World's End

by Joan D. Vinge

  I lock myself into the cab with the controls at night, so I can sleep. I have to watch him constantly. He pretends to servility, but I can see the hatred in his eyes.

  He won’t stop me. I swear to you. I swear it. Nothing will stop me, I’ve come too far. I know now that this was meant to be. Why else would everything have happened the way it has? Why else do I see Fire Lake on the horizon now? My body aches for you, you torture my dreams. . . . Before, I was lost and I found you. Our time will come again, and this time it will never end.

  Today it rained. It rained black mud. Things like worms smeared the windshield. Spadrin got hysterical and I had to knock him out. I made him go outside and scrape off the dome after it stopped raining.

  We’re still no closer.

  I lost the rover today. I knew I should have gotten rid of Spadrin. I was trying to guide us through a boulder-choked gully, when he jumped me. He tried to bash in my skull with a bottle; but I’ve grown almost prescient. I dodged the blow and knocked the bottle out of his hands. But I had to let go of the controls. The rover ran up onto the rocks and flipped itself over.

  We were thrown clear across the cabin when it happened. The fall almost finished what Spadrin started. I came within centimeters of breaking my neck. My shoulder hurts like hell. Spadrin was luckier, all he got was a knot on his head. . . . Or maybe I’m still the lucky one: I stayed conscious. I got the rifle. Except it doesn’t work. The integrator must have shattered. But he doesn’t know that.

  When Spadrin saw the rover lying on its back like a stranded beetle, he fell to his knees and beat his fists on the ground, screaming curses. And then, he looked up at me, with spittle dripping from his lips, and said, “You’re crazy! You’re fucking crazy! You don’t even care!”

  I only smiled, because I know what he couldn’t know—that it didn’t matter. Nothing mattered—not Ang, not him. They were only tools, the means to an end. Because this was meant to happen “Pick up the supplies,” I said. I waved the gun. “Let’s get going.”

  We are getting closer. We are. We are. This is right. I feel it in my bones. I feel the heat of Fire Lake burning through my eyelids when I close my eyes. I feel it throbbing in my chest. It warms me when the stones we lie on crack and groan with the night’s chill, and I watch its glowing beacon through sleepless hours of darkness. It purifies my blood, it leads me through the scorching days, through the valleys of death toward a . . . toward a . . . I’m afraid. I’m afraid.

  Gods, when did I say that? Was I delirious? Was it the drugs? Maybe I shouldn’t take them, all the painkillers and the stims. . . . How can I go on without them? But damn it, I can’t afford to lose control again. How many days . . . Has time stopped?

  I haven’t slept at all. I’ve got to have sleep—but I can’t sleep, with Spadrin waiting. A deathwatch beetle, waiting for the moment when I close my eyes. . . . That bastard, he can sleep, he’s sleeping now, gods rot him. If only the gun worked, I could stun him. I want to strangle him where he lies. But I can’t. I need him. I can’t carry the supplies myself. My shoulder’s too bad, I can’t even touch it, I can’t use my arm. Maybe I should dump them. I don’t need food. Every time I try to eat I puke. . . . I’m getting weaker.

  And he knows it. He keeps testing me, moving in on me. He wants to catch me off guard. I hardly dare to turn my back long enough to piss. One good arm is still all I need to aim the rifle . . . but I think he’s beginning to suspect why I don’t use it.

  We are getting closer. I’m not dreaming that. How many days is it. . . . Too many. We’re nearly out of water, anyway. But gods, we’re almost there!

  Help me, Song—I know you see me, you need me, you know I’m coming to you. I can almost reach you now, reach into this picture, feel your silken silver hair flow over my fingers like moonlight. Feel your lips on mine. Thou are as fair as aurora-glow. . . .

  At last. At last . . . this is how it happened, at last.

  I woke up. It was night, but the rocks beside me glowed, dim and bloody. I thought, I’m awake. And for a second I didn’t understand the fear that filled me when I realized it. I rolled over—the ground and the sky swam with the pain in my shoulder. I sat up, reaching with my good arm for the stun rifle. It was gone.

  Then I looked up, and saw where it had gone. Spadrin stood over me with the gun in his hands, grinning. He aimed it at my face and pressed the stud. Nothing happened. “That’s what I thought,” he said. He drove the gun butt into my bad shoulder. I screamed.

  He laughed, and threw the gun away. He dragged me to my feet, pushing me up hard against the wall of the wash. I clung to the rough stone, sick with pain. His hand caught in my hair and jerked my head back, until I had to look at him. “I owe you a lot, Gedda,” he whispered. He struck me, almost casually. “And now you’re going to collect.” He hit me again, harder, and there was blood in my mouth. “Where do you want me to start, gedda? Here—?” His fingers jabbed at my throat, and I retched. “Or here?” He twisted my sprained arm until I screamed again. “Or here—?” Pain exploded in my groin; I fell to my knees, sobbing helplessly. “What are you the most afraid of?” He waited for my mind to clear, until I was sane enough to understand again, and then he stepped back to study me. As he moved, a red glow lit his face. He looked toward the light, and froze. “No!” he murmured. “No, it can’t be . . . !”

  His sun-blistered face hung above me like a bloody moon: the face of an animal, the face of my enemy. I wanted to kill him. I wanted it more than I wanted to live—And suddenly his knife was in my hand, instead of in its hidden sheath. I looked down at it with a kind of hunger. My fist tightened around its hilt; its blade shone red. “Spadrin!” I hissed.

  Disbelief swelled his eyes as he saw the knife. He backed away from me, stumbled and went down. I threw myself on top of him and pressed the knife to his throat.

  “Gedda,” he gasped, “don’t, don’t! I didn’t mean it, I swear by the Unspoken Name! I’ll do anything . . . name it, name it, what do you want from me!”

  There was only one thing I wanted from him. I raised the knife, letting it hang in the air above him while I watched his face.

  “Please—” he blubbered.

  I smiled. And then I drove the knife into his chest.

  He screamed, thrashing on the ground under me. I held him there, pulling the knife out of him. Blood spurted over my hands, splattering my face, as he died. The life went out of him like a sigh.

  But I drove the knife into him again, and again; because it wasn’t enough, because he deserved so much more . . . because it felt good. And with every death the poisoned blood poured out of him, another demon flew up—he was filled with demons, too much monstrous evil for one human body to contain. I saw every one of his faces, I knew every one of his secret names—I killed him over and over and over. And every time I destroyed another I was freer; I would be free forever when I destroyed them all—

  I killed him and killed him and killed him. . . .

  The antique watch began to chime, disturbing the funereal silence of his office, in which he sat like a mourner. Gundhalinu stirred at last; time present began to flow again. He raised an unsteady hand to his belt and shut off the recorder; took the watch from his pocket, listening to its familiar music.

  But still the ghosts would not leave him. . . .

  I’m free! I’m free free free freefreefreefreefreefreefreefreefree. . . .

  I sit laughing in the turbid sand, laughing, laughing. . . .

  The deathwatch beetles begin to gather around me, clicking their mandibles in mourning. I scramble up with a curse, leaving them to their business. Looking down at Spadrin’s corpse, suddenly I wonder what he saw that made him look away from me. The glowing blackness whispers secret words, and somehow I know what the answer must be—

  It is. Beyond the curve of wall I see it at last, waiting. Fire Lake. I run shouting and crying out of the shadows onto the shore, the endless beach of congealed rock leading down to the shining sea. It is all black an
d red, death and blood. I fall to my knees in wonder. The sky is completely starless, and the molten Lake fills the darkness with fire, a singularity in the heart of night.

  The gnarled stone of the beach is as warm as flesh beneath my touch. The surface has congealed into the sightless eyes and gaping mouths of a million tiny faces; they scream soundlessly beneath my weight, my probing fingers. I crawl over them toward the perimeter of the Lake.

  But suddenly figures block my way. Not alone—? I sit back, cradling my throbbing arm. Looking up, I know them, these shuffling, trilling matchstick forms.

  The cloud ears ring me in like a tumbledown fence. I push myself to my feet within their circle. The missionary woman we left in the steaming valley stands before me in a corona of light, her ragged arms outstretched. “Have you discovered the true nature of time?”

  “You,” I murmur. “How can you be here? We left you in the steaming valley days ago. . . . ”

  “Months and months ago.” Her voice comforts me. She takes my hands gently, peering into my eyes. Her face is hidden in shadow. She begins to turn me in a shuffling dance between light and darkness.

  “Months and months . . . ?” I say, stumbling over my feet.

  “Eynstyn and B’ryllas lost all track of Time,

  When Time went to sea in a bottle by Klyn.”

  I sing the old rhyme, laughing as her face goes into darkness again. “Time is adrift on Fire Lake!” I shout exultantly. “Time is at sea!” I realize that she is not mad at all, but speaking perfect sense. “Moon, Moon, our time is coming. . . . Ah, gods—”

  I see the old woman’s face again, but a frown is filling it up. Her eyes are suddenly white with fear, looking down at my hands. “Where are the others?” she asks, pulling away. Her eyes are clear and sharp.

  “The others?” I shrug. “They’re dead. Spadrin killed Ang. I killed Spadrin. He’s lying over there. I stabbed him, and I’m glad.” I look at my red-stained hands. “He deserved it.”

  She backs away from me. “No,” she mutters, “no, no, no. You understand nothing. Don’t touch me. It’s too late for you—”

  “There is no late!” I call, reaching after her. “There’s no time like the present, no time to lose, no time at all—Wait!”

  But the cloud ears close around her like a rattling forest, and she flees with them toward the wall of shadows.

  I try to run after them. I stumble and fall, and the sky and the sea change places—black and red, red and black . . . blackness.

  I wake, to the sun’s fiery face drowning in light at the sky’s blue-black zenith. Sweat burns in the cracks of my parched lips. I lift a hand to shield my eyes from the glare—but a shadow blocks out the sun, falling on me like a blow. I push myself up. I am ringed in again by figures. This time they are all human, all men, all armed. Their hard, closed faces and ragtag clothing tell me half a dozen different stories, all with the same ending.

  “There’s a dead one over here!” a voice calls. A grunt of disgust. “Nothing left on him worth taking.”

  One of the men who watch me gestures with his hand. The others pull me back down, spread-eagling me on the ground. He straddles me, looking down. He has mottled skin, a thick red-gold braid and beard. He must weigh close to a hundred and fifty kilos. “Search him.” They do. They take the knife sheath from my arm. They take the pouch from my belt. “You kill him?” Goldbeard asks me.

  “Yes!” I shout hoarsely.

  “Why?”

  “He deserved it.”

  Goldbeard grins. I can see in his eyes that he understands. And that he will probably kill me because he does. He steps away from me. One of the men tosses him my belt pouch. He kneels down, emptying out the contents. I struggle and curse.

  He picks up the solii first, turning it in his hand. “Well, well, pilgrim.” He grins again at me, flipping it into his own pouch.

  “Hey!” one of the other men calls. “He was my spot! I got mineral rights on him.”

  Goldbeard only shrugs. “You get him when I say. He’s got a strike somewhere, you can pull it out of . . . ” He picks up the animal foot, looks at me again, with his face twisting. He flings the foot away. His hand falls on the holo. He picks it up. He stares. “Song!” he whispers. He touches the picture to his lips, his forehead, in a kind of ritual. And then he looks at me again with rage in his eyes. “Where you get this?”

  “She isn’t who you think she is,” I warn him. I try to control my own outrage as his fingers violate her image.

  He cocks his head, half frowning. “I know that,” he murmurs.

  “I’ve come to take her away.”

  “Take her away?” he roars. “Take her away?” He starts toward me. “I’ll see you in hell ‘fore you ever see Sanctuary, you god damned—” He stops as a splinter of reflected light lodges in his eyes. He looks down at my pouch, at something half hidden beneath its flap. He stoops over to pick it up.

  The other men have tightened their hold on me, at his signal. The pain in my shoulder makes me dizzy, their faces swim and blur. I hear angry mutterings. Soon, any moment, he will give the order and they’ll tear me apart. I try to lift my head, and sweat runs into my eyes.

  Goldbeard stands gazing at the thing in his hand. A chain dangles from his fingers. “Sibyl—?” he asks the air, with a kind of furious dismay. “Him? You?” He turns to me again, letting the trefoil pendant drop and hang above me.

  One of the others jerks at the neck of my shirt. “He no sibyl. He got no tattoo here.” A knifepoint pricks my throat, stays there. He giggles as though it is tickling him.

  “Yeah, but look at this—” Someone else’s fingers touch my forehead. “He’s got an S here.” There is no pain as they trace the wound. “Maybe that’s how they do it on his world.”

  “You a sibyl, like her? Like Song?” Goldbeard looms over me. The trefoil twists and glitters in the air between us, reflecting life and death, life and death. . . .

  “Yes,” I gasp. “Yes! It’s mine.”

  His hand makes a fist over the chain. He stands glaring down at me for an eternity. I wonder what I will do if he demands that I go into Transfer. “All right,” he says at last. “Let him up.” The others let me go, some in obvious relief. I sit up slowly, panting. My hand goes on its own to my forehead, to Spadrin’s mark. I feel only a numb smoothness—a scar—as if it had happened years instead of days ago.

  “If this is yours, put it on.” Goldbeard holds the chain out to me.

  I take the pendant in my hand. My fingers close convulsively until I feel the barbs pierce my flesh. I pass the chain slowly over my head, feel it settle around my neck. The outlaws shuffle back from me as I climb to my feet. I feel their frustration, their anger, their awe. None of them will touch me now.

  The reeking motley and leather of Goldbeard’s massive body looms before me; behind me lies Fire Lake. I see trophies hanging from his vest—jewelry, coins, teeth with inlaid gems. In the moment of hot silence that hangs between us, I hear a familiar tinkling chime. My eyes find its source—the watch, my father’s antique timepiece. In my mind I see HK tucking it into his sleeve pocket. “You fool!” I mumble. “You fool.”

  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.

&
nbsp; “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—