by Lou Anders
Something is missing. Perhaps I know the truth.
Oh, God. Oh, God.
Know it, and fear to recognize it.
It's insane.
None of this can be true.
The emptiness, the new void inside me—
Very early, Shama came awake, sitting up as she heard Master Teldrasso's voice outside. He was back! Wait till she showed him the—
Other men were talking, growling commands. Then a thud sounded.
Master Teldrasso was silent.
Shama blinked away acid-hot tears, knowing straightaway that bad men had her master. Scared, she looked for the dodecamoth whose trills might attract the men. But the moth was in the cupboard with her three offspring, warbling subsonic warnings to hush them.
After a time, she heard the men leave. Trembling, Shama padded across the floor, then opened the door. Nothing outside.
She slipped out.
At the first intersection, she nearly ran into the men. Master Teldrasso, conscious once more, was surrounded by four guards.
“—to know the legal charges.”
“You've a damned cheek. With a dangerous resonant crystal like that.”
“That's not…” Master Teldrasso fell silent.
“What? You didn't make it?”
“It's a dreamweb. It's what I do.”
Shama bit her fist. Had she done something wrong? And had Master Teldrasso realized it? Was he covering for her, paying for her sin, whatever it was?
One of the guards held up a fine platinum fork, vibrating so fast it blurred.
“You ain't heard o’ safety protocols, then?”
“Nor,” muttered another guard, “what happens to them what ignores them, eh?”
After a moment, Master Teldrasso straightened up, and adjusted his tunic. From her vantage point, Shama could see bloodstains on the fabric.
“Do whatever you're going to do.”
“Damn bloody right we will.”
Shama turned away when the guard's fist swung towards Master Teldrasso's head.
My fault. I'm sorry!
Afterwards, when they hauled her unconscious master along still-deserted corridors, Shama followed.
In Ireland we'd call it a forest dell, except the cup-shaped depression is huge. The drop—invisible in the darkness—is like a cliff. Enough of a drop to end it all.
Yukiko is truly gone.
Oh, my darling. My love.
Even at her grave, even in the subterranean cemetery, I have never felt this hollow. I am torn open and emptied. I don't even understand why. Why now.
Yes, I do.
But I cannot face this reality.
The mother dodecamoth trilled and warbled urgently, from subsonics to human-audible range.
Two of her offspring had folded up their wings as commanded, and were hidden inside the cupboard. But the third young dodecamoth was flitting around the chamber, searching for some trail in the air…
Found it.
In seconds, the young moth was out in the corridor, leaving the distraught mother to flap her wings inside the chamber, unwilling to abandon her two quiescent offspring for the sake of a renegade.
The lone youngster flew faster now, following Shama's scent.
At the moonlit edge, where I can step off so easily. Less than two seconds until impact. The emptiness will be gone—
The four guards and Master Teldrasso were close to the Busted Star, by coincidence, when they suddenly stopped. Ranged in front of them was a group of ten—no, eleven men.
Some of them Shama recognized as cutthroat regulars from the Busted Star. Scarred yet sentimental for the most part, they would often buy her a cup of sweet juice to drink.
And there were two other men, the nobles she had seen on the night she retrieved the crystal—
They can help!
But fear held Shama back. The men who had taken her master were armed and in uniform.
“Gentlemen.” It was Peetro who spoke. “I am a city councilor, and this is my sigil.” He showed a small silver artifact. “And these are deputized men.”
Behind him, the Busted Star regulars shifted. They bore spiked chains and hooked knives, and their gazes were flat, used to violence. And they were, to a man, patriots.
Vul's men did not move.
“The thing is”—Hoj stepped forward, raising his own sigil of office—“treason has been committed this night. But not by this man.”
“I…” Master Teldrasso stopped.
“We know who you are, good master,” said Peetro. “Well met, sir.”
Hoj pointed at the cloth-wrapped dreamweb that one of the guards held. “And what is that?”
“This, councilor, is evidence of what we call a criminal offense. As is stopping officers in the course of—”
Shama stepped forward.
No. I'm too scared—
But her voice worked by itself: “It's the best dreamweb ever and I made it and I'm sorry, Master, and I'll never do it again….”
“By the TriGods—”
“Shadroth, Bilkroth, and Vilkridor.”
And Master Teldrasso said, “A dreamweb with no safety flaws,” just as Peetro added, “Has this got anything to do with Prince Argul's disappearance?”
Silence struck the two opposing groups of men.
The leader of Vul's guards swallowed.
I'm doing it. I'm really taking the step that ends it all…
Yukiko.
…when scarlet lights flare in the darkness, and silver tracery lights up across my skin in answer. It is cold and alien, the sensation that spins through me. I am one with creatures unlike myself, whose extended predatory senses are so fine that I am in awe.
Then the cats turn away and are one with the shadows once more.
My love?
But she's been truly gone, ever since the young dodecamoth—
Yukiko?
—flew onwards, following Shama's trail.
The standoff repeated itself an hour later, but with a difference. This time, Hoj and Peetro were backed up by nearly two hundred men and hard-faced women, regulars of the Busted Star and neighboring decks, bristling with knives and fighting-poles, barbed chains and razorglass maces.
In front of them stood a thirty-strong squadron of guards who wore the purple that identified them as Vul's own.
They were in a curved, high corridor whose walls were of intricately patterned silver and whose floor was gleaming obsidian. Beyond the uniformed guards stood embossed polished doors leading to the royal sleeping chamber.
Peetro had made his points coldly; Hoj had allowed his anger to show. But the guards’ captain was either loyal to Vul or more scared of Vul than of a larger (but undisciplined) fighting force.
Finally Vul came striding into view, with only two more guards trailing him. He held a small dark blue globe in each hand.
“So. Peetro and Hoj. One might have known.”
Peetro gave a bow, equal-to-equal. “Viceroy, under article two-twelve of the Breakdown Regulations, a councilor is entitled to—”
But Hoj said, “You bloody bastard, Vul. Are you insane?” He held up the dreamweb. “To trap Prince Argul in this?”
The blood swept from Vul's face, and he took two stumbling steps back.
“Argul…” Vul swallowed. “No. Not here.”
Peetro's eyebrows raised. His linguistics tutor had taught him much about reading undertones in voices. It wasn't just that Vul had not expected to find the dreamweb containing Prince Argul's mind…It was the feelings that Vul bore for Argul.
“Stand aside,” Peetro said, using Vul's tonality to command Vul's own guards.
The men moved apart fractionally, just enough for Hoj to recognize the opportunity and sprint forward, dreamweb in hand. They grabbed for him, but he was through, slamming the heel of his palm against the heavy doors—
“Look out!” yelled Peetro.
—that swung open, massive but finely balanced on silent hinges, to revea
l the sleeping chamber, and Prince Argul atop his silver couch.
That was when the vicious fighting started.
I back away from the edge, half daring to understand, to believe that everything might be all right. I've lost her once…
Shama hung well back as the fighters swung bloody weapons, yelling with pain and fear. Neither she nor the guards nor the Busted Star regulars noticed the small, purple shape with tiny twelve-sided wings flitting overhead, into Prince Argul's chamber.
On the silver couch, the prince remained in coma.
“You're insane!” Hoj's voice rose above the melee. “Vul's planning to drop a Void—” Swirling violence enclosed him.
At the sleeping chamber's far wall, the young dodecamoth hovered before a particularly intricate decoration formed of diamond. The diamond flared with blue light.
And the wall split apart into shards and fragments that slowly lowered into the floor.
“Hey—”
“Stop!”
“Lay down arms…”
Beyond the sleeping prince, now revealed, was the Core Court, huge and echoing, where a vast crystalline lattice stood. Inside the great construct floated the refracted, broken, horizontal image of the Sleeping King, Prince Argul's ancestor.
An image that spoke, for the first time in three centuries.
I weep oil, my subjects. I bleed rust. Did you not know this?
The words sounded inside people's minds, not in their ears.
They called me King Nirgultal, in the days of my ascension—
And the guards and civilians alike slowly lowered their arms. One by one, they genuflected in the archaic fashion, down on one knee and bowing their heads.
—though I was president before that, and once I was plain Nirgul Talonsen, in days that scholars no longer remember.
Vul gasped, from the shock of the royal words in his mind, and from the sight of Hoj, who held the dreamweb in his hands.
For the dreamweb was glowing white.
Glowing brighter by the second.
I dream in the pipes, I haunt the pistons, and my joints ache as I clank forever, and you can never realize how lonely it can…Did you know, for a time, they called me the Laughing King?
A series of hollow, overlapping, echoing laughs sounded in the Core Court. Shama shivered.
So many dead generations ago…
Hoj was stumbling now, towards the sleeping Prince Argul's body, while the dreamweb that had trapped the prince's mind flared white-hot. Hoj whimpered as his hands burned. Still he advanced, his carefree features lined with agony.
“By the TriGods,” muttered Vul.
Then Vul regarded the dark blue spheres he held in each hand, and remembered the Void Egg he had been planning to deploy. Perhaps the void was where the answers lay.
Where his answers lay.
As Hoj reached the prince, Vul could stand no more. He crushed the two spheres against his own chest and screamed.
“No…” This was Peetro. It was not Vul he was concerned with. “Hoj, for the TriGods’ sake, let go!”
Vul's suicide was irrelevant now.
Peetro moved fast, pushing himself through the kneeling men and women, ignoring the powerful words that slammed through his brain.
Strange visitors awaken me, and I am in no state to cope, and what will happen to the city when I am confused and—?
A stench of burning meat was rising from Hoj. His tears glistened as he laid the dreamweb on Prince Argul's chest. Finally, Hoj could let go and slump back on the floor, gasping.
His hands, when Peetro reached him, were red-black glistening ruins.
“Save…Argul,” Hoj gasped.
Peetro clasped Hoj, saying nothing. Vul, the knowledgeable bastard, was dead. But Peetro knew enough to realize that breaking the dreamweb would shatter Argul's mind. As for how to actually save Argul—
Do I need to rule again? I have scattered my being among motive parts for so long…
Master Teldrasso, kneeling, raised his head.
“Sire? My pardon, but your descendant is trapped in a dreamweb that no human can undo. I would beseech you—”
No. Not for you.
Some of the guards glanced at each other. Did anyone understand what was happening here?
But I am so in need of company, just to visit for a while, perhaps a century or two. And your world, dear visitor, is interesting.
Now Peetro could see the purple dodecamoth hovering just before the crystal lattice. So, too, could Shama.
My fault…
Oh, no, young Shama. The Sleeping King's words roared only in her brain. You will be the greatest webmaker of them all.
“Sire…” she gasped out loud.
Peetro looked at her.
I have company in my dreams; therefore the city needs Argul. You may have him back.
Master Teldrasso blinked. Hoj whimpered and passed out.
And as my descendant awakes—the Sleeping King's words seemed stronger and deeper as Prince Argul's orange eyes fluttered and the dreamweb began to melt into his body without harm—I welcome Yukiko, my otherworldly visitor.
I scream. I sob. I weep.
Oh, Yukiko.
Was I right? Will she be okay?
Wait for me….
The purple moth slipped inside the lattice, and was lost from sight.
You're safe, Yukiko. And you, my friend who observes from her realm.
I'm present in the Core Court.
When the time comes, you will be welcome, too.
And now I'm not.
Gone. This is my world, though the Sleeping King's words promised a certain future.
Next morning, I open a holo display. Inside the cubic space, an image of Ian's head and shoulders sharpens. Behind him I see a partially rendered backdrop: Sixth Avenue.
“Sorry,” I tell him. “But I'm resigning.”
“No. Don't. Look, Ryan, if I've been too heavy-handed then I apol—”
“You were right, my friend. I just don't want to do this anymore.”
Ian stares at me from the display.
“Come and talk. Come to dinner with the family.”
And I surprise myself by saying, “I'd love to. You can help me plan my trip.”
“Trip?”
“To Japan. There are places to visit.”
Places I can remember, though this physical body has never been there.
“Um, okay…”
“I'll call you back later.”
“Do that. Er…Nice lenses. Weird, but…Good to see you make a change.”
“Thanks, Ian.”
“Though you might have just settled for a haircut.”
And another surprise: I actually laugh.
“Yeah,” I tell him. “I probably should have. Take it easy, old pal.”
“Hang loose, buddy.”
I close the call.
I remember, in retrospect, the dream fading. Deep in the crystal lattice, two shapes moved: a regal waving figure, and the one who smiled, that familiar mixture of Zen calm and sensuous love, eyes filled with stillness and movement at the same time.
A good dream.
As I leave the house, I wink at myself in the hallway mirror, and the orange-eyed reflection winks back. The air is pure and clear as I make my through the forest and stop at the edge of the depression where I nearly stepped into space, when I thought I had to end it all.
Keep well, Yukiko.
I am alone. I am empty. But I can go on—
I love you.
—because I know that somewhere, elsewhen, sideways from now, she waits inside a web of crystal and dreams, waiting for the day when we are joined once more.
Paul Di Filippo manages the nigh-impossible task of being a unique voice in a field of unique voices. He has been a finalist for the Hugo, Nebula, BSFA, Philip K. Dick, Wired Magazine, and World Fantasy awards. He is a trendsetter, a fearless explorer, a charter of hitherto unknown territories, and a laugh-out-loud riot. One can always cou
nt on Paul to be plugged into whatever the current cultural Zeitgeist is, though his writings leap from the unclassifiably mind-bending and absurd to examinations of plausible futures lurking just around the corner from today. His writing is always sexy, funny, relevant, and now, and his latest is a perfect concluding tale for this book of future fiction in an accelerated age.
1. Meet Russ Reynolds
R uss Reynolds, that's me. You probably remember my name from when I ran the country for three days. Wasn't that a wild time? I'm sorry I started a trade war with several countries around the globe. I bet you're all grateful things didn't ramp up to the shooting stage. I know I am. And the UWA came out ahead in the end, right? No harm, no foul. Thanks for being so understanding and forgiving. I assure you that my motives throughout the whole affair, although somewhat selfish, were not ignoble.
And now that things have quieted down, I figured people would be calm enough to want to listen to the whole story behind those frighteningly exciting events.
So here it is.
2. Mr. Wiki Builds My Dream House
It all started, really, the day when several wikis where I had simoleons banked got together to build me a house. Not only did I meet my best friend Foolty Fontal that day, but I also hooked up with Cherimoya Espiritu. It's hard now, a few years later, to say which one of those outrageous personages gave me the wildest ride. But it's certain that without their aiding and abetting, plotting and encouraging, I would never have become the jimmywhale of the UWA, and done what I did.
The site for my new house was a tiny island about half an acre in extent. This dry land represented all that was left of what used to be Hyannis, Massachusetts, since Cape Cod became an archipelago. Even now, during big storms, the island is frequently overwashed, so I had picked up the title to it for a song, when I got tired of living on my boat, the Gogo Goggins.
Of course the value of coastal land everywhere had plunged steadily in the three decades since the destruction of New Orleans. People just got tired of seeing their homes and businesses destroyed on a regular basis by super-storms and rising sea levels. Suddenly Nebraska and Montana and the Dakotas looked like beckoning havens of safety, especially with their ameliorated climates, and the population decline experienced for a century by the Great Plains states reversed itself dramatically, lofting the region into a new cultural hot zone. I had heard lately that Fargo had spawned yet another musical movement, something called “cornhüsker dü,” although I hadn't yet listened to any samples of it off the ubik.