River of Blue Fire

by Tad Williams

He had gauged it correctly, and sprang off the outcropping’s farthest point. As he felt the air beneath him he extended his arms for more glide, doing his best to keep the girl balanced, but he could still feel himself beginning to sink. One person could not fly with the weight of two, even when the other was as small and slender as his captive. In a moment he would have to let her go, or he himself would be dragged down as well. He had failed.

  He felt the wind stiffen. A moment later he was forced sideways, knocked head over heels, so that he had to pull his arms in and clutch the girl to him tightly. He had reached the river of air.

  Dread’s music swelled triumphantly. The river seized him in its grip and dragged him away from the camp of the Red Rock Tribe.

  When she began to stir in his grasp, he fought his way out to the slower currents of the air-river, until he felt her weight begin to drag at him. Then, when he gauged the time was right, he let her go, then folded himself up to follow her down.

  He had guessed correctly in this, too: Her innate reflexes saved her even before consciousness had fully returned. As she hovered, disoriented and frightened, trying to understand where she was and what had happened, he circled her in the darkness and began to talk.

  Her throat still too bruised for speech, she could only listen as he described what was going to happen. When panic at last overwhelmed her, and she turned and fled away up the canyon, he gave her just a few moments’ head start. A proper chase was one thing, but he knew it would be a very bad idea to let her actually beat him back to the nesting place of her people. After all, even bruised and terrified and confused, she was a better flier than he was.

  It turned out to be a glorious chase. If she had kept on a straight course, she might even have outraced him, but in the dark she did not know quite who or what he was. As he had gambled, she chose evasive action, hurrying to a hiding spot and then, when he had flushed her out, swooping off to the next. At times he flew close enough to hear her terrified, hitching breath, and during those moments he did indeed feel himself to be a shadow-angel, an instrument of the cold side of existence, fulfilling a purpose that he alone of all mortals could even partially understand.

  The pale-haired girl was tiring, her movements more and more erratic, but he guessed that they were also drawing close to the encampment. Dread had held his own excitement at bay for almost an hour, a prolonged foreplay that had pitched him to places that even the music in his head could only approximate. Images seemed to play out before his eyes, a reverse virtuality in which his most surreal and vicious thoughts were projected outward, onto the malleable darkness. Broken dolls, she-pigs eating their own young, spiders fighting to death in a bottle, butchered sheep, women made of wooden logs split and smoldering—the mind pictures seemed a halo around his head, filling his maddened vision like a cloud of burning flies.

  The dog people, the screaming men, the child-eaters. Half-remembered stories told to him in an alcoholic slur by his mother. Faces changing, melting, fur and feathers and scales sprouting from the skins of people who had pretended normality, but stayed too long by the campfire. The Dreamtime, the place where the unreal was always real, where nightmares were literally true, where hunters took whatever shapes they wished. Where little Johnny could be whatever he wanted and everyone would worship him or run screaming forever. The Dream-time.

  As he spun himself above the failing, weeping quarry in a parabola that exactly graphed his own long-denied fulfillment, as he hung at the top of his rise and prepared to stoop, a blinding burst of light pierced his mind, an idea that had no words, and which would only begin to make a kind of sense later, in the calm after the killing.

  This is the Dreamtime, this universe where dreams are made real.

  I will stand at the center of it, and I will twist it, and all of creation will fall down before me. I will be king of the Dream. I will devour the dreamers.

  And as this thought flared inside him like a fiery star, he plunged down through the black winds and fastened on the flesh and thrilling blood and crumpled them into himself, hot as flame, cold as zero, a dark and forever kiss.

  He had just enough presence of mind afterward to hide the body, or what was left of it, in a place that would keep secrets. He retained only her knife, a wicked piece of volcanic glass honed sharp as a straight razor, not out of sentiment—he was not a collector—but instinct. Virtual or not, he had missed having a blade close to hand.

  He stopped to bathe in one of the waterfalls, cleaning away the traces and letting the sting of cold water bring him back to something resembling sanity, but as he sailed back through the drying winds he was still amazed by the vague but overwhelming idea that now filled him. When he reached the cavern where his companions slumbered he had a brief lapse of concentration, nudging one of them in the dark as he tried to reach his own sleeping spot. At the protesting murmur he froze, fingers hooked like claws, reflexively prepared to fight to the death—even in this made-up world there would be no net, no cage ever, not for this hunter—but his disturbed companion merely rolled over and went back to sleep.

  Dread himself could not even approach the edge of rest. His skull seemed full of glaring light. He left the sim body on autopilot and called Dulcie to take over ahead of schedule.

  There was so much to think about. He had found the Dreamtime, the true Dreamtime, not the ghost-ridden bush of his mother’s babbled tales. So much to consider. He had no need for sleep, and felt like he never would again.

  “CODE Delphi. Start here.

  “Something very serious has happened. One of the Red Rock Tribe—not a member of the family who found us, but one of the others who shares this system of caves—has disappeared. Builds a Fire on Air came to tell us, and although he clearly regarded us with suspicion, he was courteous enough not to accuse us of anything. A young woman named Shines Like Snow vanished during the night, getting up and walking away from her family, apparently.

  “Needless to say, and this Builds a Fire on Air did tell us, suspicion has fallen on our company. We are fortunate that such a disappearance is not unheard of—young women have run away with men from other tribes before, or been kidnapped, and sometimes one of the flying people suffers an accident or meets a large predator while out at night—but it is rare, and everyone is very upset.

  “Besides my own sorrow on their behalf, I am troubled by what seems to be a half-memory of my own, that someone did rise in the night.

  “As I think I said already, I lay awake thinking late after we had all bedded down in this cave. When, without noticing, I had finally drifted into a shallow half-sleep, I dimly sensed someone stirring. Later, minutes or hours for all I could tell, I heard movement again. I thought I heard a whispery intake of breath and a murmur that sounded a little like Quan Li’s voice, but of course that means nothing, as it could have been her, but caused by someone bumping her, or even just as a response to a dream.

  “However, I must think about this carefully because now it may prove significant. But a quick discussion among us after the chief left reveals that none of the other four admits getting up in the night, and there is nothing to suggest any one of them is lying. I may have dreamed it. But the whole thing is troubling, of course. I also doubt now I will get a chance to ask any of the questions I had so longed to have answered, since Builds a Fire on Air and his family are very preoccupied, and in any case it might only draw more attention to us as outsiders.

  “As I look out past my companions, who are huddled nervously on the cavern floor, I can perceive the far side of the valley, a stark mass of relatively static information made fuzzy by the variables of morning mist. The stones themselves must be purple with shadow, since the sun has still not risen above the cliffs.

  “We have a long way to go just to get out of this world, and if these people turn against us we will not be able to escape them, any more than we could outrace a group of aerialists across a h
igh wire. Aerodromia is their world, not ours. We do not know how far down the river the next gate is, nor do we know where any others might be.

  “I think when we first thought of coming to the Otherland network, we—at least Renie and Singh and I—thought that it was like other simulation networks, a place where one learns the rules once, then puts them to use. Instead, each of these simulations is its own separate world, and we are constantly being caught up and held back by the things we find here. Also, we have come not a bit closer to solving the problems that brought us. We were too ambitious. Otherland is having its revenge.

  “Builds a Fire on Air is coming toward the cave again, this time accompanied by a half-dozen weapon-bearing warriors—I can feel the dead solidity of their stone spears and axes, different from the signature of flesh and bone—and an agitated man who may be the missing girl’s father. The chief is himself uneasy, sorrowful, angry—I can sense these things emanating from him, distorting the information space that surrounds him. The whole thing does not bode well.

  “So, again I am interrupted. It is our entire experience here, only written small. If our enemies knew, they would laugh—if they even cared enough to notice. We are so small! And me, storing up my thoughts against oblivion or an increasingly doubtful success. Each time I wonder if this will be the last time, the last entry, and these final words of mine will float on forever through information space, unheeded and unharvested.

  “Builds a Fire on Air is gesturing for us to come out of the cave. Others of the Middle Air People are gathering to watch. Fear sours the air like ozone. I must go.

  “Code Delphi. End here.”

  CHAPTER 21

  In the Freezer

  * * *

  NETFEED/NEWS: 44 Cops Nailed in Snipe Sting

  (visual: Callan, Mendez, Ojee in custody)

  VO: Forty-four California police officers were arrested in a wide-ranging sting operation. District Prosecutor Omar Hancock says the arrests prove that police are taking money from store-owners and even retailer’s associations to remove street children, called “snipes,” from downtown areas.

  HANCOCK: “We have footage of these officers. We don’t want this to get deep-sixed like the Texas and Ohio cases, so the footage has already been squirted all across the net. This is murder being planned—genocide you could even call it, and the murderers are the people we pay to protect us . . .”

  * * *

  ORLANDO and Fredericks did not have much time to consider the implications of Orlando’s realization. Even as they tried to imagine what mechanism the Grail Brotherhood might have discovered that would allow them to make the network their permanent and eternal home, Chief Strike Anywhere grounded his canoe beside them on the spit of dry linoleum.

  “Found bad men,” he announced. His dark face seemed even darker, as threatening as a thundercloud, but he spoke as calmly as always. “Time to get papoose.”

  The tortoise, who had slept through most of the discussion between Orlando and Fredericks, was roused. After fumbling for long moments in the depth of his shell, he at last located his spectacles and pronounced himself ready to go.

  Orlando was less sure. Fredericks’ earlier words about risking their lives for cartoons came back to him, made even more daunting now by the idea that he might have figured out something critically important about Otherland and the Grail Brotherhood, and that it would thus be doubly unfortunate if he and Fredericks didn’t live to inform Renie, !Xabbu, and the others.

  Still, he thought as he clambered into the canoe behind the cartoon Indian, a bargain was a bargain. Besides, if they did not help the chief, they would have to make their way across the Kitchen on foot, an unknown distance through unknown obstacles. They had already met the dreadful salad tongs—he had no urge to discover what other bizarre things stalked the floor tiles by night.

  The chief paddled them quickly across the dark waters, the steady movement almost lulling Orlando back to sleep. The tortoise, whose calm might have had something to do with being covered in armor plating, did fall back into a thin, whistling slumber.

  The river opened wide before them, until it seemed almost an ocean: the far bank was very distant, visible only because a few fires burned there. Orlando did not realize for long moments that the great pale expanse behind the fires was not the kitchen wall, but a vast white rectangle. It stood quite close to the river’s edge, but loomed higher than even the mountainous countertops.

  “Ice Box,” pointed out Strike Anywhere.

  “And the bad men are inside there?” Orlando asked.

  “No.” The chief shook his head emphatically. “Them there.” He pointed with his paddle.

  Hidden by darkness before, visible now only because the watch fires of the Ice Box threw them into silhouette, a forest of masts had appeared before Orlando and the others, sprouting from a shadowy bulk with a curving hull. Orlando swore quietly, surprised and alarmed. The chief backed water for a moment to slow their progress, then let the canoe drift silently. The huge vessel was mostly dark, but a few of its small windows glowed with lantern light—illumination Orlando had mistaken for reflections of the beach fires.

  “It’s some kind of pirate ship,” Fredericks whispered, eyes wide.

  As the chief paddled them closer to the galleon, Orlando wondered at the ship’s odd silhouette: the tall masts and the tight-furled sails seemed normal, as much as he could tell, but the hull seemed unusually smooth, and there was a strange, handle-shaped loop near the stern that did not correspond with any representations of pirate ships he had ever seen. It was only when they were so close they could hear the murmuring of voices from the deck above that he could make out the row of ballast barrels hanging along the hull. The nearest read “CORSAIR Brand Condensed Brown Sauce.” The smaller letters beneath implored him to “Keep your first mate and crew in fighting trim!”

  The pirates’ forbidding ship was a gravy boat.

  As they pulled up alongside the huge vessel and lay silently against its hull, like a baby carrot or a sliver of turnip that had dropped from a serving ladle, Orlando whispered, “There must be a hundred people on board to crew a ship that big. How are the four of us supposed to. . . ?”

  Chief Strike Anywhere did not seem interested in a council of war. He had already produced the out-of-nowhere rope that he had used to save them from the sink, and was making it into a lasso. When he had finished, he cast it expertly over one of the stern lanterns, pulled it taut, then began to make his way up the gravy boat’s curving rear end. Orlando looked helplessly at Fredericks, duly noted the scowl, but slid his broadsword into his belt and followed the matchbox Indian anyway.

  “I think someone had better stay with the canoe, don’t you?” the tortoise whispered. “Good luck, lads, or break a leg—whatever it is one says when someone’s going to fight with pirates.”

  Orlando heard Fredericks reply with something less pleasant than “good luck,” then felt the rope go tight behind him as his friend began to climb.

  Neither of them could ascend as swiftly as the cartoon Indian. By the time they had reached the stern rail and pulled themselves over, Strike Anywhere was already crouching in the shadows at the front of the poopdeck, fitting an arrow into his bow. Fredericks made another sour face, then took the bow the chief had given him from his shoulder and did the same. Orlando fingered the pitted edge of his sword and hoped that he wouldn’t have to use it. His heart was beating faster than he liked. Despite the simworld’s complete and total unreality, despite the dancing vegetables and singing mice, this felt a lot more dangerous than any of Thargor’s Middle Country adventures . . . and probably was.

  Most of the lights and all the voices were concentrated on the main deck. With the Indian in the lead, moving as silently as the best clichés suggested, they slid closer to the edge of the poop where they could sneak a look down.

  “What i
s the range, Bosun?” someone inquired from the opposite end of the ship, in a voice of quite theatrical tone and volume.

  A barefoot man in a striped shirt turned from his consultation at the main deck rail with another sailor to shout, “Two hundred, give or take the odd length, Cap’n.” Both sailors were of singularly unattractive appearance, clothes stained, teeth few, their eyes glinting with malice.

  “I shall descend from the foredeck,” the oratorical voice announced. A moment later a shape in flowing black swept down from the forecastle and onto the deck just below their hiding place. The captain’s footsteps had a curious syncopation; it was only when he reached the main deck that Orlando saw one of the man’s legs was a wooden peg.

  In fact, more than the captain’s leg was artificial. His left wrist ended in an iron hook, and the other arm had an even stranger termination: as the pirate lord lifted a telescope to his eye, Orlando saw that he gripped the tube with some kind of metal clasper, an object unpleasantly reminiscent of the ravening salad tongs. But even these strange additions were less noteworthy than the captain’s huge ebony mustachios, which sprouted beneath his hawklike nose, then corkscrewed down on either side of his sallow face to rest coiled, like weary vipers, on the white lace of his collar.

  After having stared through the telescope for a few moments, the captain turned to his men, who stood at ragged attention around the mainmast, watching with gleeful anticipation. “We have reached the appointed hour, my sea-vermin, my filth of the foam,” he declared. “Run up the Jolly Roger and then prime the Thunderer—we shall not waste time with smaller guns.”

  At his words a pair of younger corsairs, no less grimy and desperate for their youth, leaped to the rigging to raise the pirate banner. A handful of other men hurried onto the foredeck and began to roll a huge cannon back out of its gunport—a piece whose carriage wheels were as big as tables, and which looked as though it could fire an entire hippopotamus. As they cleaned the weapon, scouring the barrel with a broom twice the length of the sailor who wielded it, then poured in an entire sack of gunpowder, the pirate ship drifted ever closer to the shore. The Ice Box jutted above them like a high cliff.