by Tad Williams
"That is close to blasphemy," Vasily growled.
"Enough." Bonnie Mae Simpkins turned on the young man like a grumpy mother bear. "You just keep your mouth shut for a bit, then you'll get your turn. I want to hear what Mr. Paradivash has to say."
"It is this." Paradivash stared at the piece of tile, thick with writing. "We had assumed that when the Grail Brotherhood sealed the system a few weeks ago, that was their final step—that they had finished what they planned and now meant to reap the rewards. It was a reasonable guess. They alone had freedom of the system, while other users were banned, or—if they were already on the system like our Circle members—they were somehow trapped online. But the Grail Brotherhood have not finished, it seems. One crucial aspect of their plan remains incomplete, although we know it only by the coded designation, 'the Ceremony.' "
"These Grail people must have spent like, centuries hanging out in the Palace of Shadow," Fredericks whispered to Orlando, citing a particularly melodramatic part of their old Middle Country simworld. "They just keep throwing utter creepy all around."
Orlando was fighting hard to overcome his fatigue. This seemed like real information, the first he had been given in a long time. "You said there were two crucial things. No, three. What are the others?"
Paradivash nodded. "One is the involvement of this person Sellars. He is no one we know, nor have I ever heard of him before this, at least not by that name. It is curious—someone who claims to be opposed to the Brotherhood, and who has spent so much time and energy on this project, but has not contacted the Circle. I do not know what to think."
"Are you saying he's dupping?" Fredericks was angry, something Orlando hadn't heard for a while. "Just because he's not playing the game the way you think he's supposed to?"
The older man named Pingalap stirred. "Who are these young people, these strangers, to come and question us?"
Nandi Paradivash ignored his Circle comrade, but held Fredericks' stare for a long moment. "I do not know what to think, as I said. But it troubles me."
"Number three?" Orlando prompted. "Third mistake?"
"Ah. That is perhaps one we will be pleased to discover, if true." Paradivash held up his scribbled-upon tile. "Since the network has been sealed, we have believed the gateways between simulations, at least those which are not permanently linked to other worlds by the river, were operating at random. This has made it cruelly hard to plan, or even to communicate between Circle groups in different parts of the network. But I am no longer sure it is true—there may be an arrangement that is simply more subtle than we could grasp. With the information I myself have gathered, and that which you two have given me, it is possible I can finally discern the pattern which now controls the gates. That would be a major victory, if true."
Orlando considered. "And it if is true? What good will it do you?"
Paradivash looked up from his calculations. "You must have noticed that many of these simulations are breaking down in some way or other—collapsing into chaos, as though the system were going through some phase of instability. What you may not know is that the dangers here are real. The closing-off of the network from the outside did not happen all at once—it took the better part of two days. Before the last chinks were shut, it became clear from those who had been offline that the perils of this place were no longer just virtual. Several members of our organization who have been killed in simulations have also died in real life."
Something Orlando had long expected was now confirmed. He felt a cold lump in his stomach, and avoided looking at Bonnie Mae Simpkins. "So what good will figuring out the gates do us?"
The stranger gave him a hard look, then turned his eyes back to his figures. "It will allow us perhaps to stay a step ahead of the worst destruction—to stay alive as long as possible. Because otherwise there is no hope at all. The Ceremony is coming, whatever it is. The Grail Brotherhood have launched their endgame, and we have nothing yet with which to counter it."
Orlando looked at the man, who seemed to have stepped through some mental gateway of his own and was already miles away. Little yellow monkeys stirred uneasily on Orlando's shoulder.
We 're going to get herded like animals, he could not help thinking. From world to world until there isn't anywhere else to run. Then the killing will really start.
CHAPTER 11
Quarantine
NETFEED/FASHION: Mbinda "Bored by the Street"
(visual: Mbinda's fall show—runway models)
VO: Designer Hussein Mbinda says that changes in street fashion will have little effect on his line. He continues to emphasize flowing fabrics, as in his most recent "Chutes" collection, but says that he's interested in color and shape, not street cred.
(visual: Mbinda backstage at Milan runway show)
MBINDA: "I'm bored by the street—you can only spend so much time thinking about people who don't even have the sense to get out of the cold."
For a moment Renie thought she had actually screamed—caught in the tail end of a dream in which both Martine and Stephen were sealed in some kind of barrel that was rapidly sinking into the depths of a dark river, Renie herself unable to reach them no matter how hard she swam—but when she opened her eyes, the girl Emily was rocking back and forth beside her and T4b was still sleeping, his head lolling on his wide, armor-bulked chest. The angled light revealed acne scars on his dusty cheek; Renie wondered why any teenage boy would choose to have that feature made part of his virtual presence.
She was furious with herself for falling asleep, although since she and the two young people had returned first after hours of fruitless searching for Martine, there was nothing better to be done at present. Still, to have allowed weariness to tug her down while Martine remained lost seemed a form of betrayal.
So many people needing help, she thought with more than a little bitterness, and we haven't helped one of them yet.
Renie brushed reflexively at her eyelids and wondered about her real face under the bubble-mask in the V-tank. Was sleep crusting the corners of her eyes? Collecting around the inner edges of the mask like tailings from a mine? It was a disgusting thought, but oddly fascinating. It was hard not to think of her own body as something completely separate from her now, although it must be responding to her neural commands, flexing when she made her virtual joints flex to lift something, thrashing in its vat of plasmodial liquid when she felt herself to be running through the insect-jungles or freight yards of the Otherland network. It made her feel sorry for her body, as though it were something discarded—a toy with which a child had grown bored.
She shook off the gloomy thoughts and sat up, struggling to remember in which of the gigantic house's countless rooms she had landed. It came to her after only a moment's survey of the spare, functional furniture, the long table and several dozen chairs, and the icons propped in niches along the wall, each illuminated by its own candle,
The Library Brothers. Their executive dining room or whatever you'd call it.
Brother Epistulus Tertius had been horrified by their companion's disappearance, although he seemed a little doubtful that it had been a kidnapping—perhaps not a very common happenstance in this enclosed, semifeudal society. He had rounded up several of his fellows to help search the Library precinct, and had sent another to request an interview with Brother Custodis Major on the subject of the dusting monk Renie suspected had been their enemy in disguise. Epistulus Tertius had also kindly insisted that Renie and the other newcomers use the Library Cloisters as their base of operations.
Renie struggled to focus on the problem. Every moment that Martine was in the monster's hands the risk increased. She looked at Emily and wondered why the Quan Li thing had not snatched her instead of Martine, as it had back in the unfinished simulation. Merely a case of opportunity, or for some purpose more complicated? Did that mean there was a chance the thing would keep Martine alive?
Steps clattered in the hallway outside. T4b stirred and made a drowsy questioning noise as Florimel
and !Xabbu entered.
"Any news?" Renie was relieved to see them back safely, but she could tell already by their postures and expressions what Florimel's headshake confirmed. "Damn! There must be something we can do—they can't have just vanished."
"In a place like this?" Florimel asked heavily. "With thousands of rooms? I am afraid that is just what they can do."
"The young monk wants us all to come to the . . . what is the word?" !Xabbu wrinkled his brow. "Abbot's chambers. He seems very concerned."
"Brother Epistulus Tertius," Florimel said. "My God, what a mouthful. We could just call him 'E3'—our friend over there could make him an honorary Goggleboy."
Renie smiled politely and glanced at T4b, who was rubbing at his face sleepily. "We must take any help offered," Renie said as Emily sat up, looking as groggy as T4b. "Should we bring everyone?"
"Do we dare separate?" asked Florimel.
Despite the fact that it was a large room, the abbot of the Great Library seemed almost too big for it, a wide man with small sharp eyes and a charming smile that came with surprising swiftness to his heavy features. But however nice the smile, after greeting them and waving Renie and Florimel over to his vast desk—the others stayed behind on a bench near the door—the man the other monks respectfully addressed as Primoris had not had much opportunity to use it.
"A terrible thing," he told Renie and her companions. "We have labored hard to make our market a safe place for travelers. Now two people are waylaid in a week! And by one of our own acolytes, if what you say is true."
"Posing, Primoris," said Brother E3 hurriedly—Florimel's joke would now not leave Renie's mind, and she silently cursed the German woman. "Someone posing as one of our acolytes."
"Well, we shall get to the truth of this. Here is Brother Custodis Major now." The abbot lifted a meaty hand and beckoned. "Come in, Brother, and lighten our gloom. Have you found the young villain?"
Custodis Major, who although he looked to be in his sixties at least, still had a beard that was primarily red, shook his head. "I wish it were so, Primoris. There is no trace of him except some clothing." He placed a small bundle on the abbot's desk. "Kwanli—that is his name—has been with us only two weeks, and none of the other acolytes know him well."
"I belive that," Renie said, "especially if they haven't noticed he's a woman."
"What?" The abbot frowned. "This criminal is a woman? I have never heard of such a thing."
"It's a long story." Renie had not taken her eyes off the pile of clothing. "May we look through those things?"
The abbot spread his hand, granting permission. Florimel stepped in front of Renie and began gently to unfold the cloth; Renie swallowed her pride and let her do it. There was little enough to examine, a rough tunic and a pair of woolen hose raddled with small snags. "Those aren't what she was wearing when I saw her," Renie said.
Brother Custodis Major lifted a bushy red eyebrow. "This is the Library, not the Gaol Halls, good lady, and these are not the dark days after the Upper Shelf Fire. My boys have a change of clothes so that when the fullers come, they can send their garments to be cleaned."
"What is this?" Florimel held up her finger with a tiny chip of something white on the end. "It was in the cuff of the sleeve."
Epistulus Tertius was the most nimble of the three monks. He leaned in, squinted, and said, "Plaster, isn't it?"
Brother Custodis Major was slower to speak. After examining the chip for a long moment, he said, "I do not think it comes from the Library. See, it is figured, and the only plaster we have here is on the flat walls in the Cloisters—the Library is wood and stone."
Renie could not help clapping her hands together in fierce joy. "Something! That's something anyway!" She turned to the abbot. "Is there any way we could find out where it comes from? I know it's a big house, but. . . ."
The abbot again lifted his hand, this time to forestall more questions. "I'm sure we can." He lifted a fabric-covered tube from behind his desk and spoke into it. "Hello? Hello, Brother Vocus?" He lifted it to his ear; when no answer came, he shook the hose, then began the whole process over again. At last he said, "Someone has apparently left my speaking-tube disconnected downstairs. Epistulus Tertius, will you go and find Brother Factum Quintus? I believe he'll be cataloging in the Tile Halls today."
The abbot turned back to the outsiders as the young monk vanished through the door. "Factum Quintus is our expert on decorative building materials, although his knowledge is by no means limited so narrowly. He has done some wonderful work on crenellations, too—he enabled us, in fact, to identify what were then called The Semicircular Apse Documents as being from another source entirely. When they are translated someday, his name will be memorialized in them." His smile transformed his face like a fluffy cloud floating across the sky. "A good man."
Renie smiled back, but inside she could feel her engine racing. She wanted to do something, and only the knowledge that Martine's life was in their hands helped her calm the unhelpful internal voice that demanded immediate action, whether appropriate or not.
Factum Quintus appeared at last, silent and sepulchral as the Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come. Round-faced Brother E3 (Renie winced at the thought—it was starting to become automatic) stood huffing in the doorway behind him, as though he had been forced to carry the other monk all the way to the abbot's chambers on his back. Not that it looked like much of a job: Factum Quintus was quite the thinnest person Renie had seen in a long time, with a face like a fish staring head-on through the glass wall of a tank. He barely gave her and the others a glance, although she felt sure it was the first time he had seen a baboon in the same room with the abbot.
"You wanted me, Primoris?" His voice was as raw as a teenager's, although he looked to be in his early thirties.
"Just have a look at this, if you please." The abbot gestured at the fleck of plaster that Florimel had set on the refolded tunic.
The skinny monk stared at it for a moment, his face almost completely empty of expression, then reached into the neck of his robe and withdrew a rectangle of thin crystal on a length of chain. He settled this on his nose like a pair of spectacles—there was a niche cut in the center for the purpose—and tilted it back and forth as he leaned over the white spot making little lip-smacking noises. After a long perusal he straightened.
"It is a bit of ballflower. Yes, yes. A patch, I should imagine, something to fix a piece of exterior carving from one of the older turrets." He lifted the chip on his fingertip to examine it again. "Hmmmm—ah! Yes. Do you see the curve? Quite distinctive. Haven't seen one in a bit—fooled me for a moment. Thought it might be from one of those quoins they found when they stripped the Seashell Facade." Hugely magnified behind the crystal bar, his eyes appeared even more piscine than before. "May I keep it? Like to have a look at the plaster mix." He set it back on the folded clothes, then delicately licked the finger that had held it. "Mmmm. More gypsum than I would have expected."
"That's all fine," said Renie, speaking slowly to keep her impatience in check, "but can you tell us where it's from? We're looking for someone—that fragment was found in his clothes." The abbot and Epistulus Tertius gave her a strange look over the reswitched pronoun, but Renie did not bother to explain. "We're in a hurry—this person has kidnapped our friend."
Factum Quintus gazed at her musingly for a moment, his finger still pressed against his tongue, then abruptly turned and walked out of the abbot's chamber. Renie stared, aghast. "Where is he going. . . ?"
"Epistulus Tertius, will you follow him?" said the abbot. "He is a bit . . . distracted by nature," he explained to Renie and the others. "That is why he will never be Factum Major. But he is extremely clever, and I am sure he is thinking about your problem."
Moments later Epistulus Tertius was back at the chamber door, even more red-faced than before (and, Renie felt sure, growing increasingly sorry he'd befriended these strangers.) "He's gone to the crypts, Primoris."
"There." The large
abbot sat back in his chair, like a piece of cargo in its stays. "He is looking for something to help you with your problem."
An awkward silence fell on the room. The abbot and brothers Custodis Major and Epistulus Tertius, who should have been used to stillness, fidgeted and looked at the walls. Renie and her companions were no more at ease, except for !Xabbu and Emily. !Xabbu was doing his best not to appear too human, since they had not encountered a single talking animal in this simulation, and was currently perched on the back of the bench beside T4b's head, picking imaginary nits from the Goggleboy's skunk-striped hair, much to T4b's annoyance and the girl's amusement.
"If we're waiting," Renie said, "can you at least tell us something about this place? How big is it? It seems huge."
The abbot looked up and smiled. "The Library? Ah, yes, I suppose it is big, although there are only two other Libraries within pilgrimage distance, so we have little to compare it to."
"No, I mean the house itself." Renie remembered the sea of rooftops. "It just goes on and on like a city, from what I've seen. How big is it?"
The abbot looked to Brother Custodis Major, then back at her. "City. I do not understand."
"Leave it alone, Renie," said Florimel. "It doesn't matter."
"How far from here until it ends?" Renie asked the abbot. God knew when they'd get a chance to have a normal conversation with anyone here again. "To the place where there isn't any more house?"
"Ah." The big man nodded slowly. "I understand. You have had some religious instruction, perhaps? Or there are legends of such things in the part of the House you come from? No one knows what lies beyond the House, of course, because no one has ever seen it and returned to tell about it, just as no one has come from beyond death to tell us of what they found. Those who believe in the Lady of the Windows would dispute me on both counts, of course, but the House is full of strange ideas and cults. We of the Library Brotherhood are only comfortable with facts."
"So it has no end? None at all? The . . . this house just goes on forever and ever?"