River of Blue Fire

by Tad Williams

  And then it was gone, and the void turned inside out again with a silent clap like all the thunder that had ever been. Then the mist and the white burst into being around him once more. Orlando fell onto his face in the snowy floor and wept tears that froze hard on his eyelids and cheeks.

  After a while, Fredericks was beside him—so abruptly and completely that it made a strong argument that his friend had been quite dramatically somewhere else. Orlando stood. They looked at each other. Even though they saw Pithlit and Thargor, the pretend-faces of a children’s game, both could tell without uttering a word that the other had heard the same things, felt the same indescribable presence. There was actually nothing that could be said just then, or needed to be. Shivering and silent, they made their way back through the mounds, through the now-voiceless freezer, and at last staggered out to the place where the mists grew thin.

  Chief Strike Anywhere was waiting at the freezer door. He looked at them and shook his head, but his large hands were gentle as he helped them onto the shelf below and then assisted them in the long climb down to the base of the Ice Box.

  Neither of them could walk very well. The chief kept them from falling until the battlefield was a good distance behind them, then found a protected spot against the base of the counter where they could huddle, and built a fire before it. As they stared in dull stupefaction at the flicker of the flames, he got up and vanished into the darkness.

  Orlando’s thoughts were at first small and flat and without much meaning, but after a while the worst of the shock ebbed away. By the time the chief returned some time later with the tortoise, and carrying his blanketed baby sleeping in his arms—the top of Little Spark’s head was blackened, but he seemed otherwise healthy—Orlando was at least able to muster a faint smile.

  He fell asleep still staring at the fire, the flames a curtain that obscured, but did not entirely hide, the darkness beyond.

  Third:

  GODS AND GENIUSES

  The ancient Poets animated all sensible objects with Gods or Geniuses, calling them by the names and adorning them with the properties of woods, rivers, mountains, lakes, cities, nations, and whatever their enlarged & numerous senses could perceive.

  And particularly they studied the genius of each city & country, placing it under its mental deity.

  Till a system was formed, which some took advantage of & enslav’d the vulgar by attempting to realize or abstract the mental deities from their objects; thus began Priesthood.

  Choosing forms of worship from poetic tales.

  And at length they pronounc’d that the Gods had order’d such things.

  Thus men forgot that All deities reside in the human breast.

  —William Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell

  CHAPTER 22

  Inside Out

  * * *

  NETFEED/ENTERTAINMENT: Ronnies Deny Non-Existence

  (visual: DYHTRRRAR giving press conference, Luanda Hilton)

  VO: The flurry group Did You Have To Run Run Run Away Ronnie? gave its first ever live press conference in Luanda, Angola, to refute the rumors that they are in fact software Puppets. The all-female group have been magnets for rumors ever since their first net appearances, and suspicious critics have called them “too contrived, too perfect,” to be real. Ribalasia Ronnie, speaking for the group, read this statement:

  R. RONNIE: “It’s a shame when hard-working artists have to waste their time trying to prove that they’re real people . . .”

  But the press gathered in Luanda were not an easy crowd.

  REPORTER: “How do we know that you’re not lookalikes selected to match the gear. . . ?”

  * * *

  RENIE leaned on the railing where !Xabbu was perched and watched the dark, faintly oily river.

  Another day, she thought, another world. God help me, I’m tired.

  The Works was slipping away behind them, the tangle of pipe and pylon crowding along the bank infiltrated and then gradually replaced by cottonwood trees and sedge, the flicker of security lights supplanted by a waxing prairie moon. If she ignored the dull throb of pain from cuts and bruises, and the baboon shape her friend wore, she could almost convince herself she was somewhere normal. Almost.

  She sighed. “This isn’t going to work, you know.”

  !Xabbu turned, flipping his tail to the outside of the rail so he could face her. “What do you mean, Renie?”

  “All of this.” She waved her hand, encompassing Azador, sullen and silent at the wheel, Emily in fitful sleep in the cabin, the river and the Kansas night. “This whole approach. We’re just being dragged—or chased—from place to place. From simulation to simulation. We’re no closer to our goal, and we’re certainly no threat to the bastards who got my brother.”

  “Ah.” !Xabbu scratched his arm. “And what is our goal, then? I do not ask to make a joke.”

  “I know.” She frowned and let herself slide down until she was sitting on the deck with her back to the gunwale, staring now at the opposite but equally dark and quiet riverbank. “Sellars told us to look for this Jonas person, but that’s the last we’ve heard of Sellars. So how do we find Jonas, out of millions of virtual people? It’s impossible.” She shrugged. “And there are all kinds of new questions, too. What’s-his-name, Kunohara, said that your friends in the Circle were tied up in this somehow, too.”

  “They are not my friends, exactly, if he was talking about the same group. They are people for whom I have respect, an organization of men and women who try to help others of their tribes, and who helped me. Or so I believed.”

  “I know, !Xabbu, I’m not accusing you of anything. I couldn’t tell whether he meant they were helping the Grail people or fighting them, anyway. What did he say? ‘Opposite sides of the same coin’?” She leaned her head back against the railing, overwhelmed by it all. They had been in this virtual universe so long! How was Stephen? Had there been any change in his condition? And how was her father, for that matter, and Jeremiah? It was almost impossible to consider that they might be only inches away from her. It was like believing in the world of spirits.

  “If I would be making a guess,” !Xabbu began slowly, “it would be that Kunohara meant the Grail people and the Circle are at war, somehow. But he did not think there was really much difference between them.”

  “Could be.” She frowned. “But I’m tired of guessing at things. I want facts. I need information.” Either the river was narrowing, she noted absently, or Azador was steering them closer to the bank: the trees loomed higher than they had only minutes before, their shadowy presence blocking more of the sky. “We need a map, or we need to know where Martine and the others are. Or both.” She sighed. “Damn it, what happened to Sellars? Has he given up on us?”

  “Perhaps he cannot get back into the network,” !Xabbu suggested. “Or he can, but like us, he can only search without knowing.”

  “God, what a gloomy thought.” She sat up, ignoring the protesting ache from her back and legs. “We need information, that’s all there is to it. We don’t even understand how this place works.” She swiveled. “Azador!”

  He looked up but did not answer.

  “Fine, then,” she said, dragging herself upright. “As you wish.” She limped to the back of the tugboat, !Xabbu trailing after. “It seems like a good time to talk,” she told the man. “What do you think?”

  Azador took a last drag, then flicked his cigarette over his shoulder. “The river is getting smaller. Narrower, I mean.”

  “That’s nice, but I don’t want to talk about the bloody river. I want to talk about you and what you know.”

  He eyed her coldly. He had found some bargeman’s coat, which hid the holes torn in his boiler suit and the dreadful bruises they revealed. Blood had dried on his face in patches. She could not help remembering how he had thrown himself int
o a crowd of their enemies. He might be irritating, but he was no coward. “You talk,” he said. “Me, I don’t talk. I am sick of talking.”

  “Sick of talking? What does that mean? What have you told us about yourself? That you’re a gypsy? Do you want a medal for that? Help us, damn it! We are in trouble here. So are you!”

  He turned up his collar, then took yet another cigarette and screwed it into the corner of his mouth below his dark mustache. Frustrated, Renie broke her own resolution and extended her hand. Azador smirked, but gave her one. Then, in what seemed an uncharacteristic act of courtesy, he insisted on lighting it for her.

  “So?” she tried again. She disliked herself for giving in to her addiction so easily and so quickly. “Tell me something—anything! Where did you find cigarettes?”

  “Things, objects, do not travel from one world to another,” he said flatly. “I found these on someone’s desk in New Emerald City.” He smirked. “Munchkin goods are salvage under rules of war.”

  Renie ignored his joke, if it was one. “Objects do translate—I’ve seen it. Orlan . . . I mean, one of our friends had a sword in one simulation, then he had it in the next one, too.”

  Azador waved his hand dismissively. “That was someone’s possession—like clothes. Those go everywhere the sim goes. And some of the things that travel,” he pointed down to the deck, “like a boat, they go to the next simulation, but then they change. There is another thing like them in the next world, but . . . but different.”

  “An analogue,” Renie said. Like the boat from Temilún that had become a leaf.

  “Yes, that. But cigarettes, other small things—money or someone else’s jewels that you have found—these you cannot carry from one world to another.”

  She had little doubt what he meant by “found” but knew better than to say so; it was much better to keep him happy and talking as long as he seemed willing. “How did you learn so much? Have you been in this network a long time?”

  “Oh, very long time,” he said offhandedly. “I have been many places. And I hear things at the Fair.”

  Renie was puzzled. “What do you mean, the fair?”

  For the first time in the conversation Azador looked uncomfortable, as though he might have said more than he wished. But neither was he the type who would admit to second thoughts. “Romany Fair,” he said, in a tone that suggested Renie should be ashamed not to have known already. She waited a moment for an amplification, but none came. Even with his present talkative mood, the man was not what anyone would call long-winded.

  “Right,” she said at last, “Romany Fair. And that is. . . ?”

  “It is where the travelers—the Romany—meet, of course.”

  “What is it, another simworld?” She turned to !Xabbu, wondering if he were making any more out of this than she was. Her friend was perched on the stern rail. He did not seem to be listening, staring out at the files of trees slipping past on either side as the long, silvery “V” of the river narrowed behind them in the moonlit distance.

  “It is not a place, it is . . . a gathering. It changes. The travelers come. When it is over, they leave, and next time it is somewhere else.” He shrugged.

  “And it’s here in . . . in this network?” She had almost called it the Grail Project—she was having trouble remembering what information she had already let slip in front of him. Her head and muscles were still throbbing with the pain of their escape, God only knew what or who would try to kill them next, and she was finding it increasingly difficult to keep track of the lies and evasions that security demanded.

  “Of course!” He was full of scorn that she could even imagine something different. “This is the best place—this is where all the rich people have hidden their greatest treasures. Why should we travelers settle for second-best?”

  “You mean you and your friends roam around here at will, having little parties? But how did you get in? This place has security that kills people!”

  Did she again see a moment’s hesitation? A shadow? But when Azador laughed, his harsh amusement sounded genuine enough. “There is no security that can keep out the Romany. We are a free people—the last free people. We go where we want to go.”

  “What does that mean?” A sudden thought occurred to her. “Wait a moment. If you can all agree on a place to meet, then that must mean you can find your way around—you must know how to use the gates.”

  Azador looked at her with studied indifference.

  “Jesus Mercy, if that’s so, you have to tell me! We have to find our friends—people’s lives depend on it!” She reached out to clutch his arm, but he shook her off. “You can’t just keep it to yourself and let people die—little children, too! You can’t!”

  “Who are you?” He took a step away from her, scowling. “Who are you to tell me what I can do? You tell me I am a pig for what I did to that silly Puppet in there,” he slashed a hand at the cabin where Emily lay, “and then, when I have already told you much, you order me to tell you more—order me! You are a fool.” He stared at her, daring her to argue.

  Renie tried to bite back her fury, which was as much at herself as at him. When are you going to learn, girl? she fumed. When do you figure out how to keep your mouth shut? When?

  “I do not even know who you are,” Azador went on, his accent thickening with his anger. He looked her up and down with insulting slowness. “A white woman pretending to be a black woman? An old woman pretending to be young and beautiful? Or are you even a woman at all? That sickness is common on the net, but not, thank God, among the Romany.” He turned and spat overboard, narrowly missing !Xabbu, who stared back at him with an unreadable baboon expression. “What I do know is that you are gorgio. You are an outsider, not one of us. And yet you say, ‘tell me this, tell me that’ like you had a right to our secrets.”

  “Look, I’m sorry,” Renie began, wondering how many times she would have to apologize to this man when what she really wanted to do was slap him hard enough to knock his mustache off his lip. “I shouldn’t have spoken that way, but . . .”

  “There is no ‘but,”’ he said. “I am tired, and it feels like all my bones are broken. You are the leader? Okay, then you steer this ugly boat. I am going to sleep.”

  He let go of the wheel and stalked away around the cabin, presumably headed for the prow. Unpiloted, the boat pulled sharply toward the bank. Within seconds, Renie was so busy wrestling it back into the center of the river that she lost any chance for a parting shot, either dismissive or conciliatory.

  “Next time, you talk to him,” she suggested to !Xabbu. Her scowl felt as though it had been carved permanently onto her face. “I don’t seem to be handling it very well.”

  Her friend slid down from the railing and padded over, then reached up to squeeze her arm. “It is not your fault. He is an angry man. Maybe he has lost his story—I think so.”

  Renie squinted. The river and the trees ahead of them were so dark as to be almost inseparable from the night. “Maybe we should stop. Throw out the anchor or whatever you do. I can hardly see.”

  “Sleep is a good idea.” !Xabbu nodded his head. “You need rest. We all need rest. In this place, we never know when something will happen.”

  A variety of possible replies flitted through her head, some sarcastic, some not, but she didn’t have the strength to waste on any of them. She throttled down the boat and let it drift toward the shallows.

  Renie could feel the sun broiling her exposed skin. She groaned and rolled onto her side without opening her eyes, questing for shade, but there was none to be found. She threw her arm across her face, but now she was conscious of the sun’s glare and could not ignore it. It poured down on her, as though some giant, sadistic child were focusing its rays with a titan magnifying glass.

  Renie sat up, mumbling curses. The burning white disk was almost directly overhead,
only thinly hidden behind a layer of dull gray cloud—there would be no shelter anywhere on deck. Also, either the anchor had slipped and they had drifted, or the river and its banks had mutated while she slept; Renie did not know which prospect was worse. The river had narrowed dramatically, so that less than a stone’s throw separated them from the banks on either side, and the polite forest of cottonwoods had at some point become an insidious mesh of vegetation—a jungle. Some of the trees stretched up a hundred feet or more, and except for the open track of the river, she could not see more than a few yards into the undergrowth in any direction.

  !Xabbu was standing on his hind legs by the rail, watching the jungle edge past.

  “What happened?” she asked him. “Did the anchor come loose?”

  He turned and gave her one of his odd but cheering baboon smiles. “No. We have been awake for some time, and Azador is driving the boat again.”

  The man under discussion was huddled over the wheel in the boat’s stern, dark brows beetled and a fog of cigarette smoke drifting around him. He had thrown aside the coat. The bottom of his boiler suit was belted with a length of rope, since only a few tattered strands remained from the suit’s top part. His sim was very tan and his chest and arms quite muscular. She turned away, irritated by his ridiculous good looks—it was adolescent to pick a sim like that, even if he looked like that in RL, which she firmly doubted.

  “Anyway, it is good you are awake,” !Xabbu added. “The girl Emily is unhappy, but she does not want to talk to me, and Azador will not speak to her.”

  Renie groaned again and levered herself to her feet, clinging to the railing for a moment while her calf muscles spasmed. She found it astonishing to contemplate her many aches and realize that what had struck her had not been metal fists and poorly-padded human bones, but a puddinglike substance merely pretending to be those things. Not that the results were any the less painful.