as a girl."
"But you are a girl, Frederico," he said gently. "This may be the first time I've ever seen you look like one, but you're definitely a girl."
"Not to you! Not to you, Gardiner! You treat me like a person!"
He sighed. "I recognized your voice when I first . . . came back. I saw you trying to come and help me against those things. I could have killed you myself. What were you thinking?"
"I wasn't going to sit there and watch you get murdered, you impacted idiot! I already thought you were dead once."
"I was dead, I am dead."
"Don't talk fenfen."
"It's not." He reached for her hand. "Listen, Sam. This is important—really important. Whatever else happens, y
ou have got to understand this. I don't want to see you get hurt anymore."
Something about his tone touched her, made her heart flutter. It wasn't love, certainly not the kind the kids at school and on the net talked about, but something wider, deeper, and more strange. "What do you mean?"
"I died, Sam. I know I did. I felt it. I was fighting with that thing, that Grail bastard with the bird's head. . . ." He paused. "Whatever happened there, anyway?"
"You killed it," she said proudly. "T4b stuck his hand into its head—that glowing hand, do you remember? And then you stabbed it right in the heart with your sword, and it fell on you. . . ." She suddenly remembered. "Oh, your sword. . . !"
Orlando waved the interruption away. "It's right here in my hand. Listen, Sam, I was fighting with that bird-thing and everything in me was . . . shutting down. I could feel it. And afterward I was gone—utterly gone! I was somewhere else, and . . . and I can't even explain. Then it was black, and then I was swimming up through the lights here and I knew I had to kill those two things, and . . . and. . . ." He frowned and tried to sit up but Sam gently pushed him back down. "And I don't even know, really. But I know one thing. The other Orlando, the one with progeria, the one with a mom and a dad and a body . . . he's gone."
"What are you talking about?"
"Remember what they were saying at that Grail Brotherhood ceremony? About how you had to leave your body behind to live on the net? Well, I think that's what happened to me. I don't know how, but . . . but I was dying, Sam! And now I'm not. I can tell."
"But that's good, Orlando—that's wonderful!"
He shook his head. "I'm a ghost, Sam. My body—that Orlando—is dead, I can never go back."
"Go back. . . ?" It was beginning to sink in now, cold, inescapable. "You can't. . . ?"
"I can't go back to the real world. Even if we survive all this, even if all the rest of you make it back . . . I can't go with you." He looked at her for a long moment, his eyes wide, almost fevered. Then his expression softened. "Damn, Fredericks, you're crying again." He reached out and caught a tear on her cheek, holding it up to sparkle in the firelight. "Don't do that."