by Tad Williams
"Mr. Ramsey," Sellars interrupted, "at this moment I am already swimming in information—no, drowning. I am surrounded by data, more data than you can imagine. Every nerve in my body is about to catch fire and burn to carbon." Sellars took a shaky breath. "So will you do me a favor and shut the hell up?"
"Sure. Sure, yes."
"Good. I have to talk to Olga. While I'm doing that, I need you to go next door and talk to the Sorensens. If I have time, I'll join you and speak to them myself. This is critically important. If they're not there you have to find them immediately."
"Got it."
"And when I get done with Olga, I want you on the other line with her."
"Me? But. . . ?"
In remarkably few words, Sellars explained what he had discovered and was shortly going to tell Olga Pirofsky. Ramsey felt as though he had been kicked in the gut by a horse.
". . . So perhaps now you can understand why I want you with her when I've finished," Sellars said a bit harshly. He was maintaining his calm, but clearly at a price.
"Christ." Ramsey looked at the screen, barely able to focus. "Oh, Christ. Oh, God." Olga's feet were still in view, stepping out of the elevator and onto a carpeted floor. "She's . . . she's just getting out."
"I know," said Sellars, a little more gently now. "Go and talk to the Sorensens, will you, please?" And then he was gone.
"Who the hell was that?" demanded Beezle. "Sucker cut me right off, booted me off the line."
"I can't talk now," Ramsey told the agent. "Oh, my God, I can't believe this. Just stay on the line. I'll be back."
"Jeez," said Beezle. "This'll teach me to quit working with meat."
"So is there nothing left we can do?" Florimel asked angrily. "Again we must wait?"
"Unless we can discover some way out," said Martine, "we have little choice."
Orlando sat up and stretched his long arms, then tested the point of his sword with his fingertip. It was an old, familiar Thargor gesture, and it distracted Sam just as she was trying to remember something important. For a moment she could almost believe they were back in the Middle Country, in a world where games had rules. Thargor was here. Didn't that mean they would win? Thargor always won,
But there is no Thargor, she thought sadly, not really. There's just Orlando and he already got killed once. She looked to the unreal gray wall of cloud. And even if we can't see him at the moment, that guy Dread is still out there. Sam felt like a mouse caught away from its hole, being stalked by an unhurried cat.
I'm really going to die, she thought. It hadn't quite hit her before—there had always been hope, or at least distraction. Now nothing remained between her and nothingness but the last defenses of the dying system. I'm never going to see Mom or Dad again. My school. Even my stupid room . . .
"What about this child?" asked Nandi Paradivash. "You said he was the emissary of the man Sellars."
"Ain't no messary, vato," snarled the little boy Cho-Cho, who was sitting so far away from the others that the nearest person to him was the unsocial Felix Jongleur. "He never touch me—I cut anyone who try that. Me, I'm just helping him out."
"That's what it means, boy," said Bonnie Mae Simpkins. "An emissary's a helper. Someone who carries messages."
"But what message?" Florimel had calmed a little since the Twins had been dispatched but she was still edgy, her anger barely controlled. Looking around at the wreckage left by the Twins' attack, hundreds of miserable survivors still huddled around the edge of the Well and too many victims still lying where they had fallen, Sam couldn't really blame her. Any of the cowering fairy-tale folk could be Florimel's daughter or Renie's brother, but random questioning had confirmed that none of them seemed to remember a prior life. "What message?" Florimel repeated. "We know nothing. We continue in absolute ignorance as we have since the beginning!"
"Has Sellars said anything to you?" Martine asked the little boy. "Can you hear him at all?"
"Not since that dog-head mamalocker pulled the roof off that place," Cho-Cho said sullenly. "He just ditched me, like."
"So it seems we won't get much from Sellars." Paul said wearily. "What next?"
Felix Jongleur pierced the uncomfortable silence. "It is a miracle you have all stayed alive so long. Democracy is a frightening thing, seen up close."
"Shut up," Florimel snapped. "You pig-dog, you want to see the frightening side of democracy? Remember, there are a lot of us and then there is just you."
"The idea was that he would be useful," said Paul slowly. Sam had never seen him looking so cold and angry. "Well, it's about time he was. It may be too late to do us much good, but I'd still like some answers. About the operating system—about the whole thing. . . ."
Several of the others seemed to agree: an increasingly unhappy murmur rose around the campfire. They all turned to look at Jongleur, who accepted their attention with his usual flat, forbidding gaze, but Sam thought she saw something else just beneath, something peculiar. Was he ashamed? Frightened? He seemed almost . . . nervous.
"Come, friend," Azador called from his seat next to Martine. "These people have questions. Put their minds at rest."
Paul turned on the Gypsy. "And you, Azador—what is your problem? Do you know who your so-called friend really is? That's Felix Jongleur, the man who ran the Grail Brotherhood. Remember the bastards you went on and on about, the ones who chased you and imprisoned all your people, who used them to make their machines work? That's the head of it all—that man, right there."
Sam held her breath, wondering if Azador would now attack Jongleur as Paul had earlier. It was a miracle, really, that the secret she and !Xabbu had agreed to keep should have lasted so long. . . .
"!Xabbu!" she said out loud, suddenly remembering.
Azador was not listening. He peered intently at Jongleur, then at Paul Jonas. Finally he shrugged, oddly embarrassed. "It seems a long, long time ago."
"What?" Paul was almost screaming. "Good Lord, this man has been killing your people but you're just going to let bygones be bygones because you're you're . . . bloody chums now? How can you?"
"Because it never happened," Jongleur said scornfully. "These are his people, what is left of them." He waved his hand to indicate the wreckage of the wagons, the remaining Gypsy men and women huddled around their fires. "Everything else was fantasy."
"!Xabbu!" Sam said, louder this time. "Everybody, I utterly forgot about !Xabbu because of those monsters, and Orlando, and . . . and everything. He went into that pit—he dived in! I went in after him but it spit me out and I couldn't get him. He thought Renie was down there!"
This set the circle around the campfire buzzing.
"Then he is gone, Sam," Florimel said at last. There was something softer and sadder in her tone now.
"Orlando came back from there!" Sam said angrily.
"That is different, Sam," Martine told her. "You know that it is."
Because he isn't alive like !Xabbu, Sam thought but didn't say. That's what she means. Deep down, much as she hated it, she knew Martine was right. Several of her companions were all talking at once now. Because Orlando didn't come back from there, he was . . . born from there.
"There is an easy way to find out if she is there," said Jongleur loudly. A sour smile played around the edge of his mouth. "But I am sure you have thought of it already and need no assistance from a monster like me."
"Don't push your luck," Martine warned him. "If you have something useful to say, do so."
"Very well. Do you still have your communication device? I was with the woman Renie when you called her before. Why not call her again?"
"My God," Martine said. "My God, with everything going on I had completely forgotten." She pulled a chunky silver lighter from the pocket of her coveralls.
"How did you get that?" Sam asked, completely confused. "Renie had it!"
"It is a copy," Martine told her. "I will explain later."
Sam saw the glint of satisfaction—or perhaps something else—in
the hawk-faced man's eyes. She jumped to her feet and pointed at Jongleur. "Don't let him get near it!"
He spread his hands. "I am on the other side of the fire. There are, as you pointed out, many of you and only one of me."
Martine lifted the lighter. "Renie," she said, "can you hear me? It's Martine. Renie, are you there?"
For long moments, there was nothing.
"Can you hear me, Renie?"
Then suddenly her familiar voice was in their midst, as close and clear as if she had joined them at the campfire. "Martine? Martine, is that you?"
Martine laughed with delight. "Renie! Oh, what a blessing to hear you. Where are you?"
"I'm . . . I don't really know. Inside the operating system, I guess. But that's only the beginning of how bizarre this all is. !Xabbu is with me. . . ."
"!Xabbu!" Sam found herself crying again. "He's alive!"
"Can you hear Sam Fredericks?" Martine said, still laughing. "She. . . ."
Something knocked Martine to the ground. Sam shouted and stood up. Orlando, still sore and weary, took a full two seconds to struggle to his feet beside her. Azador stood over Martine, the lighter in his hand and a hugely triumphant grin on his face.
"I have it back!" he shouted. "I have it back!"
The voice seemed to come out of nowhere.
"Renie," it said, "can you hear me? It's Martine. Renie, are you there?"
She had fallen into a sort of half-drowse, exhaustion having finally overwhelmed everything else, and for a long moment she could not even remember where she was.
"!Xabbu, what's going on?" She stared at the dry pan, the thorn bushes and the brightly starred sky, trying to imagine where Martine could be. Could you dream inside a dream?"
"Can you hear me, Renie?" Martine asked again.
"It is in your kaross." !Xabbu pointed at the antelope-hide garment she wore. Renie fumbled out the device. It was still a lighter, just as it had always been, although it now seemed the most unlikely object in an entire, unlikely world. She pressed hot points in sequence, praying she had remembered the right order. "Martine? Martine, is that you?"
"Renie! Oh, what a blessing to hear you. Where are you?"
She looked at !Xabbu, then down at the small shape of Grandfather Mantis crouched at the bottom of the gulley beside the trickling stream. It lay on its side now, legs drawn up. It must still be breathing, she thought distractedly, or all this would be gone.
But do gods breathe? she wondered an instant later.
"I'm . . . I don't really know. Inside the operating system, I guess. But that's only the beginning of how bizarre this all is. !Xabbu is with me. . . ."
"Can you hear Sam Fredericks?" Martine sounded absolutely joyful. Renie felt tears spring to her eyes. "She. . . ."
Abruptly, the transmission stopped.
"Martine?" Renie asked after a moment. "Martine, are you still there?" She turned to !Xabbu. "It just . . . cut off."
The mantis stirred. She could hear its words in her head but they were desperately soft, "You should not . . . should not have spoken. The All-Devourer will follow your words now. It will come straight here."
"Did you cut us off?" Renie crawled to her feet, aware as she did so of the absurdity of standing up to shout at a dying insect. "Those are our friends!"
"Too late. Too late for them." It was only a whisper, faint and distant. "All we had left . . . was a little time. And now it is gone."
"Martine!" Renie shouted at the lighter. "Martine, talk to me!" But when the device finally spoke again it was not Martine's voice she heard.
Azador backed away from the blind woman, who was already struggling up onto her knees, apparently not badly hurt. "Mine!" he said feverishly. "They thought they could take it from me—my gold! But Azador does not forget!"
Orlando snarled and raised his sword, but before he could take a step toward the thief someone shouted, "Nobody move!"
With a nightmarish, underwater feeling, Sam turned to see that Felix Jongleur had snatched up the boy Cho-Cho, who struggled like a scalded cat until Jongleur laid the broken blade of Orlando's old sword against the child's throat.
"I am not bluffing," said Jongleur. "Unless you wish to see your only connection to this man Sellars killed before your eyes you will sit down and stay seated." He turned a baleful stare on Orlando. "Especially you."
Azador moved toward Jongleur, the lighter in his cupped hands, a look of reverence on his face. "Look—is it not beautiful? You were right, my friend. You said the blind woman would have it and you were right!"
Jongleur smiled. "You have been very patient. Will you let me see it?"
Azador stopped, his joy suddenly turned to suspicion. "You cannot touch it."
"I do not want to touch it," Jongleur said. "I only wanted to look, to make sure they had not tricked you—you heard what they said about a copy."
"It is no copy!" Azador said indignantly. "I would know! This is mine!"
"Of course," said Jongleur.
Cho-Cho suddenly wrenched free of the old man's grip and dashed away across the Gypsy encampment. Azador turned to watch the boy go, and as he did, Jongleur grabbed Azador and set the broken blade against his neck then dragged it across his throat. Already gurgling blood, the Gypsy turned toward his supposed ally in amazement and tried to strike at him, but Jongleur grabbed his arm. Azador sagged and fell to the ground. Jongleur stood over him, holding the lighter in his red-smeared hand.
"Bastard!" shouted Paul Jonas. Orlando said nothing but was already moving toward the bald man.
Jongleur held up the lighter. "Careful. I could easily throw it into the Well from here, couldn't I? Then you have lost your friend Renie."
Orlando stopped short, breathing like a mastiff on a choke chain, his whole face disfigured by fury,
"I knew it!" Sam darted a look at Azador. The Gypsy's blood had made a blackish puddle on the shadowy ground beneath him. His dying eyes were still wide in astonishment. "I knew it!" she screamed at the old man. "You liar! You murderer!"
Jongleur laughed. "Liar? Yes, certainly. Murderer? Perhaps, but not if you mean him." He poked Azador with the toe of his Gypsy boot. "He is not even a person. He is another copy, just like the Twins. Just like my Avialle."
"Copy?" asked Paul haltingly.
"Yes—a copy of me," Jongleur said. "A rather poor and incomplete one from early in the process, given a home here by our rogue operating system. Perhaps it was taken while I was sleeping, I cannot remember. It certainly seems to have been dominated by a parade of my boyhood fantasies. That ridiculous Gypsy camp, the kind that only ever existed in Victorian fiction—I recognized it immediately." He smirked. "When I was a child I used to pretend that I came from such a place, not from my so-boring home and my so-boring parents."
"What do you think you have accomplished, Jongleur?" demanded Martine Desroubins, her face still smeared with dirt from Azador's assault. "This is a standoff. We will not let you escape with the lighter."
"Ah, but you cannot stop me." He showed his teeth in a predatory grin. "I have been waiting very patiently for this. Now I am going home to pull the plug on you and my ex-employee and my entire recalcitrant system. Be grateful—there should be no pain. I imagine your hearts will simply stop." Jongleur held the lighter up. "Priority Override," he said. "Tears of Ra."
An instant later he was gone, vanished entirely from the dead lands beside the Well.
CHAPTER 44
Stolen Voices
* * *
NETFEED/NEWS: Arizona-The Voucher Society?
(visual: Thornley in front of state capital building)
VO: Arizona's first Libertarian governor, Durwood Thornley, is proposing to extend the school voucher system to a whole variety of taxpayer opt-outs, and his critics are not very happy about it. Thornley's proposed system would allow a variety of ways to reroute taxes for services that the individual taxpayer does not want to support. As an example, Thornley's staffers suggest that people without cars could rede
em their roadbuilding vouchers for repair work on patios and sidewalks, or taxpayers without pets could use animal control vouchers to pay for extermination of unwanted house and yard pests. . . .
* * *
For a moment he feared that the override had not worked—that somehow the system had managed to undo its own basic programming—but the moment of darkness dissolved into the familiar depthless gray of his own system. He could feel his body again—not the robust physicality of the false form but his actual dying body, floating in its tank, maintained only by the careful attention of countless expensive machines. But for all the horror of returning to his true condition, it was still a wonderful feeling.
Felix Jongleur was home.
And now to trigger the Apep Sequence. There was no question the Other had to be destroyed, especially if Dread had it in his control. It was a shame to lose the millions of hours of work that had gone into it but this particular operating system had long since proved his worst fears to be underestimations.
It would be a shame if the Grail network itself should suffer too much damage, though. It was not the people trapped in it that worried Jongleur—he had not a single qualm about killing Paul Jonas and the rest, especially since as far as he was concerned Jonas had been on borrowed time for two years—but he did not know how well the network would survive being shut down. Even with a backup operating system in place there would doubtless be huge losses in detail and responsiveness, since the system had been geared to the unique and astonishing capacities of the system known as the Other. And beside Jonas and his friends, anyone else still in the network, and thus still hooked into the Other's peculiar matrix, would doubtless die as well. He could not even be sure that the ghost-versions of Avialle would survive, although as code they should remain in memory when the network was revived.