Find Your Own Truth

by Robert N. Charrette

  The Indian squatted and dug around in his pouch. Finally he pulled out a pouch and a chipped clay pipe. He held them out to the elf. “Wanna smoke, Urdli?” A brief look of disgust crossed the elf’s face, but when he spoke his voice was even and his tone polite. “I accept your offer, and as long as I stand in this place, bind myself by its terms. You will forgive me if I do not actually perform the ritual. You have my word as bond.”

  “I hear you The puppy hears you. The spirits hear you. They will rise and devour you if you lie.”

  “As I said, I bind myself to the peace of this place.”

  Howling Coyote grunted.

  Sam was bewildered by the exchange, but the elf and the shaman seemed satisfied with each other. “What’s going-”

  “Shut up, Anglo.” Howling Coyote glared at the elf. “Urdli came to talk, it seems. Got any objections to talk? No? Didn’t think so, since ya like to do so much of it yourself. The elf wants to talk, let him. I’ll listen.”

  The elf nodded. “I did come to talk. Let me tell you a tale.” Without waiting for permission, the elf started. “Long ago, this world knew magic. It was a better time then; all lived in accordance with their natures. The world was not perfect, but it was happier. In time changes came, and the magic grew weak. Many wonderful things perished. Some evil things as well, but evil always seems less vulnerable to the lack of magic. For a long time there was no mana, but the time of lack was only an interval. The mana returned and brought us to the Sixth World.”

  “Aztec number." Howling Coyote interrupted. “Hopi got a different count. Aleut, too.”

  The elf shrugged. “The number is unimportant, but the concept should be understood. Mana has waxed and waned. There was a time when the mana was low, too low for the true nature of the world to manifest. And in those days a tradition was handed down, a sacred trust. Dedicated individuals swore to guard a place. You would not know of this place, but I know it as Imiri ti-Versakhan, the Citadel of Remembrance. It was a place meant to make the low time safer, and it was a bastion against the return of evil should the mana return. Terrible things were kept there, locked away so they could do no harm.”

  Sam felt a sinking sensation in his stomach. He was beginning to guess what the elf was leading up to. Apparently oblivious to Sam’s sudden pallor, Urdli continued.

  “Recently, the ancient citadel was, assaulted and despoiled. Through the actions of the: intruders, something escaped bondage, something terrible.”

  “Spider.” Howling Coyote turned his head and spat. “You know.” Urdli was silent a moment. No one else spoke either. “How?”

  The shaman smiled his sly smile. “Got a few friends of my own where the totems hang out.”

  The elf’s expression grew more grave. “If you know, you must understand the danger. Knowing that, you must understand the crime of the one you call a puppy.”

  “Hey hey, only got your word for it. Not everybody tells the same tales of Spider. Hopi say she saved the people. That don’t sound too terrible to me. ’Cepting, of course, that it was the Hopi she saved. Spider’s a canny old bitch, knows a lot.”

  The shaman’s remarks seemed to anger Urdli. “The human mind cannot comprehend the alienness of Spider. To deal with Spider is, as the English say, to deal with the devil.”

  It was the shaman’s turn to shrug. “Don’t know about that. But ya do have to walk the web carefully if ya want to come home again. Now, some of them other bugs are real troublemakers. Sooner eat ya than look at ya.”

  “Spider has always been more subtle." Urdli agreed. “A builder of artifices and a lurker in dark places, she is. Fortunately, since the Awakening, Spider has not been whole. A portion of her power, stolen in the old time, was locked away from her access.

  Until recently.” Urdli looked directly at Sam. “That has changed.”

  “I didn’t know." Sam protested.

  Urdli laughed bitterly. “Ignorance is such a favorite excuse of humans. The gossamer threads of Spider’s webs can tug in such a way that her commands may seem to be her puppet’s own innocent thoughts. Many do her work without knowing it. Can you not see that Verner may be one of those?”

  “Not this pup." the old shaman said. “Don’t smell no Spider on him. He didn’t know about your Imiri-place when he took the stone. He did it to help his sister. Typical Dog trick, noble but stupid. Can’t be too bad a problem, the sky ain’t changed.”

  Sam wasn’t sure he liked the way the shaman was defending him, but its effect on Urdli was visible. The elf seemed slightly less sure of himself.

  “Innocent or not, he has strengthened Spider and her minions." Urdli insisted. “They have the stone now. The harm may not be irreparable if it is redressed at once. I have come to demand that he join the struggle to undo what he has done.”

  “You tried to kill me." Sam pointed out.

  The elf looked at Sam as though he were a stupid child.

  “Why should I help you?” Sam asked. “You’ll probably try to kill me again as soon as you get what you want.”

  “You have a responsibility. Your action has strengthened Spider and emboldened her. She stirs now, and the world lies in danger. She is drawing on her web and pulling to herself the instruments of holocaust.”

  “Hey hey, elf, cut the flowery stuff. Like I keep telling the pup, I’m a stupid old man. Ya talking about what I think you’re talking about?”

  Urdli spoke slowly and clearly. “Spider is engaged in operations to acquire a forbidden arsenal of nuclear weapons.”

  Sam was confused. What was a spirit going to do with bombs? “That doesn’t make sense. Totems don’t have any physical presence. Why would Spider need an arsenal?”

  “Spider is an old totem with very strong ties to the earth. She is different from the totem to which you profess allegiance. She manifests through avatars, and those unfortunate beings have all-too-human flaws and all too many enemies. Spider has enemies as well, and radiation is as intangible as a spirit. Might it not therefore affect a spirit?”

  “You don’t sound like you’re sure it can.”

  “Even if it cannot, there will be effects beyond the physical if Spider employs the weapons with that end in mind. Rival spirits work through people as well, and they could not work on this earth if they had no agents. I think that you will find that Spider has no love for Dog, or for Coyote. The Spider and nuclear weapons combination has a great potential for disaster.”

  “You’re not even sure this is happening." Sam accused, on a hunch. The elf stared at him venomously, but Urdli’s silence spoke to Sam of the truth of his accusation. Even so, just the possibility of nuclear weapons in the hands of someone who might use them was frightening. It was a fear that had dominated previous generations, and although it had subsided since the build-down, it had never entirely gone away. Sam wondered if man had succeeded in breeding it into his bloodline. If the threat were real, the elf wouldn’t be the only one seeking to cancel it. “I don’t think I trust you, Urdli.”

  “Your trust is not desired. Your cooperation, however, is required. You have a responsibility.”

  Sam looked away from the intensity of the elf’s stare. When he had been a member of the Renraku corporate family, he had understood the burden of responsibility as the Japanese did. They called it giri, and made of it a load they could never put down. Giri could never be completely discharged, but that did not stop one from continually attempting to do so. Sam understood responsibility well enough to feel the weight of it on his shoulders. He didn’t like the idea of some strange elf dictating to him the nature of his responsibilities and the way to discharge them. So what, if he had unwittingly released some part of a captive totem? That didn’t make him responsible for the plans or actions of the totem’s avatars.

  Did it?

  Sam couldn’t be responsible for the whole world. So why did he feel like he ought to do something about it? He turned to Howling Coyote.

  “What should I do?”

  “I’m
Coyote. You’re Dog. Why ask me?”

  Sam tried to catch the shaman’s eyes and divine his true feelings, but the old man refused to look at him. Was this another test, the shaman’s answer a riddle to be solved? If so, the proper response seemed easy. Dog was loyalty, and who should he be more loyal to than his family? Sam turned back to Urdli.

  “I say I have some responsibility to recover your guardian stone. You were willing to kill me to get it before and didn’t even tell me what you wanted. If you had explained the situation, I might have given the stone to you. It hadn’t proved effective for my needs. Your actions don’t leave me thinking much of you.” The elf seemed unconcerned about Sam’s opinion of him. “I have to admit to taking it, but I did it for what I consider an important reason. I was only interested in the power the stone would let me focus. Not that it helped in the end. Still, if I’d known what it was, I suppose I would never have taken it in the first place. I’d have found another focus. How was I supposed to know the place was some kind of citadel? It looked like an old cave.”

  Howling Coyote snickered quietly, but Sam didn’t let the sound disturb him. “If what you say about Spider’s plans is true, I’d like to help. But right now, I’ve got a pressing family problem. You said you’re not even sure what the stone will do to help your enemy. Even if you knew it was an immediate threat, you don’t know where it is. It sounds like you’ve got a bit of leeway. Even if it is a danger, you still need to find it. That’s something you can do without me because I haven’t got the faintest idea of how to track it.

  “I haven’t got the luxury of time. I’ve only finished my own hunt recently, and still haven’t got what I want.”

  Sifting sand from one hand to the other, the old man ignored Sam’s meaningful glance.

  “Time’s pressing on me. I’m trying to avert a terrible result that is certain to come, but you’re just worried about possibilities. I’m not worried about something that might affect the whole world, but something that will destroy a life—the life of someone dear to me. Right now I’ve got my priorities lined up. I’ve put off helping my sister for too long, and I’m going to do what I can for her before I even think of anything else. When she is saved, we can talk again.”

  Urdli glared at him, then shifted his burning stare to Howling Coyote. The old man dumped the sand from his hands, dusted them off, and shrugged. He mumbled as he got to his feet and walked away. “Foolishness.”

  Sam couldn’t tell if the old man was referring to him or to the elf.

  27

  The lights of Seattle were seductive. Across Puget Sound the myriad denizens of the metroplex were going about their nightly business. Salarymen and corporates were on their way home, or perhaps still clacking keyboards and tapping in orders in an effort to impress their bosses and get a leg up over their fellows. The street haunts were crawling out to scene, shift for a buzz, or wrangle for turf. The hopeful relaxed, another day successfully completed, and the hopeless sagged with another one survived and only the night to face. On the edges and in the shadows, the runners were doing their biz. She could not see any of them, but the lights of the plex shone on all those scurrying little people. And the lights sang of their doings, burning the song into the air and promising such a rich feast of life. Oh yes, the lights were seductive.

  Janice looked at them and felt her stomach growl. The hunger grew with each day. Had it been an ordinary hunger, the pangs would have stopped days ago. When a human starves to death, hunger dies within his empty belly long before his body surrenders to death. Meat she had had, but not real nourishment. The steady diet of small furred things Ghost was providing kept her alive, but failed to sate the hunger.

  How many more nights until she could stand it no longer?

  She was tired, worn from her struggle. She lay back, feeling as though she might sleep. She had fought off the urge all day, through her normal sleeping time, just to avoid the dreams. She had lain restless within the darkness of the basement of the house where she and Ghost hid, waiting for her brother to come up with a solution. A slim hope, at best. And didn't she know better than to hope? There had been no word from him for days and he was probably dead.

  So why did she wait?

  She was tired, but sleep brought the nightmares. She didn’t want to sleep, but somehow she fell into its embrace.

  In sleep, they waited for her.

  They waited, the faces, all as one and one as all. She slipped deeper into the dark realms, past the places of rest. She hung at the doors of the precincts of restoration and looked through the locked panels wistfully. Satiating the hunger was the only restorative for her now. A small voice whispered of another way, but she didn’t believe what it said. The voice belonged to a man, and all men were liars. They proved their perfidy when they pounced.

  She laughed with joy when his arms went around her. He held her close, slipping easily into the compass of her great, brawny arms. For all his elven slimness, her Hugh was strong. He reminded her of Dan Shiroi, but that was impossible, because she hadn’t met Dan yet. Hugh laughed at her confusion. But his eyes didn’t laugh. How could they? Those golden orbs did not belong to Hugh, but to the evil one who had brought the change.

  She tore herself from the grasp of the golden-eyed Hugh and ran, but she could not escape the eyes. They bore down upon her and pinned her to a table. Cold steel pressed against her naked back and straps bound her wrists, ankles, waist, and brow to the hard metal. Empty white coats drifted around her in a dance of scientific enquiry. The eyes had their own questions.

  She had questions too. Why? Why? And why?

  The terrible gold eyes stared through her as though she didn’t exist. The man who owned them didn’t answer her questions. He ignored her pleas and asked the questions that were his and not his. She tried to answer, but he was always disappointed in her. Why should he be any different from other men? She wanted to answer him, he deserved her answers. He was authority, and her life was his to redeem or cast away. She knew that was true because he told her so.

  She remembered him leaning close to her ear and whispering his name. She knew this was a real memory, just as she knew what had seemed a nightmare at the time was real. He was so very real, even if his eyes were not. His identity had made her tremble, for it meant the end of the world as she had come to know it. He had spoken his name and laughed, telling her that the drugs would take it away and leave her only with the memory of having known it once. She had screamed at him for mercy until she cried, but he had seemed to think her reaction all the finer a jest.

  She had been human then.

  She hadn’t known real pain.

  He had taught her.

  Or rather, the white coats had.

  “Not the solution." they said, in a ghostly chorus of disembodied voices, when they had finished. “She has told all and tells nothing.”

  “Unacceptable." Gold Eyes said in her brother’s voice.

  “She cannot be restored." the coat chorus pronounced.

  “Unacceptable.”

  Always the same judgment.

  The biggest of the white coats moved to Gold Eyes’ side. “An experiment that will at once provide data and dispose of the problem. Data The BioDynamics formula. Data, Metamorphosis. Data. Paradynamic perturbations in the Kano actualization curve. Data. Data for all.”

  Gold Eyes looked at her, sliding along her legs, past her crotch and over her breasts. When she stared into those eyes, he spoke.

  “Proceed.”

  Unacceptable!

  Needles! Too many needles!

  But Hugh was there to comfort her, and the awful table was gone. They lay on the scratchy, vermin-infested bed they had called home on Yomi. In thunder and lightning they made love, and he filled and drained her simultaneously. She loved him and pledged him her life again, as she had on Yomi. He caressed her breast and fur sprouted after the passage of his hand; he smoothed her hair and her sandy blond tresses thickened and turned a frigid white. His kiss ling
ered on her lips. His tongue flickered into her mouth, only to draw away and pull her canines into fangs.

  She cried with the pain and he laughed. They all laughed until the sound became a wail of mourning.

  Janice Verner was dead. Betrayed and murdered. Her dreams were ashes.

  Her mother’s eyes were filled with tears and her father’s eyes glistened. He was too much a man to shed tears. She ran toward them, wanting to bury herself in their arms. She passed through their outstretched arms like a ghost. But it was they who were ghosts, not she. She could not yet join them.

  Why should she want to? They had not been there for her when Gold Eyes had given her to the white coats, or Ken had spurned her, or the boat had carried her to Yomi. They had not been there for her since that awful night when they had left her with Sam. Sam, the strong older brother who had carried her away and taken her to the embrace of dear old Renraku. Sam, the protector who had left her with Gold Eyes. Sam, the defender who had let them ship her to Yomi. Sam, the slayer of the only true lover she had known.

  Her stomach growled with hunger. Righteous hunger.

  She was awake.

  * * *

  Dodger slammed his fist into the telecom’s keyboard. The soft flesh of his hand protested the treatment, promising to bruise for days as a reminder of its limitations. What did it matter? It was only meat. Confining, restrictive meat.

  How could they do this? How could they dare?

  It was bad enough that they had the temerity to rip him from the Matrix. But to steal his cyberdeck! Even the telecom was disconnected from the Matrix and locked into a house-only circuit. He was not a child anymore. This time the old punishment wouldn’t stop him.

  Though no longer surrounded by the glories of cyberspace, he knew where he was. He knew it too well. How he had gotten here was a mystery, but it was a mystery of the flesh and that wasn’t important.

  He had to get back into the Matrix.

  How long had he been gone? Her time was not meat time. Did she miss him? Or was he a fading memory, like last year’s news, or last century’s? Away from the Matrix, he was not part of her existence. Was it already too late?