River of Blue Fire

by Tad Williams

  “Yes, but if you do come back after dark,” William said, “try not to make noises like a giant bug or we might stick you with something sharp by accident.”

  Building the raft of reeds with Fredericks had been one thing—Orlando had been deathly ill through most of that process, and what little work he had done, Fredericks had directed. Now he felt himself again, and found he was part of a very fractious four-person committee. Fredericks wanted to build another raft, but William pointed out—quite correctly, Orlando had to admit—that even a large raft was not going to be heavy enough or deep-bottomed enough to keep them afloat on the river. At their size, even the river’s milder moments of choppiness would be like a terrible storm at sea. But Fredericks proved stubborn, as he often did. He felt that the raft experiment had worked once—although, as Orlando had earlier pointed out, even that conclusion depended on how you read the data—and that they did not have the equipment or materials to build anything more complicated. Orlando had to agree with him on the latter point.

  The disagreement rapidly degenerated into a bout of mutal recriminations until T4b accidentally made the best suggestion of the afternoon and a plan began to develop. During the course of one shortlived moment of calm discussion, the robot Goggleboy said that what they really needed was their old leaf back. A few minutes later, when Orlando had given up for a bit on mediating between Fredericks and Sweet William, and was staring up at the vast trunk of a tree looming over the riverbank like a cylindrical cliff-face, T4b’s words came back to him.

  “Hold on,” he said. “Maybe we do need our leaf back. Or another leaf.”

  “Sure we do,” William said, rolling his eyes. “And at the first thumping it will go over, just like the last one, and we’ll all swim the rest of the way back to the real world. Won’t that be fun?”

  “Just listen. We could make a raft, like Fredericks said, but put it inside a leaf—like a deck. That would give it some . . . what do you call it?”

  “Kitsch value?” suggested William.

  “Structural integrity. You know, it would brace it. And then we could make some outriggers, like they have on Hawaiian canoes. Pontoons, is that the word? That would keep it from tipping over.”

  “Hawaiian canoes?” William smiled despite himself, Pierrot lips quirking at the edges. “You truly are a mad boy, aren’t you? What, do you spend all your time living in fantasy worlds?”

  “Think it’s good, me,” said T4b suddenly. “Make one sixing boat, no dupping.”

  “Well, maybe.” William raised an eyebrow. “Pontoons, is it? Suppose there’s no harm trying it. No harm till we drown, that is.”

  The sun was high overhead, already past the meridian and heading for its setting point somewhere on the far side of the river. Orlando was discovering how far he still had to go before he’d be at even his normal level of fitness. The tactor settings were either simply lower here, or some of Thargor’s more superhuman characteristics didn’t translate into the Otherland network. Certainly the barbarian’s famous indefatigability was absent: Orlando was dripping with virtual sweat and exhausted by very real aches in every joint and muscle.

  Fredericks was not any more cheerful, or at least his sim face looked red and uncomfortable. He stood up from where he was forcing in the last crossbeam, wedging it into the leaf by using a piece of sand big as his two fists as a hammer-stone. “We’re ready for the mat, now.”

  Orlando gestured to T4b, then climbed gingerly over the edge of the leaf and down onto the beach. They had chosen a smaller leaf than the one that had brought them here, but even so it had taken them a large part of the morning just to drag it down to the river’s edge, and Orlando felt as if he had been chopping with his sword for days to cut enough of the bamboolike grass shoots to weave the frame.

  William, piecing together the last fibers of the coarse mat, had been forced to saw the tiny shoots used in its manufacture with a jagged stone, and did not seem to have enjoyed his task, either. “Whose bloody idea was this?” he asked as Orlando and T4b trudged up. “If it was mine, take this heavy thing and hit me with it.”

  Orlando no longer had the strength or breath for jokes, even the stupid ones that had helped him through the hard work earlier. He grunted, then bent and grabbed one edge of the mat. After a moment, T4b leaned over with an answering groan and found a handhold of his own.

  “Oh, for God’s sake, you sound like a couple of Tasmanian washerwomen.” William struggled up from his seated position and walked to the far side. “You pull, I’ll push.”

  Together they wrestled the mat over the curled edge of the leaf; then, with a great deal of swearing, shoved it more or less into place.

  “Finished, true?” asked T4b hopefully.

  “No.” Fredericks sucked his lower lip thoughtfully. “We need to tie this down. Then we need to cut something long enough to make Orlando’s pontoons.”

  “They’re not my pontoons,” Orlando growled. “I don’t need any damn pontoons. They’re for the boat.”

  William rose, a pitch-black scarecrow, his tassels and fringes fluttering in the breeze off the river. “You two tie the mat down. I’ll go look for some more bloody reeds to make the outrigger thingies. But when you get done resting, Orlando my chuck, you can come cut them down. You’re the one who brought a sword to the picnic, after all.”

  Orlando nodded a weary assent.

  “And why don’t you come with me, BangBang,” William continued. “That way if something with too many legs comes sneaking up on me, you can bash it with your big metal fists.”

  The robot shook its head, but rose unsteadily and limped after the departing death-clown.

  Orlando watched them go with something less than complete satisfaction. Sweet William was right about one thing, anyway: if this were an adventure game, Orlando could have relied on allies with definable and helpful powers-swiftness, agility, strength, magical abilities. As it was, except for Martine’s new input, the group’s only real skills seemed to be at dressing funny.

  He slumped, waiting for the inevitable summons from Fredericks, but in no condition to anticipate it. A pair of giant flies swooped and barrel-rolled like vintage planes above a bit of drying something-or-other a short way up the beach. The noise of their wings made the air vibrate until it was almost impossible to think, but there was a kind of beauty in them, too, their glossy bodies rainbowing as they caught the sun, their swift-beating wings an almost invisible iridescence.

  Orlando sighed. This whole Otherland thing locked, basically. If it were a game, the rules would be defined, the moves to victory comprehensible. Games made sense. How had little Zunni from the Wicked Tribe put it? “Kill monster, find jewel, earn bonus points. Wibble-wobble-wubble.” Not much like real life, maybe, but who wanted real life? Or even this bizarre variation? No rules, no goals, and no idea even of where to begin.

  “Hey, Gardino, are you going to sit there working on your tan, or are you going to help me finish this?”

  He stood, sighing again. And what had they learned so far, that would take them any closer toward their objectives? That they were trapped in the Otherland network, somehow. That they needed to stay alive until Sellars could get them out again. That somewhere, in one of who could guess how many simulations, a guy named Jonas was running around, and Sellars wanted them to find him.

  “A needle in a haystack the size of a locking galaxy,” Orlando muttered as he clambered onto the leaf.

  Fredericks frowned at him. “You shouldn’t sit in the sun so long. You’re getting woofie in the head.”

  Another hour had passed, and none of the others had returned. The sun had sunk behind the pinnacles of the trees, throwing vast fields of early night across the riverbank. The leaf-boat lay in one of them, and the local weather was almost chilly. Orlando, grateful for the relief, was dragging another long reed back toward the boat, for use as
a barge pole in shallower waters, when something big came hissing out from under a pile of stones. Fredericks shouted a horrified warning, but Orlando had already seen the dark blur at the corner of his vision. He threw himself sideways, rolled, and came up without the reed, but with his sword in his hand and his heart hammering.

  The centipede was at least a half-dozen times as long as Orlando was tall, dusty brown and covered with bits of crumbling earth. It came toward him in strange, sidewinding fashion, forcing him to give ground. Except for movement, it was hard to distinguish the creature from the background; Orlando was grateful there was still a little daylight left.

  A shudder ran through the creature, a ripple of its armor plates, and for a moment the centipede’s entire front end lifted from the ground. Orlando thought he could see pistoning spikes just below its mouth, and had a sudden, maddeningly distant memory that these creatures were poisonous. The front limbs dropped and the beast rushed forward on dozens of segmented legs, bearing down on him like a fanged monorail. Orlando could hear Fredericks shouting something, but he had no attention to spare. Years of Thargor-experience rolled through him in half a second. This was not the kind of high-bellied creature you could get under, like a gryphon or most dragons. But with all those legs, it would strike sideways very quickly, perhaps faster than he could matador out of the way.

  With a noise like a small stampede, the centipede was on him. Orlando sprang from a crouch even as the thing’s front legs tried to hook him toward its mouth. He clambered up onto the head, then had time enough for one stabbing blow to what he hoped was the creature’s eye before it kinked in fury and threw him to the side. He landed heavily and scrambled back onto his feet as quickly as his throbbing muscles could manage. Fredericks was atop the leaf, watching in agony, but Orlando could think of no way his friend could help him without weapons.

  As he backed away, the huge bug bent itself in a semicircle, following him with its front end even as the rest of its body held in place. Unlike the mostly anthropomorphic creatures of the Middle Country, it gave off no suggestion of feeling or thought at all. It was simply a hunter, a killing machine, and he had walked too near its hiding place at sundown.

  Orlando reached down and grabbed the barge pole he had dropped, a rigid stem of grass twice his own length. He doubted it was strong enough to pierce the centipede’s armor plating, but it might help to keep the creature at bay until he could think of something else to do. The only problem, he quickly discovered, was that he could not support the pole and hold his sword, too. He let the stem droop as the centipede began another sidewinding charge, and shoved the blade through his belt.

  He managed to raise the pole just enough to jab it at the centipede’s head. It lodged so hard against the creature’s mouth parts that if Orlando had not dug the butt-end into the earth behind him, he would have slid right up the stem into the poison fangs. It bent, but did not snap. The centipede, arrested by something it could not see, rose clawing toward the sky until its first three pairs of legs were off the ground. The reed straightened and popped free. Released, the beast thumped heavily back to the ground, hissing even louder.

  Orlando dragged the stem backward, looking for a new position to defend. The far end of the reed had been chewed to pulpy splinters. The centipede lockstepped toward him again, more cautiously this time, but showing no signs of going away to look for a more compliant meal. Orlando cursed weakly.

  “I see the others!” Fredericks was shouting. “They’re coming back!”

  Orlando shook his head, trying to get his breath back. Unless their companions had kept some big secrets, he couldn’t imagine any of them making much difference. This was pure monster-killer work, and Orlando was one of the best. Or was it Thargor who was one of the best . . . ?

  Jeez, listen to me, he thought blurrily, dragging the pole up into a protective posture again. Sharp things clashed in the shadows of the centipede’s mouth. Can’t tell the difference between one kind of not-real and another. . . .

  He jabbed at its head, but this time he could not get the reed seated against the ground. The bug shoved forward and the long stem slid to one side off the dirty-brown carapace, catching between two of the driving legs like a stick in bicycle spokes. Orlando hung onto the pole as it jerked and flung him through the air to one side; he landed hard enough to squeeze the breath from his body. The great multilegged shape swiveled into a tight turn, rippled forward a half-dozen steps, then reared over him, legs hooking inward like two hands’ worth of giant, snatching fingers. Orlando scrabbled backward, but it was a hopeless attempt at escape.

  The centipede lifted and stretched farther, its killing parts locked in place above him like some horrible industrial punch-press. Fredericks’ distant voice was now a meaningless shrill, fast disappearing in a rising wash of pure sound, a great storm, a slow explosion, but all somewhere far away and meaningless as Orlando struggled to lift the heavy stem one last time. In this moment of slow time, Death was upon him. The universe had nearly stopped, waiting for that ultimate second to tick over.

  Then the second crashed upon him with blackness and wind. A cold thunder blasted down from above, a vertical hurricane that blew him flat and filled the air with stinging, blinding dust. Orlando screamed into dirt, knowing that any moment he would feel poison spines hammer down into his body. Something struck his head, throwing stars into his eyes, too.

  The wind lessened. The darkness grew a little less. Fredericks was still shrieking.

  Orlando opened his eyes. He squinted against the swirling dust, astonished to discover himself still alive in this world. Stones as big around as his thigh rolled past him as an impossibly vast black shape, like a negative angel, rose into the sky overhead. Something slender and frenetic and comparatively tiny writhed in its talons.

  Talons. It was a bird, a bird as big as a passenger jet, as a shuttle rocket—bigger! The explosive force of its wings, which had pinned him at the base of an invisible column of air, suddenly shifted as the bird tilted and vaulted away, the centipede still struggling helplessly in its claws, on its way to feed a nest full of fledglings.

  “Orlando! Orlando, hey!” Fredericks was keening softly, far away, unimportant compared to the awesome sight of a certain, inescapable death being sucked away into the evening sky. “Gardiner!”

  He looked up to the bluffs above the beach, where Sweet William and T4b had dropped their bundles of reeds to stare in astonishment after the swift-rising bird. He turned to Fredericks, and the boat, but they were gone.

  A heart-stopping instant later he saw that they were only displaced, that the new leaf-boat they had so laboriously built in one place was now quite a way distant. It took a moment for his dazed mind to put together the information and realize that the leaf was on the river, blown into the water by the bird’s flapping wings, and was drifting slowly out toward the strong current. Fredericks, alone on board, was leaping up and down, waving his arms and shouting, but already his voice was growing too faint to understand.

  Befuddled, Orlando looked up to the bluffs. The two figures there had finally seen Frederick’s situation, and were making their way down the mossy bank as swiftly as they could, but they were a minute’s run away at least, and Fredericks was only a score of seconds from the current that would sweep him away forever.

  Orlando picked up the barge pole like a javelin and dashed along the beach. He sprinted toward a headland, hoping he might be able to extend the long stem to Fredericks, but when he got there, it was clear that even with three such poles he would not be able to reach his friend. The leaf caught for a moment in an eddy, buffeted between the faster current and the small backwater below the headland. Orlando looked at his friend, then back at T4b and Sweet William, still distant and small as they ran toward him across the strand. He turned and scrambled down the headland, got a running start, and flung himself off into the backwater.

  It was a
near thing, even in reasonably warm water. Orlando had almost run out of strength, and was wondering what had happened to his legs (which he could no longer feel) when Fredericks reached down and plucked the floating barge pole from the water. Orlando was just deciding that traveling to a virtual universe to drown seemed a long way around for a person with a terminal illness, when the centipede-chewed end of the pole slapped down next to him, nearly braining him.

  “Grab it!” Fredericks shouted.

  He did, then his friend helped him struggle over the edge of the leaf onto the mat they had spent much of the afternoon weaving. Orlando had strength only to huddle down out of the evening wind, shivering, as water drizzled off him and the river swept them away from the beach and their two astounded companions.

  “It’s yours, Skouros,” the captain said. “It’s Merapanui. On your system even as we speak.”

  “Thanks. You’re a mate.” Calliope Skouros did not say it like she meant it, and to avoid any accusations of subtlety, she curled her lip as well. “That case has been history so long that it smells.”

  “You wanted one, you got one.” The sergeant made a wiping-her-hands gesture. “Don’t blame me for your own ambition. Make a last pass, call the witnesses. . . .”

  “If any of them are still alive.”

  “. . . Call the witnesses and see if anyone’s remembered anything new. Then dump it back in the ‘Unsolved’ list if you want. Whatever.” She leaned forward, narrowing her eyes. Skouros wondered if the sergeant’s cornea-reshaping had been less than she’d hoped for. “And, speaking on behalf of the entire police force of Greater Sydney, don’t say we never give you anything.”

  Detective Skouros stood up. “Thank you for this rubber bone, O glorious mistress. I wag my tail in your general direction.”

  “Get out of my office, will you?”

  “It’s ours and it’s impacted,” she announced. The pressure vents on her chair hissed as she dropped her muscular body onto the seat.