The Book of the Night

by Pearl North

  At the top were some numbers: 5.1.3037.

  Maybe it was the date. They’d have their own calendar system. Or would they need one if they were outside of time? She set aside the question and began to read.

  It will be my upgrade day tomorrow and in celebration, my parents are taking me and my friends to BookWorld. There’s already been a great deal of discussion between Lysander and myself over what book we want to play in. They have everything there, and it’s constantly updated so you don’t have to wait, even if you want a story that someone just published on some obscure little meta site. It’s kind of fun to browse. Everything is in Old Earth book form. It’s so romantic. Mom gave me this paper diary, so I could make my own notes in a book just like the ones they have. Just like Old Earth.

  They even have nonfiction titles, but who would want to play one of those I have no idea. Probably Dylan, he’s such a geek.

  All of the adults are talking about the flu pandemic. A lot of people are sick and can’t get upgrades. Nancy’s mom was afraid to let her go and she almost talked all of the parents into canceling the trip, but Lysander’s dad said they were all a bunch of scaredy cats and he convinced even Nancy’s mom to let her go. So it’s all set.

  5.2.3037

  OMG, Lysander and I spent all day with Yammon today. This is so cool. We found him after he was captured by the Heteropisceans and tortured, so we got to take care of him. Tomorrow we’re going to go with him to Tarsus and help him look for the wing. But we can’t tell him where it is. Whenever we try to do something that would interfere with the story as it’s written, our words just don’t come out. No one can hear them. The idea is that people want to experience the story as it’s written. Lysander and I think that’s stupid. We want to be in the story, changing it, creating it anew; we want to be characters ourselves, not just spectators.

  5.4.3037

  So, Grant brought an uplink with him. The idea behind coming to BookWorld is to get away from real life for a while, but Grant can’t do without his ChitChat. So anyway, tonight he was checking his messages and he caught a news clip about the pandemic. It’s getting much worse. People can’t get upgrades because nobody can say for sure that the source code hasn’t been corrupted. I can’t believe this. I was supposed to upgrade next week. This is so unfair!

  5.5.3037

  Lysander found me pouting about not being able to upgrade and she gave me what-for. “Don’t you realize people are dying?” she said.

  Dying? We don’t die. That’s ridiculous. That’s what makes us better than meat puppets like the ones created for BookWorld. They die, we don’t. We upgrade. We just keep getting smarter and more powerful and better. How can we die?

  I told Lysander she wanted to be a meat puppet. I told her she was so in love with Yammon that she’d lost all perspective. She’s forgotten that he’s just a character in a book. Not real like us.

  5.10.3037

  Dylan has a pen. I saw him with it yesterday after we got back from the climactic battle. He was writing in the air, something about all the machines having faces. He must have stolen the pen from his mother, the engineer. I’m going to tell Lysander about it. She hasn’t been speaking to me because I said she wanted to be a meat puppet but she’ll forgive me now. If we can get the pen from Dylan, we can make Yammon fall in love with us.

  5.12.3037

  Our parents were supposed to come and get us today. They didn’t show up. Grant is not getting updates on his link. It’s like the whole world is down. We’re sitting here at the BookStation, where they told us to wait for them. The Book of the Night is still playing so there’s nothing to see for miles around but rocky desert and little scrubby bushes. I’d give my cookies just to check my messages. I’m sure there’s a reason they’re late, and if we had access to our mail, our in-boxes would probably be overflowing with messages from them explaining everything. But the fucking link is down. How can that be? The link hasn’t been down since before our parents aggregated. That’s old-school, meat puppet shit, systems going down.

  5.25.3037

  It’s been a week since I wrote in this. Our parents still haven’t showed. Most of my friends think they’re not coming. They think the pandemic killed everyone. They think we’re alive only because we’ve been unlinked since we’ve been here, and they think Grant might spread the disease to us through his link. I can hear him screaming even now, though I think he’s getting weaker. I just want to go home.

  The next entry was dated 7.1.3972. If the first two numbers were months and days, and the last one was the year, then it had been hundreds of years since Endymion’s last entry. It read:

  The Book of the Night is playing again, and none of us can stop it because Pierce has written that we can’t. It’s hard to believe now that this was once my favorite book, that I chose over all the others, to be enacted for my birthday. I swear to the Seven Transcendent, if I ever get hold of the pen again, I’m going to set the characters free from their narrative and let the meat puppets take over this whole stupid world.

  8.20.4011

  The Devouring Silences were slave takers in The Book of the Night, but now Lysander and I have reconfigured them to be much more. Pierce must not be permitted to rewrite reality with the pen. He must be opposed. Lysander and Rebecca and I took a Devouring Silence apart and have reconfigured it to seek out rewritten parts of the book and erase them. If it works, we’ll capture as many more as we can and reconfigure those as well. For the first time, I feel like there’s hope for opposing Pierce and his regime.

  3.9.4012

  Lysander and I have the pen again! Pierce was so stupid. He got drunk on the Song and left it sitting in plain sight when he passed out.

  Well, we don’t have to worry about him anymore. And now, with the changes we made to the Devouring Silences, we’ll never be powerless again!

  3.9.4052

  I can’t believe it. Lysander has betrayed me. She refuses to liberate the meat puppets. And she won’t play any new books, either. All she wants to do is work on her pet project, Ilysies, which isn’t even part of the book to begin with. But if we play a new book—I want Bone Dance—it’ll kill all the meat puppets and re-terraform the whole world, so of course she doesn’t want that, because Ilysies would be destroyed, too.

  I’m going out of my mind. If I have to watch this stupid book play out one more time—even with the variations we made—I’m going to kill them all myself.

  The worst part is the end. They’re so happy. They’re celebrating, and the next instant, they’re all just gone. And when they come back again, they’re slaves again and they have to do it all over.

  4.26.4052

  Lysander’s been reading this. To punish me for speaking against her, she’s using the pen to create “stage plays” in the old theater. It’s horrible. She makes the rest of us watch. I thought Pierce was bad but she’s much worse. I have to figure out a way to stop her. Either get the pen away from her somehow, or … I don’t know, something else.

  1.12.4389

  Rebecca and I are working on a project in secret. I have a way of hiding this journal from everyone now. Even Lysander. She must not know what we’re up to.

  The first thing is, we must determine if the characters are capable of making the transition from meat puppets to independent beings. I’ve taken Iscarion as a boy and I’m experimenting on him to find out. He hates it. Hates me, but I have to know. If we do this thing it has to be for something. It’s too terrible otherwise.

  3.19.4393

  I let Iscarion go back to his narrative today. They are overthrowing a powerful regime so there’s no need to free them from their narrative just yet. I’ve told Rebecca to go ahead with the device. If we start on it now it should be ready in time. The best time to employ it will be just as the characters are storming the Corvariate Citadel.

  6.30.4393

  All is in readiness. Rebecca and I have drawn straws to determine which of us will operate the device. It will be me. I’m no
t sure if I’ve won or lost.

  7.3.4393

  Lysander has commanded all of us to come to the citadel for a special performance. The timing is good. The characters will be at the height of their revolutionary fervor. Belrea, of course, is in what will become Ilysies again. But it doesn’t matter. Wherever they are I will reach them all.

  I will take the wing up and beam the key frequency across the whole planet.

  The great discovery of our parents, the frequency that transcends dimensions, will liberate the meat puppets into real people who are capable of independent action.

  And transcend us to the next level, whatever that might be. Perhaps it’s death.

  Except for me. I must remain to do the thing, to fly the wing and send the energy out.

  7.3.4393

  I will make them whole individuals with free will. It will kill us.

  7.4.4393

  It’s done. And it worked!

  I sank the wing off the coast of what used to be Tarsus and let myself be captured by Yammon and his followers.

  Already they are deviating from the novel. Surely that’s a good sign.

  Now if only I could die, like my friends.

  That was the last entry. Gyneth had been right. On some level, she’d known he was right but she wouldn’t accept it.

  Endymion and her friends were as advanced in comparison to humans as a human was to a fly. They might as well have been gods. And they were children.

  Haly put the journal in her satchel next to the orb that held what remained of Endymion’s consciousness. She got up and started walking.

  * * *

  It took her another day, maybe longer, but she at last located Scaramouch and from there made her way back to the little doorway in the Alcove of the Fly that had once been the community’s main access to the books.

  “Haly!” cried Selene as she made her way to the console. “Seven Tales! We thought you were lost for good! Do you know how long you’ve been down there?”

  Others gathered—Siblea, Peliac, Burke. She didn’t want to talk to any of them.

  “Haly!” It was Clauda, pushing past everyone else. Haly would have avoided her if she could but she was too tired. “Look at you! You’re covered in dust. Oh, it’s so good to see you!” Clauda hugged her. The warmth of her embrace could not penetrate the cold inside Haly, just as the Song could not penetrate it.

  Clauda released her and stood back. “Where’s Gyneth? Oh…” She cast a stricken look at Selene, who reached out for Haly as well. “Oh.”

  “He fell into a vortex of words at the bottom of the Libyrinth,” said Haly. “He’s gone.”

  “Gone?” said Clauda. She grasped Haly by the arm. “You mean gone gone?”

  Haly nodded. “Yes. Dead gone. He—” She couldn’t talk about it.

  “Haly, I’m so sorry. What happened?” Selene reached out to her.

  Haly couldn’t bear it. Their concern, their kindness, could not bring Gyneth back. All it did was make her feel his loss even more. “Here.” She shoved Endymion’s journal at Selene’s outstretched hand. “You’ll find this interesting. Excuse me.” She left the Great Hall and walked out of the Libyrinth, through Tent Town, and out to the low hill where she and Gyneth had left the Devouring Silence.

  22

  Anything

  Haly got back into the Devouring Silence and interfaced with it. She dove into the ground again and tunneled. This time she let her tongue slide out and taste the words of her world.

  “Belrea set the last mirror in place and the dawn light struck it, turning the silvery surface to golden fire. The next mirror caught it and the next and the next, until from where she stood she could see all the windows of the Temple of Night ablaze with daylight. Shouts and cries poured forth from the windows as well. Belrea retreated to the cover of a doorway to one of the slave quarters—now deserted—just in time as guards and Ancients came running out of the temple.

  “But their flight availed them not, for now they were caught in the broad light of day, which they could not abide.

  “As they writhed in the sunlight, smoke rising from their burning skin, Yammon and Iscarion’s army attacked, swiftly putting them out of their misery.

  “It was all over in moments.

  “Yammon wiped the ichor from his sword and came to her, Iscarion at his side.

  “‘They’re gone,’ he said. ‘The Ancients can enslave us no more.’

  “She put her arms around him and held him close, lifting her face up, into the wide blue sky of a new day.

  “And now, the descendents of Yammon and Belrea populate the Plain of Ayor.”

  She paused. Those last words were not part of the paperback Book of the Night. Their texture was different, too—rougher, coarser. And they tasted sweet, like apricots and cream, and toasty, like roasted hazelnuts. Haly’s favorite dish was fresh apricots with milk and hazelnuts. And she was hungry.

  But what would happen if she ate those words? She pulled away and tunneled away as fast as she could before she devoured those words.

  What would have happened if she had eaten them? If their world was made of words and the numbing effects of the Silence’s tongue were activated by the act of eating, was that like erasing those words and with them the reality they described?

  There’d been no effect from tasting the words that were part of the paperback novel The Book of the Night, but she hadn’t been tempted to eat those. She surfaced and found herself on the outskirts of a village. In the distance she saw people farming. All was peaceful, for now. They hadn’t noticed her and they hadn’t fallen unconscious or disappeared as the result of her “tasting” those words. The drive to eat had been clearly separate from simply touching and tasting with her tongue. Did that mean that the Silence had to decide to use its tongue to numb people and carry them away? That it was a separate act from simply sensing things?

  As she continued to explore, she was able to detect three different kinds of world-writing: original material left over from when The Book of the Night was playing; things written with the pen; and things which, because they had transpired since the book player had ceased functioning, were part of the world but had not been consciously written by anyone.

  It was only the second kind that she concerned herself with.

  “Everyone living in the Plain of Ayor is loyal to Thela Tadamos.” Haly devoured it.

  “Po can only do what makes me happy.” Haly-in-the-Silence ate that one as well.

  “The three people tangled with Po on the floor of his chambers in the Ilysian Palace are gone.” She ate that, too.

  Line by line she erased all that Thela had written, but she couldn’t bring Gyneth back no matter what she did.

  * * *

  For a time Po seemed to be gaining ground on the breaks in the world, but suddenly great chasms opened up around him. Whole paragraphs disappeared right out from under him. He’d been joining “The sky during the day is blue, except when there are clouds” with “The sky at night is black and filled with stars, except when there are clouds,” using an “and” he’d salvaged from a disintegrating fragment. Suddenly the whole part about the clouds and the day and the night and the blue broke away. He tried to cling to them but the force was too great. He knew that if he let go it would cast the world into eternal darkness. He hung on, but the words still drifted away from one another into incoherence. He dissolved with them, bits of him floating off in all directions, clinging futilely to isolated words, meaningless.

  * * *

  The earth shook and great chasms opened up. The sky flickered from blue to black to magenta to a checkerboard pattern, and every silverleaf bush in sight became an Old Earth fire hydrant.

  Selene held Clauda tight at her side and lifted her arm to ward off the sheets of burning paper that rained down from the sky.

  “What’s happening?” cried Clauda.

  “I think what Haly’s doing with her Devouring Silence is making the destabilization worse.”

/>   “You think?”

  They ran toward the shelter of an overturned cart. “I’m going to take the wing up,” said Clauda. “Maybe there’s something I can do.”

  “No!” Selene had to shout because suddenly the twelfth movement of the Losian Concerto blasted at high volume with every gust of wind. “It’s too dangerous. Anything can happen to you up there now.”

  Clauda took Selene’s face in both her hands and drew her down for a kiss. The earth trembled again and they both fell. “Darling, anything can happen to us anywhere now. In fact, I think this”—she gestured at the surrounding chaos—“is the definition of anything.”

  Selene wanted to stop her but there was no stopping her, and it wouldn’t have been right, even if there was. And she knew that. “I’ll come with you.”

  “No.”

  “Clauda!”

  “You can’t do anything from inside the wing, Selene. You left me behind once and told me you needed me to come up with the other half of the plan. Remember?”

  She remembered. Clauda had been so ill she couldn’t even walk and Selene had left her behind in Thela’s clutches, certain that Clauda would think of something, certain that she could be more effective on her own than she’d be following Selene.

  Clauda nodded. “Now it’s your turn. Think of something.”

  Before Selene could say another word, or even hug or kiss her goodbye, Clauda was up and away. Selene watched her run across a field of tablespoons and climb into the wing.

  She was relieved when the wing became airborne but whether Clauda was really safer up there—an enormous bird flew through a crack in the sky and suddenly burst into hundreds of smaller birds—was anybody’s guess.

  Selene spotted a group of people running toward the Libyrinth. Among them was Siblea. He had a book in his hand.

  Selene knew she didn’t have intuition. She understood the phenomena whereby several pieces of information come together to impart to a person knowledge of which they are barely even aware, that they cannot name or conceptualize. That was what was happening to her.