World’s End (23 page)

I start to
laugh, certain that all of this is only my own pathetic paranoia. Lunatics
always think they’re sane.

... And
yet, ever since Song infected me there has been an alien presence in my mind,
wrapped around my thoughts like a
brainprobe
...
always the strongest, the worst, when I see
Fire
Lake
.
Fire
Lake
.
Can it possibly be alive ... sentient?

Exultation
answers me.
But how?
Why? Some unknown life form ... is it
really possible?
I get no response. Hope is real to me again, and with it,
failure. But I know that whatever happens from now on I can only go forward,
until I find the answer to this mystery, or die trying. I am a sibyl, and
whether I am fit to be one or not, that change is inescapable, and permanent.
And somehow it has bound me to
Fire
Lake
....
I feel stronger in my new knowledge, and helplessly
elated, and terrified.

I get up,
restless with nerves. My feet lead me through the town until I find myself
standing at the edge of the canyon again. I wonder fleetingly why I always seem
to find myself here, where there is nothing. The depths lie in black shadow,
but I hear the water chuckling over secrets far below. Looking down from the
brink I see a faint glimmer of light pulse and fade. I remember that once I saw
something silvery in the water’s depths. Something about its shape was familiar
... but there is nothing to see in the blackness. I look across at the quarter
of the city that lies on the far rim, see it flickering with ghost-light,
images winking in and out. There are no real people, no real lights there at
all. The outlaws stay close to Song, under her protection.
But why?
Why does the
Lake
need her, or me?
What does it mean—?

I have too
many pieces to a puzzle, and nothing to fit them into. I press my face into my
hands, feeling my thoughts drown in noise. Moments of sanity are not
enough ....
Defeat weighs on me like iron. I’m tired ...
I’m so tired of trying.

I go back
to Song’s tower; not sure why, except that I have nowhere else to go. As I walk
between the rows i7o of bones I wonder suddenly whether she has ordered her
guards to kill me. But I keep walking, and they let me pass. My tension grows
as I climb the stairs to her chambers. The rooms are dark and silent. She is
still lying on the bed, asleep now. The fire globe bathes her in dim, bloody
light. She stirs as I enter the room, her face shadowed with exhaustion as deep
as my own.

“Why do you
let me live?” I ask dully.

“The
Lake
,” she says. “The
Lake
needs you.” She lets her head fall back again, lying passive and inviting on
the silk and velvet coverings. “And I need you.”

I lie down
fully clothed—on the floor, where I will not even have to touch her. She
murmurs a curse, and then is silent. I feel nothing but a cold knot of anger,
and an aching loneliness.

When I wake
again it is dawn. The town looks like burnished copper. I have been dreaming
about my brothers; the memory jars me fully awake. Song is sitting on the bed
with her knees drawn up, staring at me. I try to question her about my
brothers, but she won’t listen. She gets up and runs from the room.

Sitting on
the floor, I realize that my body no longer hurts anywhere. I have healed
overnight. Overnight? I feel only a passing dismay at the vagaries of time. I
stretch without hurting for the first time
in ..
longer
than I can remember, and I am only grateful. I
scratch at the sparse stubble of beard on my chin.

The
Lake
calls me to the window, and I look out at it. I
watch it mutate and flow as it changes randomly,
helplessly
....
Helplessly.
How do I know that?
My hands make fists
on the stone windowsill. I shut my eyes, reciting an
adhani
and feeling the demon choir inside me fade; listening for the darker voice
hidden beneath them, the voice that I thought was my own madness—the voice of
the Lake. I open my eyes, taking a deep breath, ready to try again.

How does this thing get into my mind?
As I ask myself the question, I
realize there can only be one answer: Because I’m a sibyl, like Song.
But what is the mechanism?
I force my
thoughts into the chains of question and answer. If I can only understand this,
I’ll know better whether I’m really insane—whether I can ever be sane again.
The virus causes altered brain structure,
receptivity to a faster-than-light medium ...
my excitement rises ...
which means ... which
means
...
?

“Shit!” I
push myself away from the window as my concentration falls apart and the thing
inside me
gibbers
its frustration. “Damn it! Damn,
damn—” not even sure if the curses are my own.

Song cries
out in the next room, as if she feels everything I do. I go into the room and
she hurls a piece of clothing at me. “Get out! Get away from me, you failure,
leave me alone!” Her voice is tremulous with pain, but her eyes are like
obsidian. She clutches the fire globe against her breast.

“I didn’t
ask for this!” I snarl, sullen with exasperation. “I came here to find my
brothers, not to solve your problems.”

“Liar!”
She stalks back and forth, her robe flapping open so that I glimpse a flash of
breast or thigh as she moves. “You couldn’t wait to get your hands on me. You
wanted me—everyone wants me, because I have power. They’d do anything to have
me. But they’re all afraid of me except you.” Her hands touch her breasts; I
look away. “You weren’t afraid ... I thought you were different. But you’re not
the man who came here—”

“What do
you want from me?” I shout furiously. “You infected me! You wanted a crazy man,
and that’s what you’ve got! Tell me what the bloody hell you—” I break off.

Her eyes
are glazing ... she has gone into Transfer.

“Song?”
I
stare at her. For a moment I can’t even remember what question I’ve asked. And
who have I called to answer it—

“Help ...
me,” she whispers. “I want ... help me. Order me.”

The
Lake
roars into my mind, her voice echoes inside me,
until I can barely speak.
“Order—you to do—what?
Who
are you? Where are you?”

“Lost ...”
she moans.
(Lost
lost
lost
.)
“Save me ....”

“Damn it—”
I dig my fists into my eyes until I see stars. I know this is important,
desperately important. But the
Lake
is all
around me.
“The
Lake
?
Are you a prisoner of the
Lake
?”

“No ...
Lake
. Here.”

“Where?
What—” I try to think. “What are you?”

“
Lake
.
Lake
.”
(
Lake
lake
lake
...)

My breath
catches. The
Lake
is speaking to me, through
Song. “But what
are
you?” I shout,
shouting down the echoes inside my head.

“Your servant ...
Lake
.”
Song’s eyes are vacant, helpless.

I turn
away, shaking my head, wanting to shake her. “How can I help you?”

“Ask ...”
she gasps, “ask the right questions.”

What are you, what do you want from me, how can
I help you—?
“I
can’t think of anything else!” And unspeakable anguish fills me.

Song falls
out of Transfer into a sobbing heap. “Please, please ...
I
”
she cries, as if her heart is breaking. “I can’t ... I can’t ... bear it. Help
me—”

I fall on
my knees beside her and take her in my arms, holding her against my heart,
because her pain is mine, as bitter and unstoppable as tears. “I’m sorry, I’m
sorry ...”I groan, to her, to the raving monster that holds us captive. “I
tried
.”
Seeing now
that she is as much its prisoner as I am.
“Why does it do this to you
... to us? By all the gods, what does it want from us—tell me, Song!” I do
shake her now, to make her listen.

She looks
at me in fear, as if she thinks she will fall into Transfer again. “Don’t!” I
shout. She doesn’t. “It’s so alone—” Her voice trembles. “There’s no one else
who hears it—not through a thousand years. So it keeps me here ... I keep it
here ...” She wipes at her eyes. “It’s lost in time. It needs ...” She caresses
the fire globe that lies in her lap.

“What?” I
ask.

“You were
supposed to know! You’re supposed to ... to
know
.”

“Why? Why
me? Why not—
Goldbeard
, or somebody else?
Why not you?”

“I can’t!
Nobody can answer it; nobody knows what it wants, nobody knows what it is! ...
I’m lost. I can’t hold on to anything. It takes everything away from me ...”
She clings to me, burying her face against my neck. Her whole body shudders.
“It’s eating me alive.”

“Gods ....”
I wipe my nose, sniveling with self-pity. I have failed again, failed
miserably, and I don’t even know at what. Why me? What do I know that matters?
I’m no one—“I thought ... I thought you controlled the
Lake
.
I thought
you
knew what it was! I saw
you with those men, you called up a power and you killed them—”

“The
Lake
killed them!” She pushes away from me. “It took them
somewhere else. It touches the crowd through me.
When it
comes that close,
things
happen.
Things used to happen to Sanctuary all the time, that’s what everyone says.
Until I came.
Now they only happen when I can’t hold on,
when I hate them so much ....” Her hands clench. “I just never know
what
—”

“Were those
men guilty?”

“I don’t
know.” She looks at me strangely. Suddenly her fingers sink into my flesh. “I
don’t care! They’re all guilty, those maggots! I suffer to save them—let them
suffer too!” She begins to cry again, bruising her fists against my vest.

“Help me
find my brothers,” I say softly. “I know they’re here. You even saw them, you
passed judgment on them. Help me find them, and I’ll take you away from here.”

“That’s not
the answer!” Her eyes are like black glass again. “I know them, two
Kharemoughis
. They were
worms,
even the
Lake
didn’t want them. So I let Gold
beard sell them.”

I
straighten up. “Who owns them? Where can I find them?”

“You don’t
want to know. That’s not why you came. You don’t care about your family. Nobody
does, it’s all a lie.”

The words
sink into my heart like a knife. “That’s not ... that’s not true. My father ...
your mother—”

“I hate my
mother! She never understood anything. She made my father feel like nothing,
because he was ... full of dreams. She never had any dreams. She never
understood about being a sibyl. It was only a job to her. She let the Company use
her and give us nothing. She was a sibyl, she could have asked for anything!
But she wouldn’t go somewhere where we could be rich and honored. She wouldn’t
listen to us—”

“Sibyls
aren’t supposed to want money or power,” I say weakly, but she isn’t listening.

“She didn’t
understand when I told her to infect me! She knew I was lying ... but she did
it anyway. And now she’s sorry, but it’s too late, too late ....” She wrings
her hands. I realize finally that it wasn’t World’s End that drove her mad, but
her madness that drove her into World’s End.

Did mine?
I climb slowly to my feet, staring out the
window at the
Lake
. “I hate my brothers,” I
say thickly. “I don’t know why I came ... except that maybe I hated myself
more.” I turn back to her. “All my life, I always tried to do the right
thing—but it always came out wrong.” I’d been as self-deluded as any of the
others back in
C’uarr’s
place, the ones I’d despised
for running away into World’s End.

But this
doesn
‘t
have to be the end of the world
. “We can leave here, Song.
Nothing’s keeping us here. Tell me how to find my brothers—”

“You’ll
never leave here. Not unless you ask the right questions!”

“How?”
I
wave my arms. “What else can I try?”

She only
stares at me, her face darkening. She gets to her feet suddenly and goes into
the bedchamber with the globe in her hands. After a little I hear her call out
the window to someone. I follow her into the other room.