by Tad Williams
The pale-haired man looked up, his eyes assessing and dismissing Dulcie within a heartbeat in a way that infuriated her despite her sudden fear. He turned his attention back to the woman, saying something loud in a language that sounded Slavic, and the woman, weeping, choked out something in the same language. Dulcie remembered Dread mentioning all the immigrants who had come to Redfern after the Ukrainian grain belt disasters; he had said it with a sense almost of irritation, which she had thought at the time was some kind of anti-white racism, and only realized afterward was the exotic Mr. Dread experiencing a very common thing—discomfort at his old neighborhood changing.
The woman was bleeding a little from a cut on her lip, fighting clumsily to stand. The man, his wide jaw set in a line of fury, was holding her head down, the kind of thing a playground bully might do. Something about the situation pricked at nerves long Manhattan-numbed. Dulcie stopped a few meters from the slow-motion struggle and said loudly, "Leave her alone."
The man scowled at her, then turned back to the woman and shoved down hard, so that she gave up resisting and sank all the way to her hands and knees.
"I said, leave her alone."
"You want it too?" His accent was thick but the words quite understandable.
"Just let her stand up. If she's your girlfriend, that's no way to treat her. If she's not your girlfriend, I'll have the police on your ass in twenty seconds."
"No," the woman said in a kind of despair. The man's broad hand was still on top of her head; she looked out from beneath his spread fingers like a beaten dog. "No, okay. Is okay. He not hurt me."
"Bullshit. You're bleeding."
The man's face, which at first had showed a trace of amusement, began to shift. His scowl congealed into something quite frightening. He pushed the woman again so suddenly that she toppled over into the gutter, then he turned toward Dulcie. "You want? You come here, then."
Something that had been burning in Dulcie all day flared hotly. She tugged the gun out of her coat pocket and leveled it at him, bracing her wrist in best shooting-range style.
"No, you come here, asshole." It was strange to feel that power all the way up her arm, like godly lightning at her fingertips. "Get down on your knees, why don't you?" She saw the man's mouth drop open and her feverish high expanded. This was the way those Baptist snake-handlers must feel with thrashing, living death in their hands.
"You . . . you crazy!" The man began backing away, trying to keep his face hard but failing. The woman in the gutter was weeping and covering her head.
She was tempted to squeeze off a shot, just to let the bullying bastard feel the wind of it past his face, but she hadn't test-fired it, didn't know how sticky the pull was, anything.
So I miss and take his ear off instead, she thought. Or worse. So what?
But the face of the Colombian gearhead Celestino swam up out of the turbid darkness of her thoughts, his brown eyes big with fear like a wounded dog, although in real life she had never actually seen fear in his face, since he had been fiberlinked online and blind to her when she shot him.
The young Russian man turned and walked swiftly up the street, barely restraining the urge to run. Before Dulcie could take a step forward to help her up, the woman he had been brutalizing staggered upright, then—with only a brief scared-rabbit look at Dulcie—ran after him. She left both of her high-heeled shoes behind her on the sidewalk.
Dulcie was still breathing a little too fast, vibrating with an excitement that was beginning to turn a little sour, when she found her way back to the street that held the loft.
It's about power, isn't it? she thought. You give them all the power, let them keep all the secrets, and they can grind you down. Without some kind of equalizer the game just isn't fair.
So what's Dread hiding? Just his Swiss bank accounts? Blackmail-quality details on some of the Grail folk?
She thought about the little invisible box on his system, a boy's carton of dirty secrets slid under the bed, out of reach of Sister and Mom.
I can find out, can't I? If I can crack the whole J Corporation, I can sure as hell beat some hidden storage on Dread's home system. I can get in and out without him even guessing.
Then I'll have something on him for a change. I wonder how he'd feel about that?
She had a feeling he wouldn't like it very much, but just now, with fear and fury and triumph singing together in her veins, she didn't care.
CHAPTER 22
More Very Bush
NETFEED/LIFESTYLE: Mayor Declares Dying Illegal
(visual: Ladley Burn High Street)
VO: The mayor of Ladley Burn, a charming rural village in Cheshire, England, has declared it against the law to die within the town limits. What sounds like a quixotic attempt to turn back death is actually a pragmatic move to save the village's thirteenth-century graveyard, which is already almost full and whose few remaining plots are the object of fierce competition among local residents,
(visual: Mayor Beekin in front of churchyard)
BEEKIN: "It's rather simple, actually. If you die in Ladley Burn, you break the law, and the penalty is you get buried somewhere else. Where? That's not our lookout, I'm afraid."
Baffled and defeated, Renie slumped to the ground beside the black waters, which were still rippling from the disappearance of the Witching Tree. The Stone Girl had edged away from her, frightened by the strength of Renie's anger.
"Come back," Renie said. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have shouted. Come back, please."
"You made the Witching Tree go away," the little mud girl said. "That never happened before."
Renie sighed. "What did it tell you? Am I allowed to ask? I heard something about the Ending, and some boys-and-girls rhyme. . . ."
The Stone Girl looked at her curiously. "You said the tree stole your brother."
"It . . . it's hard to explain. But not the tree, no." A sudden thought struck her; however unlikely, it was worth asking about. "Do you know anyone named Stephen? A little boy. . . ?"
"Stephen?" She giggled. "What a funny name!"
"I take it that's a no," said Renie. "Jesus Mercy, what have I done? What kind of foolish, crazy place is this?" She let her shoulders slump, conscious for the first time in a while that the forest was turning chilly. "What else did the Witching Tree tell you?"
Her guide became somber again. "That things are bad. That the Ending is going to come closer and closer until there's nowhere left to go. That I should come to the Well with all the other people, because that would be the last place left."
"The Well? What's that?"
The Stone Girl furrowed her earthen brow. "It's a place like this, except way more big, across the river and across the river and across the river. Where the Lady comes, sometimes, and talks to people."
"The Lady?" Renie's neck prickled—she knew who that must be. "She comes to this Well and . . . what?"
"Tells people things that the One is thinking." The Stone Girl shook her head. "But she doesn't do it anymore. Not since the Ending started to come." She got up. "I have to go. The Witching Tree said I need to go to the Well, so I'm going to start walking." She hesitated. "Do you want to come with me?"
"I can't, I have to wait for my friends." Renie felt events slipping through her fingers. "But I don't even know where I am. How can I get back to the place I was before you found me?"
The Stone Girl cocked her head to one side. "Where did you come from?"
Renie did her best to describe what she could remember of the rolling meadows, the distant hills, their translucency. Trying to remember it now, it felt like a distant dream.
"You must have been at Over Thaw Hills, in Faraway," the little girl decided. "But it's probably all gone now. The Ending was already there when I was looking for the Witching Tree. That's how come it was all empty in some of it, like you said."
And she had been so sure she had found a place that was becoming more real! Renie felt a harsh pang of fear for !Xabbu and Fredericks. What if they we
re not lucky enough to stumble on a crossing, as she had been? She had to go find them.
Yes, but find them how? Wander around these weird places by yourself while it all evaporates around you? What good will that do?
But what was the alternative? To follow a fairy-tale creature like this Stone Girl deeper into madness?
I shouldn't have lost my temper. Just for once, why couldn't I have kept my mouth shut? Maybe I would have got some useful information out of that thing if I'd been nicer. She should have remembered what it was like to deal with Stephen, how shouting and scolding just drove him deeper into sullenness. The operating system was so much like a child, and what had she done? Treated it as though she were an angry parent. And not even a particularly smart angry parent.
"What was that you said the . . . the tree told you? That you were supposed to go to this Well, and that all the other people were going there, too?"
The Stone Girl nodded, still standing at the clearing's edge.
What if Stephen really is here? Renie thought. What if he's one of the people drawn or sent to this Well? What if I could finally find him, reach him . . . touch him?
So here was the balancing point. Renie was exhausted, but she couldn't put off the decision. The little girl was leaving, with her or without her. Did she abandon !Xabbu and the others, or perhaps abandon the chance to find Stephen?
Years of university, and for what? How can you make a decision like this—no facts, no discernible logic, no real information. . . ? It was agonizing to think of !Xabbu, who she knew would be looking for her just as diligently as she had been looking for him. It was no less agonizing to think of Stephen, her beautiful, shining little man, so close he was almost her own child, now curled in a hospital bed—a thing of sticks and skin like a broken, discarded kite. She felt bruised inside, helpless, miserable.
And just think—here in the network, I'm really nothing but a living brain. A brain with a bad case of heartache. . . .
The Stone Girl scraped her foot against the ground, swaying a little. Clearly it was difficult, even painful for her to wait once the Witching Tree had told her what to do. "I really have to. . . ."
"I know," said Renie. She took a deep breath. "I'm coming. I'm coming with you."
I don't have any choice, she kept telling herself, but it felt exactly like treachery. !Xabbu and the others might never have made it out of that gray . . . whatever it was. They might have been tossed into another part of the network, or they could even be. . . . It was almost impossible even to consider it. I could look for them forever. And this could be my last chance to help Stephen.
Of course, that's assuming I can do anything for him even if I find him, she thought grimly. Considering I can't even get myself offline, that's a pretty big assumption.
"Are you angry at me?" the Stone Girl asked.
"What?" Renie realized they had been walking for a long time without speaking. She had a sudden recollection of what it meant to be with an angry adult, thinking that she was the cause, and was ashamed. Even in the days before her mother had died, her father had been prone to sullen silences. "No! No, I'm just thinking." She looked around at the sparkling trees that still surrounded them, an endless series of leafy tunnels through the forest. "Where are we, anyway? I mean, does this place have a name? Is it called Witching Tree or something?"
"The Witching Tree isn't a place, it's a thing." The Stone Girl was clearly relieved: even Renie's invincible ignorance did not draw the usual look of disbelief. "There are lots of places it can be—that's why we had to go look for it."
"And we found it . . . where?"
"Here. I told you, it's always in the Wood."
"And where are we going?"
The Stone Girl considered for a moment. "I don't know for sure. But I think we'll have to go through More Very Bush and maybe even Long Done Bridge. It's really hard to cross there."
"Cross. . . ?"
"The river, silly." Renie's companion frowned. "I just hope we don't have to go through Jinnear Bad House. That's too scary."
More Very Bush and Jinnear Bad House. Those would be . . . Mulberry Bush and Gingerbread House, Renie guessed. She was beginning to get the knack. "Why is it scary?"
The Stone Girl put her hand up to her mouth. "I don't want to talk about it. We don't want to go there. But there are Ticks and Jinnears there, lots of them."
Ticks and Jinnears. For some reason, the phrase stuck in Renie's mind, but unlike the place names, which seemed to be childish malformations of things like London Bridge, she couldn't find an easy explanation. But having seen the things, she was just as eager as her companion to avoid something called Jinnear Bad House.
"What are Ticks? Are they as bad as Jinnears?"
"Worse!" The little girl gave a theatrical shudder. "They're all starey. They have too many eyes."
"Ugh. I'm convinced. So if we have a long trip ahead of us, shouldn't we stop and sleep? I'm tired, and you, if you'll excuse me saying so, are definitely up past your bedtime."
Now her small guide did indeed put on a look of disgust. "Go to sleep in the Wood? That's a stupid idea."
"Okay, okay," Renie said. "You're the boss. But how far do we have to go before we can get some sleep?"
"Until we find a bridge, silly."
Properly told off, Renie subsided.
As the flying-saucer moon hovered overhead, showing no signs of moving toward a horizon, they walked deeper and deeper into the forest—deeper, Renie knew, because the trees got taller and taller around them. They had long since left the black lake and its sentient tree behind, but Renie could not help feeling observed, although she was not sure whether by the small, secretive eyes of invisible forest dwellers or by some larger, more godlike entity. The clearings, with the branches arching cathedral-high overhead, glittering with fairy-lights like a sky full of bright stars, seemed particularly watchful. The weird, cartoonish beauty of the setting could not overcome the hackle-raising sensation of traveling through enemy territory.
Well, why shouldn't it feel this way? she thought. If I'm right, I'm not just inside the network any more, I'm inside the operating system itself—right in the belly of the beast.
Pulling her blanket-cloak tighter around her to ward off a forest breeze, Renie suddenly touched the lumpy shape of the lighter underneath her top, pressed against her breast.
"Oh, no! I called Martine. . . ." In the unceasing strangeness since then, she had completely forgotten her distress call from the hillside, with the Jinnears coming down on her from all around. "She must think. . . ."
The Stone Girl stopped, eyebrow dents raised in astonishment, to watch Renie pull the small shiny object from inside her clothing and speak into it. "Martine, can you hear me? Martine, this is Renie, can you hear me?"
No answer came back to her. Renie shook the lighter as though it were a stopped watch, conscious even as she did so how stupidly RL the gesture was. It made no difference, anyway: the lighter remained as silent as a stone.
They walked on, Renie adding the horror she must have visited on Martine and anyone else with her to her list of sins.
It's getting to be a long list, she thought. Failed to find my brother, didn't do anything useful to interfere with the Brotherhood's plans, deserted !Xabbu and Sam, and also called my other friends and made them think I was about to get killed.
Yes, but you really were about to get killed, she reminded herself. Ease up, girl.
As they walked on through twinkling trees and woodland dells carpeted by dark grass that wavered without wind, studded with circles of pale, dully-shining mushrooms, Renie began to feel a different kind of liveliness to the Wood. She began to hear rustles in the foliage and once or twice thought she saw shadows just disappearing around a bend of one of the long open pathways before them. She mentioned it to the Stone Girl, who nodded sagely.
"Other people going to the Well," she said. "The Ending is coming fast, I guess."
"So they're not . . . Jinnears. Or Ticks."
The Stone Girl managed a tiny smile. "We'd know."
The vast moon had still not moved noticeably from one side of the sky to another, but Renie had just decided that it had perhaps slipped a bit lower when they saw the camp-fire on a small knoll ahead of them through the trees. The Stone Girl hesitated for a moment, peering at the flicker of light, then lifted her stubby finger to her mouth for silence and led Renie forward. Strange shapes were clustered around the flames. The Stone Girl slowed again, leaning forward and squinting, then straightened.
"It's just dwarfs," she said cheerfully, taking Renie by the hand.
A sentry shape at the edge of the knoll lifted a stick and said, "Who goes there?" in a high, querulous voice.
My God, Renie thought. More children. Is everyone in this place a child?
"We're friends," the Stone Girl announced. "We won't hurt you."
The creatures huddled around the fire watched their approach warily. Renie was at first secretly pleased to see that the dwarfs numbered exactly seven, but discovered a few moments later that she was a little less comfortable with how they actually looked. They might be someone's idea of dwarfs, but as with so many things she had seen lately, it was a very curious kind of idea.
The little men were all dwarf-high—the nearest, the stick-wielding sentry, stood no taller than Renie's hips—but although the Other, if it was indeed the creator, apparently understood that dwarf meant small, it had accomplished this not by miniaturizing a normal person, but by leaving out or rearranging parts. The dwarfs had faces that grew right out ol their chests, and after she had studied the awkward gait of the sentry, who had fallen into step beside them, she realized that his legs ended at the knee: there was no joint in the middle, which made the little fellow walk something like a penguin. His arms, however, were of normal length: he used them to aid his movements, knuckle-walking like a chimpanzee.