River of Blue Fire

by Tad Williams

  There was no precipice. They arrived at the bottom of the hill with a spine-jarring thump, but with several more descending slopes still between them and the valley floor. The impact threw them apart and they lay for a moment where they landed, struggling for breath. Paul was the first to move, rolling over onto his stomach to crawl toward his enemy, who saw him and scrambled to his feet.

  “What are you doing?” The stranger danced back from Paul’s swiping grab. “Are you trying to kill us both?”

  For the first time, Paul noticed that the stranger was no longer dressed in the tattered Edwardian suit he had worn before. Somehow—by magic, for all Paul could tell—he had acquired a shiny waistcoat and pair of baggy pants that might have come from an Arabian Nights pantomime. Paul flicked a glance down and saw that he was dressed the same way, with silky pantaloons and his feet in thin, pointed slippers, but he had no interest in stopping to wonder what it meant.

  “Kill us both? No,” he gasped, and dragged himself upright. “I’m just trying to kill you.” His ribs ached from the fall and his legs were weak. Still, he knew he would fight to the end if necessary, and felt a little pleasure at that realization—the warmth of someone who had not been good at games in school, and who had shied away from fights, realizing that he wasn’t a coward after all.

  Yes, I’ll fight, Paul thought, and it changed how he thought of himself, of his situation. I won’t just give up.

  “Stop, man,” the stranger said, lifting his hands. “I am not your enemy. I have tried to do you a kindness, but I have been terribly clumsy.”

  “Kindness?” Paul wiped sweat from his forehead and took another step forward, but did not press the attack. “You kidnapped me. You lied to me, and then you shoved me through that, that . . .” He waved his hand toward the hill above, and the place they had arrived, “. . . whatever it is. What sort of kindness is that?”

  “As I began,” the man said, “I owe you an apology, and here it is—I am very, very sorry. Will you strike me once more, or will you let me explain?”

  Paul eyed him. In truth, he was not looking forward to grappling with the stranger again. Despite his thin frame, the man’s body had felt hard and resilient as braided leather, and unlike Paul, he did not seem injured or even winded. “Explain, then.”

  The stranger sat himself cross-legged on the ground. “I saw you in that market. You did not seem to belong, and I watched you. And then I saw your companions. They were not what they appeared to be, but you did not seem to notice.”

  “Not what they appeared to be. You said that before. What does that mean?”

  “I cannot say, exactly.” The stranger’s smile appeared again, a broad and self-effacing thing so sympathetic that Paul felt he should not trust it on principle. “They had the appearance of an average Englishman and Englishwoman, of the type that should be in that place, but something in them, some shadow beneath the seeming, spoke to me also of hunting beasts. My lord Shiva put it in my head that they were not what they appeared, and that you were in danger.” He spread his hands, palms upward. “So I took it on myself to get you away.”

  Paul remembered his own moment of fear. The Pankies had indeed resembled the creatures who hunted him, although they had demonstrated no other similarities. His distrust of the stranger eased a little. “Then why didn’t you just warn me? Why drag me through—what was that, anyway? What are these things that take us from one place to another?”

  The stranger gave him an odd look. “Gateways? Portals, doors, they are called those things, too. What do you call them?”

  Now it was Paul’s turn to frown. “I don’t call them anything. I don’t even know what they are.”

  The stranger stared at him for a long moment, his deep brown eyes intent. At last he shook his head. “We must speak more. But we must also move through this place to another gateway, for this is the country of the fiercest of my enemies and I cannot stay long.” He rose, then extended a hand toward the distant waters. “Will you come with me? There will be boats down below, and we can speak as we go upon the river.”

  If the man intended to harm him, he was going at it in a very roundabout way. Paul decided he would stay on guard, but give him a chance. Perhaps he could give Paul some information. Anything that might dispel the cloud of ignorance and confusion that had been surrounding him for so long would be worth almost any risk.

  “Very well,” he said. “If you will answer my questions honestly.”

  “I will answer as much as I am allowed. Some secrets there are that have been given into my care, and those I may not tell anyone, even at the cost of my soul.”

  Paul had no idea what that was supposed to mean. “Who are you, then?” he asked.

  “I am Nandi,” the stranger said, and touched his palms together in front of his chest. “Nandi Paradivash, at your service. I am sorry our meeting has been so upsetting. And you are. . . ?”

  “Paul,” he said without thinking, then inwardly cursed himself for using his real name. He tried to summon another name, but could only think of the madman who had dragged him through the palaces and deserts of Mars; he hoped Nandi had not met him. “Paul Brummond. And I have another question. Where the hell are we?”

  Nandi did not appear to have noticed anything amiss with Paul’s name. “I am surprised,” he said. “You are English, are you not? Surely you should recognize one of the catechisms of an English school career.”

  Paul shook his head. “You’ve lost me.”

  “Ah? ‘Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree;”’ the stranger declaimed, “‘And here were forests ancient as the hills, Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.’ You see, there are the forests, there are the trees—sandalwood, spruce—can you not smell them? And we will soon be upon the River Alph, traveling, perhaps, through ‘caverns measureless to man. . . .”’

  Paul felt something tickling his memory. “The River Alph. . . ?”

  “Yes.” Nandi nodded, smiling again. “Welcome, Mister Paul Brummond . . . to Xanadu.”

  The hillsides were glorious with wildflowers, tiny static explosions of yellow and white and pale powdery blue, and the soft breezes did indeed waft exotic scents. As they made their way down to the river, from slope to ever-lower slope, Paul found that he was struggling to hang onto his wariness. It had been a long time, if ever, since he had been in a place this lovely, and at least for the moment he felt almost safe. His protective reflexes, coiled like springs, began to relax a little.

  “It is indeed beautiful,” Nandi said as if reading his thoughts. “Those who constructed it did their work well, but it is not an Oriental place at all. It is a representation of an idea—an Englishman’s idea of an Asian paradise, to be accurate.”

  At first Paul thought that “those who constructed it,” was another religious reference, like the man’s citation of Shiva, but after a few moments he realized what he had heard. “Those . . . who constructed this place?”

  Nandi watched a bright green bird streak overhead. “Yes. The designers and engineers.”

  “Engineers? People?”

  Now the stranger turned. “What do you ask, Paul?”

  He hesitated, torn between the need to blurt out everything, his fear and ignorance, and the urge toward secrecy which was part of his armor—and woefully thin armor it had been. “Just . . . just tell me what this is. This place.”

  “This simulation, do you mean? Or the network?”

  Paul’s legs turned wobbly. He took one staggering step, then had to sit down. “Simulation? This is a simulation?” He flung up his hand and stared at it, then took it away and stared at the valley in all its intricacy. “But it can’t be! It’s . . . it’s real!”

  “Did you not know?” Nandi asked. “How could that be possible?”

  Paul shook his head, helpless, reeling. A simulation. Someone had implanted him, t
hen covered it up. But there were no simulations as perfect as this. It simply wasn’t possible. He closed his eyes, half-certain that when he opened them all would be gone, and he would be back in the giant’s grinding-house again, or Humpty-Dumpty’s Castle. Even those insanities made more sense than this. “It can’t be.”

  Nandi crouched at his side, his face full of concern and surprise. “You did not know you were in a simulation? You must tell me how you came here. This is more important than you realize, Paul Brummond.”

  “I don’t know how I got here—and anyway, it’s not Brummond. I lied.” He no longer cared enough to deceive. “My name is Paul Jonas.”

  His companion shook his head. The name meant nothing to him. “And you do not know how you came here?”

  Numbed and listless, Paul told him all that he could remember—the worlds seemingly without end, the unanswered questions, the frightening blackness that covered his recent past. It was like listening to someone else talk. When he had finished, Nandi let his chin fall to his chest and closed his eyes, as if for some perverse reason he was taking a nap; when he opened his eyes again, he was clearly troubled.

  “And all this time, Paul Jonas, you have been pursued through the creations of my enemy. That must mean something, but I cannot imagine what it is.” He stood. “Come. We must hurry to the river. The longer we spend here, the greater the danger, I suspect.”

  “Your enemy—you said that before, too.” Paul began to follow the slender man down the hill again. “Who is this enemy? Do you mean he owns this place?”

  “We shall not speak of him. Not here.” Nandi Paradivash put a finger to his lips. “Old folktales say that to name a demon is to summon it, and that might prove true for us as well. Who knows what name or words may trigger a search agent?”

  “Can we talk on the river? I . . . I have to know more.”

  “We will speak, but be careful what words you choose.” He shook his head in wonderment. “I should have known that He who dances the Dance would not put His hand upon me and point me toward a stranger for no reason. A few moments of Maya, of illusion, and almost I forgot the smoke of the burning-ground that was in my nostrils when I learned truly to serve Him.”

  The beauty of Xanadu impinged on Paul more than ever as they covered the last mile down to the riverside. Knowing what he knew, he could ignore nothing: this delicately scented flower, that tree, the grass rustling soft beneath his feet—all false. Constructs. But there could be no simulation of life so faultless. He did not consider himself anything like an expert, but he was no hermit either. He had seen the much-touted “photorealistic” VR environments out of China advertised all over the net, and his friend Niles had even let him try out one of the government’s better simulation engines, an embassy dinner with lifelike opportunities for political gain or loss. Paul had been very impressed by the experience—the puppet actors who could actually make conversation, the small objects like silverware that vibrated convincingly if you pinged them on the edge of a plate—but even last year’s state-of-the-art had been miles, no, light-years behind this!

  “The people in these . . . simulations,” he asked. “They aren’t real either?”

  “Some of them are,” Nandi said. “This was built for rich and powerful people to use, and they and their friends can appear here like gods taking mortal forms. But most of the people, as you call them, are Puppets. Things without souls. Machinery.”

  The words of Professor Bagwalter in the Martian simulation came back to him, and now Paul understood them. The man had been a participant—a Citizen—and had wanted to know if Paul was one, too. But if that was true, then maybe the bird-woman, Vaala . . . ?

  “Am I the only person you have met in here who has lost his memory?”

  Nandi smiled a little. The river was now just before them, submerged stones making lacy white Vs on the rough jade surface. “You are not merely that, you are the only person I have ever heard of who did not know he was in a virtual environment.” He led Paul down to a short, sandy stretch of beach. A tiny dock that seemed to have been carved from a single piece of white stone lay partially hidden by a strand of cattails. Tugged by the current, a small but elegant boat bobbed at the end of its painter like a dog waiting to be walked.

  Nandi gestured Paul to the seat at the front of the boat. “Please,” he said, “I will be your steersman, as Krishna became Arjuna’s charioteer. Do you know the Bhagavad Gita?”

  “I have a copy,” Paul said. “Back home, wherever that is.” He did not add that it had been a gift from one of his more disastrous girlfriends, shortly before she had tipped over into what Paul considered religious mania. His last meeting with her had been some months afterward, when he had seen her playing a drum and chanting in the Camden Town tube station, blind behind the goggles that flooded her senses with some chargelike mantra.

  “Ah, good.” Nandi smiled. He unhooked the boat’s painter and guided them out onto the flowing river. “Then you will understand me when I compare you to Arjuna, a brave man—a great hero!—in need of advice and wisdom.”

  “I didn’t read it carefully, I’m afraid.” In fact, he hadn’t read it at all, and the only thing he remembered from the entire episode was that Krishna was a god, or perhaps just God, and he thought that if this Nandi was assigning himself the role of Krishna, he was getting a bit above himself.

  Listen to me, he thought. I sound like my grandmother.

  The landscape slid past, precious and perfect. Far down the valley, past many bends of the river, a cloud of spray lifted high above the water, crowned by a brilliant rainbow. Paul tried to remember the famous Coleridge poem, but could not get any farther than: “In Xanadu did Kublai Khan a stately pleasure dome decree . . .”

  “Can you talk to me now?” he asked. “The sound of the river should keep anyone from hearing us.”

  Nandi steered them past one of the rocks and its white arrowhead wake. “It is more than sound we must fear. Every word you speak is translated through several kinds of virtuality engines, and that, too, leaves traces. The people we seek are the masters of this place, just as Trimurti is the master of the real world, and both rule their domains to the smallest mote of dust, the most minuscule flash of subatomic forces. That is why the error of these people is so great—they seek to make themselves gods.”

  “You keep saying ‘they’ or ‘these people.’ Who?”

  “A group of men—and some women, too—who have declared themselves the enemies of everything. They name themselves the Grail Brotherhood, misusing the old myth for their own purposes—stealing the story, it could be said. They have built this place, and they live here and disport themselves like the eldest sons and daughters of Heaven. Not all of this network is as pleasant as this—no, much of it is even worse than anything you have seen. Simulations of slavery and cruelty and sexual debauchery, they have made them all.”

  “But who are you? I mean, how did you come to be involved in all this?”

  Nandi eyed him for a moment, considering. “This much I can tell you. The Grail Brotherhood have touched things, harmed things, that they do not even understand. And so it is that some have come together to oppose them. We are the Circle.” He held up his hand with his fingers rounded into a ring, and peered through it with one bright, brown eye. The effect was almost comical. “Where you find us, there you will find safety, at least as much as we can give, for clearly you are an enemy of our enemy.”

  “Why?” The fear that he had suppressed came rushing back. “Why should people like that care about me? I’m no one! I work in an art museum, for Christ’s sake.”

  The boat was picking up speed as the river narrowed, the cliffs now looming high above their heads. Shaded by a drooping willow tree, a deserted teahouse stood on a rock promontory overlooking the water like a piece of delicate jewelry left behind by a giant. It was almost too beautiful, Paul thought
, fighting down his panic. For the first time, he saw how this place could be, must be, unreal.

  “I do not know why you have drawn their attention,” Nandi admitted. “It is likely to do with the time you cannot remember. But those who chased you through several simulations—I cannot doubt they are agents of the greatest of the Brotherhood, since those were all his places. As is this.”

  “They all belonged to one person? Mars, that Alice in Wonderland thing, all of them?”

  “Wealth is not one of the things he lacks.” Nandi’s smile was sour. “He has built dozens of these.”

  “What is his name?”

  The dark-skinned man shook his head. “Not here. When we pass through to another place, I will tell you, but there is no sense in uttering words that surely would be among the first his agents would investigate, since only those from outside the system could understand that this place has a human creator.” Nandi glanced up sharply at a movement on the heights above, but it was only a shepherd leading a flock of sheep across a high ridge. The man did not look down, although several of the sheep did. Paul realized it was the first person other than themselves they had seen since entering Xanadu.

  “Agents,” he said aloud. “So those two . . . things following me from one simulation to another were agents? Of this Brotherhood person?” He frowned. “Do you think that couple, the Pankies, were agents, too? They didn’t have anything like the same effect on me. And I spent a night sleeping next to them, but nothing happened.”

  “Again, I cannot say.” Nandi spent several moments concentrating on guiding the boat between the rocks, which were growing more numerous. When a clear stretch of water was before them, he continued. “We have studied these people, but still our knowledge is small—after all, they have labored hard and spent much money to keep their works hidden. But something was wrong with those two, that man and woman. I felt the hand of my God touch me.” He said this as simply and with as much conviction as he might have explained being the first to see a parking space in front of the off-license. “If you do not trust the gods—if you do not trust God—then you have rejected yourself.”