by Tad Williams
"Well, what if it's true? What if the answers to everything—the children, and why we're stuck here, and what's going to happen—what if he already knows everything we've been killing ourselves to find out?"
"I do not think he will help us, Renie. He might trade for information from us, but only if it was useful to him, and we have no idea what he needs."
Renie could not shake a certain sick feeling. "I can't help thinking about what Sam just said. Not trying to crack open his skull, but about using force. If he's stuck in a virtual body like we are, then he's vulnerable—and we outnumber him. Don't we owe it to all those children, to our friends, to find out what he knows? Even if we have to . . . to torture it out of him?"
!Xabbu looked truly disturbed. "I do not like that thought, Renie."
"Neither do I, but what if the fate of the world really is at stake?" Sam had fallen back a couple of paces, and now Renie lowered her voice until her mouth was almost against !Xabbu's ear, which made walking single file even more dangerous. "It sounds so melodramatic, but it could be true! What if that's the only way? Don't we have to consider it?"
!Xabbu did not reply. He looked, if it were possible, more exhausted now than before they had stopped to rest.
Renie certainly understood !Xabbu's reluctance even to talk about the possibility of torturing Jongleur for information—not just in abhorrence of what they would themselves become in taking such a step, but also because of real fear about what might come of it. Jongleur was a hard, ruthless man. Watching his measured pace a few steps ahead, the ropy, hard muscles of his naked body moving beneath the skin, she had the feeling that bending him to their will might not be a process without casualties on their own side—a price Renie was unwilling to pay. And although Ricardo Klement had shown no interest in anything so far, that was no guarantee he would stand passively by and let them attack Jongleur. But even if they managed to subdue the Grail master and threaten him with pain or even death, what then? She did not know for certain that Jongleur really was as vulnerable to virtual execution as she and her companions; perhaps he was only pretending for some reason of his own, and dying in this place would merely fling him into some other sim, or back into his ancient physical body. Then they would have lost any chance at the information, not to mention having become the failed assassins of the most powerful man in the world—not a position with much long-term security.
She would not, could not rule out the possibility of using mortal force on him—not as long as the lives of Stephen and countless others were at stake—but all in all, it didn't seem like a gamble that should be undertaken before everything else had failed.
What else, then? If Jongleur were a normal man, they could bargain, trade something he wanted for information. But the only thing she could see that he needed was escape from this place and revenge on his unruly servant, Dread. Neither of those were in Renie's power to grant.
So what do you give the man who has everything? she thought in sour amusement. Was there something that Jongleur also needed to know? Something that Renie and her companions had to give? What might possibly interest him?
His daughter, she thought suddenly. How does she fit into this? Suddenly Renie knew why the whole thing had bothered her. Whatever she's doing, it doesn't seem meant to help her father. The opposite, if anything. Didn't Paul say Jongleur's goons have been chasing him? But it seems like she's been trying to keep Paul away from the Twins when surely she could just hand him over if she wanted. In fact, he said she was afraid of them, too. So what was her relationship with Jongleur? It certainly didn't appear to be an old-fashioned, Daddy's-Little-Girl scenario.
There was definitely something there. Renie felt a surge of grateful energy. Something to chew on, some useful work for her brain.
We don't really know anything about this Ava. Why was she also Emily, for God's sake—a minor sim in an Oz simulation? Why did she help Orlando and Fredericks in the Kitchen and Egypt, but never did anything for me and !Xabbu? And why has she elected herself Paul's guardian angel when it's her own father who's tearing up the network trying to find him?
She continued her downward march like a zombie, one slow foot in front of the other, but inside she felt alive for the first time in days.
They found a hollow in the mountainside relatively soon after the last stop, but since there was no guarantee another suitable spot would present itself anytime soon, they decided to make camp, which meant nothing more than dragging themselves off the trail to sleep.
Renie was the first to wake. She rolled over and looked at Sam twitching in uneasy slumber. The girl was bearing up as well as could be expected, but Renie was worried: she suspected the teenager's restraint was due mostly to the flattening of exhaustion. Acting on impulse, she gently withdrew the ruined sword from Sam's waistband, then sat back and waited for Jongleur to wake.
!Xabbu and the hard-faced man began to stir at the same time. Felix Jongleur seemed to be having a bad dream—his hands clenched and unclenched, and his lips were moving as though he were trying to speak. It made Renie feel more than a little happy to think that something might be preying on the monster's conscience.
Jongleur started upright, muttering, "No, the glass. . . ." then looked around blearily. His gaze touched on Ricardo Klement, lying a meter away, eyes open but otherwise almost lifeless. Jongleur shuddered and rubbed his face.
"So," Renie said suddenly and loudly. "What's with you and Paul Jonas, anyway?"
Jongleur froze like a startled animal, then his face became as carefully expressionless as the mask he had worn as lord of ancient Egypt. "What did you say?"
"I asked what your problem is with Paul Jonas." She kept her own voice aggressively casual, but her heart was beating fast.
Jongleur was on his feet in an instant, moving aggressively toward her. "What do you know of him?"
Renie was ready. The broken sword blade flashed up, inches from his face. Jongleur froze again, staring, lip curled and showing teeth.
"I don't think you should come any closer," she said. "What are you, anyway—French? There's still a little accent to your English. Maybe you're used to those North African black women, the ones whose husbands tell them what to do. Well, I'm not that kind of African, old man. Back up and sit down."
He moved no closer, but did not retreat either. "Accent? A poor jibe from you, with your school grammar draped over the township patois." His hands were knotted, knuckles like little white eggs. Renie could tell that the autocrat was only one bad decision on her part from trying to use them on her, sword or no sword. "What do you know of Jonas?" he demanded again.
"That's not the way we're going to play this game." She saw that !Xabbu was sitting up now, watching her carefully, silently. "You said before that we weren't going to get any information from you for free. Okay, I suppose that's fair. We know a lot about Paul Jonas. You know a lot about the network. Let's trade."
He had mastered his rage now, although the cords in his neck and arms were still pulled tight. "You think much of yourself, woman."
"No. I know my limitations—that's why I don't feel very comfortable about our arrangement. You need our help to get down this godforsaken mountain, but what do we get back for it? If we do make it down and you disappear on us, we have nothing but another enemy on the loose."
Jongleur narrowed his eyes. "I saved your life."
Renie snorted. "That would carry more weight if I didn't know you'd just as happily push me as catch me. And we've saved yours since then, anyway. None of this has anything to do with what I'm talking about. Let's share, shall we?"
Sam also sat up now, a child to whom waking into bizarre situations was sadly becoming second nature. Nevertheless, this time she was watching the proceedings with a curiously feverish intensity. !Xabbu moved close to the girl, perhaps to keep her from intervening in this edgy bit of diplomacy. Renie felt strengthened by his trust.
"What do you want to know?" Jongleur said. "And what do you have to trade?"
"You already know what we have to trade. Paul Jonas. We know him—we know him well. In fact, we've traveled with him." She watched carefully and was rewarded by a flicker deep in Jongleur's eyes. "Why don't you tell us about the Other?"
"Ah. You have learned some things, then."
"Not enough. What is it? How does it work?"
His laugh was as harsh and sudden as a shark bite. "You must be more of a fool than I thought. I spent enough money to dwarf the national product of your miserable country developing this system, put years of my life into it, and had dozens of people killed to protect my investment. Do you believe I would give that away for nothing?"
"Nothing? Is Paul Jonas really nothing?" She frowned—his face had gone cold again. "He was with us, you know. You were within a dozen meters of him back on the mountaintop, when everything started falling apart." She saw his expression of disbelief and laughed harshly. "He was! Right there, and you didn't even know it."
Jongleur was clearly wrestling with the idea. For the first time she saw a real crack in his facade of power, a shadow of unhappiness. "It does not matter," he said at last. "He is not here now. I want Jonas himself, not old news. Can you deliver him to me?"
Renie hesitated for a moment, trying to figure out which way to take it. "Maybe."
Jongleur's smile was slow and humorless. "You lie. This conversation is over."
Stung, Renie tightened her grip on the sword hilt. "Oh, yes? Before we even get a chance to talk about your daughter Ava?"
To her astonishment, Jongleur actually staggered a step backward. His face went bloodless, so that his dark eyes seemed to bulge out of the sockets. "You speak her name to me again and I will kill you, blade or no blade," he said in a grating whisper. He was struggling for control and barely succeeding, and that was the most frightening thing Renie had seen so far. "You know nothing of anything . . . in far over your head. Not . . . not another word! You understand?" He turned and moved out onto the path. Just before he stepped out of sight, he turned and thrust a quivering finger toward her. "Not another word!"
When he was gone, silence fell in the small enclosure. Sam was looking at Renie with wide eyes.
"Okay," Renie suddenly felt very shaky. "Okay, if that's the way he wants it. He's a murdering bastard anyway, so it's not like we're going to be friends." She hesitated for a moment, then handed the broken sword back to Sam. "In case he's angry enough to push me off the edge or something. Keep it safe."
"Chizz," said Sam in a muted voice.
Jongleur stayed well ahead of them for hours, although he was almost always within sight, shoulders stiff, face resolutely forward. A part of Renie wanted to speak mockingly of his behavior—the most powerful man in the world, who had climbed over the bodies of countless people to get to the top, had stalked off like an angry child when the game did not go his way. But that snide inner voice, she recognized, came from the part of her that feared the man and which wanted desperately to bolster her own courage. A more sensible portion of her realized she had touched something deep and catastrophically dangerous in Jongleur. She had seen his quick and frightening angers, but this had been something different, an ice-cold fury that she feared would not dissipate.
She had goaded a bad man, it seemed, and made him into a personal enemy.
Things might have been worse with Jongleur had the mountain not still demanded all their attention. The path was growing worse, a slow but obvious devolution, and they were all disheartened. Almost half the time now was spent edging along the narrow trail with their backs against the stone, forced to stare at the ugly drop down into the weird silvery mist. Even Jongleur appeared to decide on practicality after a while, dropping back until he was only an arm's length in front of !Xabbu, but they found no place wide enough-for a safe transfer of leadership for many hours.
After they did, !Xabbu led for a long time, holding down his speed so Renie and the others could keep up, although even the Bushman was visibly flagging. They had several near-accidents because of fatigue, but what was even more depressing was how clear it was that they had reached the very end of the trail's usefulness. At this pace, Renie felt sure, the equivalent of another day in this hourless place would find them with their faces pressed against the mountainside, edging along on tiptoes.
She was wrong. It took nowhere near that long.
They found one more spot wide enough for a short, standing rest and a change of order in the line. Renie stepped to the front while !Xabbu waited until all but Ricardo Klement had passed before moving back into the file, so that the small man followed Jongleur, who crept along behind Sam. Renie almost thought she could feel the Grail master's dark stare burning into the back of her head, but she couldn't afford to waste energy on such fancies: the dwindling path was scarcely wide enough for her to set both feet on it side by side, and she had to lean constantly to the inside to keep her balance.
More hours went by. Renie was staggeringly tired, her back cramping from the awkward, leaning angle, eyes and feet so sore that the idea of a misstep into emptiness was almost alluring. Maddeningly, the sea of glinting fog seemed no closer, but Renie could not bear to think about that—the short-term reality was even more worrisome. She had already stumbled and lurched forward sickeningly several times, once so badly that only Sam catching at the cloth of her makeshift outfit allowed her to regain her balance and avoid sliding down the path toward certain disaster. But even if they found a place to change leaders, Sam could not be any less tired than Renie herself. !Xabbu would unhesitatingly take the lead again if asked—she knew that with the same certainty she knew her finger would meet her thumb when she brought them together—but she did not want him risking himself either. The fact was, no one should be leading anymore. They desperately needed a place to stop and lie down. Another standing line change would let them rest, but they were beyond mere rest now—they had to have sleep. And trying to sleep leaning against the lukewarm stone would be an invitation to disaster.
There was no point in discussing any of this, she realized. She slowed and bent with deliberate care to try to knead a cramp out of her calf. It felt like someone had stuck a dagger into the muscle. She wanted to scream, but knew that her grip on sanity and control was far too tenuous to start anything like that. Everything was now balanced on the finest of points.
"We have to stop," she said out loud. "I've got a cramp. Just give me a moment."
"If we stop, we will all cramp," Jongleur snapped from behind Sam. "Then we will all go over the edge. We must keep going forward or die. If you fall, you fall."
She bit back angry words. He was right. If she paused any longer she would never get herself going again. Wincing, she put the weight back on her tensed, throbbing calf and took a careful step. It held up, although it still felt like it was pulled so tight the very fibers of her muscle might tear loose.
"Renie, be careful," !Xabbu called.
She lifted her outside hand in the air, trying for a jaunty, don't-worry wave, but could not summon the strength to do much more than flap it limply.
Step. Hobble. Step. Renie had to blink to keep the tears from blinding her. Hobble. Step. They were going to die here—one by one, with herself probably the first to go. Whoever had designed this place was a sadistic monster who should have all his nerve endings set on fire. Step. Hobble. Step.
Within a very short time the path began to narrow even farther, declining to a strip not much wider than the length of Renie's foot. The only stroke of luck in the entire miserable universe was that the mountainside tilted away from her at a bit of an angle here, so that as she forced herself to turn sideways, putting an even more agonizing burden on her burning calf muscle, she could lean forward slightly, away from the rim of the tiny ledge and the drop into nothingness.
No one spoke. There was nothing to say, and no strength left with which to say it.
After what might have been an agonizing quarter hour of crablike shuffling, Renie glanced sideways and cursed bitterly. A
gain, tears filled her eyes, and this time she just clung to the face of the mountain and waited for them to wash away, ignoring the screaming pain in her leg. The mountainside bulged out just ahead, so that the tiny strip of path clung to a smooth stone wall that no longer angled away from the drop, but actually leaned outward a bit past the vertical. She tried to summon the strength to move forward for a better look, but her legs were shaking so badly it was all she could do simply to hold on.
"Renie?" !Xabbu said, worry even piercing the weight of exhaustion in his voice. "Renie?"
"It's no use," she wept. "It sticks out—it sticks out here, the side of the mountain sticks out. We're trapped."
"Is there still a path?" he demanded. "Talk to us, Renie."
"Maybe we can go back up. . . ?" Sam said, but her tone was hopeless.
Renie could only shake her head, her fingers cramping, too, as she kept them locked on a vertical protrusion of the mountainside. "No use. . . ." she whispered sadly.
"Don't move," !Xabbu said. "I am coming forward."
Renie, who had thought there was nothing left in all the universe that could be worse than this, felt a crackle of terror. "What are you talking about. . . ?"
"Don't move," !Xabbu said. "Please, do not anyone move. I will try to step between your feet."
Renie was barely holding on now, staring helplessly at the flat, featureless black stone in front of her. Jesus Mercy, she thought, he's all the way at the back. He was the last leader before me. "Don't do it, !Xabbu!" she called, but she could already hear grunting and stirring to her right, where the rest of the company clung as she did to the almost naked cliff. Renie closed her eyes. She heard him coming closer but could not bear to think too hard about what he must be doing, making his way outside of Jongleur and Sam, leaning over them to touch the wall, only his almost superhuman balance keeping him on the tiny path.
"Carefully, Renie, my dear, brave Renie" he was saying now. "I am right beside you. I am going to put my foot between your feet. Do not move. Hold on."