World’s End (18 page)

Goldbeard
eyes me warily, his hand covering the watch.

I thrust my
own hand out. “Give that to me. It belongs to me.”

He flinches
back as if I hold a weapon. I see the fresh blood welling on my bloodstained
palm, from the places where the trefoil tore my skin. He is afraid of my blood,
of contamination. I step forward, holding out my hand. “Give it to me!”

He gives me
the watch. A murmur of consternation passes among his men.

My eyes
burn and blur as I look at the watch; my parched throat is so tight I cannot
swallow. “Where ... where did you get this?”

“Off a couple pieces of
sidda
shit.”
He laughs.

“Did you
kill them?” The words feel like paper in my mouth, dry and meaningless.

Goldbeard
shrugs.

I blink and
blink my eyes.

“No, we
didn’t,” one of the others says. “They were
Kharemoughis
.
We took them back to Sanctuary and sold them.”

Goldbeard
pulls at his mustache.
“Yeah.
What
you want with them, sibyl?”

“They’re my
brothers.”

“And they
stole your watch?”
His mouth quirks.

“They stole
more than that.” My hand makes a fist; blood drips. “Take me to Sanctuary.”

“You think
you got a choice?” He signals to his men, and their weapons surround me. “Maybe
you infected, but you not immortal. Keep it in mind.”

“What are
we
gonna
do with him, then?” one of the outlaws asks.

“Let Song
decide,”
Goldbeard
answers. They lead me down the
beach to their rover.

We rise up
and up on the erratic currents of heated air.
Fire
Lake
reaches as far as I can see. Its surface shifts and flows like the face of the
sun, now in sharp detail, now soft and amorphous. I rub my eyes.

As the
shore disappears into the heat-haze behind us, I see something born out of the
shimmering play of light ahead. A monolith of red stone rises from the center
of the
Lake
. As we draw near it, I see water
falling from its heights, plumes of liquid transfiguring into clouds as they
meet the Lake’s surface far below. My parched throat aches at the sight of it.
I ask someone for a drink. The outlaws ignore me. The rover circles like a
carrion bird high in the air, then spirals downward toward a landing.

There are
buildings below, I realize at last. They are almost invisible, because they
have been gouged and piled up out of the red stone itself.
And
then jumbled.
Jagged boulders, fissures and irregularities, are fused
randomly into building walls, layered between levels of mortared stone,
transforming an unnatural intrusion into an artless act of chaos. They are
ruins—but like no ruins I have ever known. Cleaving their heart is a twisting
cross of deep canyons. Where the canyons meet is a fountainhead. Water rises
out of a hidden wellspring, flows over the rock face and falls from its
precipice into fire, only to rise again—

We land
easily on a flat slab of stone near the canyon’s edge. There are other flyers
and rovers there already—I feel surprise when I see so many. I wonder dimly how
many still belong to their original owners.

I look over
the canyon’s edge as we leave the rover. The water far below is as clear as
crystal, and in its depths I see the red rock stained with cool, mossy greens.
Where the canyons cross, something silvery catches the sun. The water undulates
sinuously as it flows, and at first I can’t think why it looks so strange. Then
I realize that the glistening water surface clings to the contours of the stone
as it flows along the canyon bottom, defying gravity and all reason. The wonder
and the beauty of it leave me astonished.
When
I wake up, I must remember
this ....

Goldbeard
and his men lead me through the ruined town, along a rough path that follows
the canyon’s rim. The heat is like something alive, riding my back. I stagger
under its burden. The other quarters of the town dance and swim; they seem
insubstantial as I look back at them across the chasm. I search for a familiar
face, for any face—
There
is almost no living being
anywhere. Only a few ragged, shuffling wretches pass us by, never looking up.
Some wear chains. “Where is everyone?”

“You’ll
see,” one of the outlaws answers behind me. From somewhere in the distance I
hear a wail of agony or madness. He pushes me to make me walk faster.

Soon we
have left the town behind, following the canyon toward the rim of the plateau.
I begin to hear more voices in the distance. As we near the rim I see the
gathering: Human forms waver in the heated air. A bizarre platform hung with
gossamer flags floats above them; at first I think it is a mirage.

But it
isn’t. As we join the crowd at last I see the platform still adrift, hovering
impossibly in the air above the cliff. Beside us the canyon ends, and the
waterfall plunges over the scarp and down. Rainbows ride on the clouds of steam
that billow up below us.
Fire
Lake
is bright like the
surface of the sun.

On the
silk-wreathed platform a strange pantomime is taking place. A woman stands
there, cloaked in red/ gold brocaded cloth that gleams in the sun. She is like
a mirror reflecting fire, like a vision. Before her are three very mortal men,
their hands bound behind them, roped together at the waist. They are arguing
about something, denying some accusation, blaming each other. I realize
i
finally that the shining woman is there to pass judgment
on them, like a priestess, or a queen. The crowd watches, murmuring its
anticipation, until the three men have finished their protests. Then, suddenly,
Goldbeard
shouts out, “What is the truth?”

The shining
woman lifts her arms and stiffens like someone going into a trance. Her voice
rises eerily, filling the sudden silence that has fallen over the crowd. She
speaks incoherently; her voice changes and changes again as it
tries
to contain a dozen other voices. At first nothing
happens to the three men waiting before her. But then suddenly the distortion
of the heated air around them seems to intensify; the crowd cries out in
ecstasy and terror.

Reality
tears apart and re-forms around me, in a split second of gut-wrenching vertigo.

A scream is
echoing in my ears. My eyes are ^training to see, although I don’t remember the
instant when they didn’t see—the instant when the three men on the platform
became one and a half.

The man
left alive stands motionless for a long moment, staring at the half a body
still bound to his own. And then he sits down,
jibbering
.
A stream of red spills over the platform’s edge.

I watch in
wonder as the possessed woman comes out of her trance and sways forward to the
pennant wreathed railing. She clings there a moment, gazing down at the outcome
of her judgment. Her mouth pulls back in a smile of terrible satisfaction.
Somehow, using some power I cannot imagine, she has done this thing to them.

She goes to
the survivor and cuts him free with a knife. Then she straightens up again,
shaking her fists in the air, and calls out in a trembling voice, “This is the
truth!” The survivor half scrambles, half falls down the gossamer ladder that
ties the platform to reality. He crawls away, disappearing into the crowd.

The woman
stands at the rail, searching the crowd with her
eyes ....
And then suddenly she has found me. She lowers her arm until it is pointing me
out. It is as if she knew that I had come, as if she has staged this
performance only for my sake: to show me her power. “Bring me the captive!” she
calls. I see her face clearly at last, and I gasp.

“She wants
you,”
Goldbeard
says, almost resignedly. Of course
she wants me. My heart leaps inside my empty chest.
Goldbeard
seizes my arm and pushes me forward through the crowd to the floating rope
ladder, but now I am as eager as he is to reach the platform. Somehow I climb,
and he follows me. The pain in my shoulder is nothing; even the
Lake
, lying below the trembling, swaying rungs of the
fragile ladder, is nothing to me, when I know that my heart’s desire is
waiting.

And she is
waiting—just as I remember her, just as I left her so long ago. But now she is
the queen she was meant to be. Her hair falls around her like a shroud,
white/black as the fields of snow, and I am
snowblind
with longing. Her face is patterned with an intricate filigree of red stains.
The trefoil shines against her robes. Her eyes are like moss-agate and mist ...
when she looks at me my eyes cannot break her gaze. She stands motionless,
holding me with her eyes for an endless moment. The awareness of her power,
over these people, over me, leaves me shaken.

Goldbeard
plants a hand in the middle of my back. I stumble forward, slipping in the
blood, and fall at her feet. I touch the dusty hem of her red/gold cloak. “Moon
...” I whisper. “I knew it would be you. I knew it.” I look up at her again,
and her face fills with surprise.

Goldbeard
kicks the severed body off the platform behind me. “We found this garbage on
the shore, Song.” He comes forward and pulls me to my feet; he makes her name
into the name of a goddess when he speaks. “He
say
he’s come for you.
Even had your picture.”
She looks
at him
sharply,
and back at me. “He’s a sibyl. You
want him, or—?” There is a barb of jealousy in
Goldbeard’s
voice. I wonder if I will have to kill him.

“You’re not
afraid,” Moon murmurs, and reaches out to touch me, as if she cannot believe
I’m real. “You’re not afraid of anything.” She traces the scar on my forehead.
“Yes ... oh, yes,” she says to
Goldbeard
. “I want him
desperately. You don’t know how long I’ve waited for this moment—” Her fingers
feel cool and dry against my skin. She lets them wander down my cheek and
across my lips. I kiss them hungrily; she pulls away. “I knew he would come
someday. The
Lake
showed him to me. Someone
who was not afraid; who knew the
answer ....
And he
comes from my mother!” She gives a shrill laugh.
Goldbeard
looks at her blankly.

Her
restless hand falls to the trefoil hanging in the gap of my ragged shirt.
“Sibyl.
Then the
Lake
called you here?”

I shake my
head. “I came for you.”

She frowns
unexpectedly. “Do you wear this honestly?” Her eyes are too black as they stare
into mine.

I shake my
head again, barely.

Her hand
tightens over the trefoil until the chain bites into my neck. “You will,” she
whispers. Aloud, she says, “The Lake has chosen another servant! The
Lake
has shown me his
coming ....
I claim him for the
Lake
; for myself.” She
holds my trefoil up so that it catches the light. The crowd rumbles with
amazement. She looks back at
Goldbeard
. “Give me the
solii
you took from him.”

Goldbeard
stiffens. Slowly, reluctantly, he takes the stone from his pouch and hands it
to her.

She holds
it up in the air for the crowd to see, turning it between her fingers. She
presses it between her palms ... and suddenly there is a large, sparkling
gemstone in her hand instead. The crowd laughs and cheers.
“Your
reward.”
She flips the gem to
Goldbeard
. He
catches it. I watch greed and awe commingle on his face. “My Watchman,” she
says almost tenderly, “you’ve brought me the right one at last—the one I’ve
waited for, the one I prophesied to myself.”

Goldbeard’s
expression turns dark and uncertain. “He wants to take you away from us!” he
says. The crowd’s voice echoes his suspicion ominously.

“I will
never leave you,” she says calmly, to him, to the watchers. “I can never leave
the
Lake
.”

“Then what
you want with him?”
Goldbeard’s
eyes are hot with
anger. She stares at him. He looks down, glances at the
Lake
with fear on his face.

She turns
back to the crowd. “This speaking is over!” She raises her hands and claps
them. The red/gold cloak drops from her shoulders, to lie in a puddle of blood.
It is lined with black. She wears only a thin, white shift beneath it; the
shift clings to her sweating body, concealing nothing. I suck in a breath of
furnace-hot air. The crowd mutters and shouts its disappointment. They call out
for something more, they want her to show them proof of what I am ... they want
more miracles, or more blood. But she ignores them. She ignores me, too, as if
my gaze does not burn her flesh where it touches her.