Mountain of Black Glass (61 page)

“What do you mean, ‘the heart of things'? And how do you know so much—you said you weren't part of the Grail.”

“I am not part of the sun either, but I know when the afternoon turns hot, or when night is coming.” Pleased with this epigram, he nodded.

Florimel growled, “We are tired of riddles, Kunohara.”

“Then Troy will hold many disappointments for you.” He slapped his thighs and stood, then sketched a mocking bow to the statue of the Mother before turning to face them once more. “In truth, you cannot afford bad temper—you curse riddles, but where does wisdom come from? Have you solved those I posed for you earlier? Dollo's Law and
Kishimo-jin
? Understanding may well be important to your own part of the story.”

“Story! You keep saying that!” Renie wanted to hit him, but could not rid herself of the memory of Bibber's horrified face, of the flames Kunohara had summoned which had momentarily engulfed him. In an unreal world, who could say what was real? Kunohara had called himself one of the gods of Otherland, and in that he was correct.

“Please, Mr. Kunohara, what does this mean?” said !Xabbu, reaching for Renie's hand to calm her. “You speak of a story, and the woman—the Lady of the Windows—spoke of someone who dreamed of us. Dream is
my
name, in the language of my people. I thought we were in a world purely of mechanical things, but now I am not sure it is true. Perhaps there is a greater reason I am here, I wonder—a greater purpose. If so, I would like to know it.”

To Renie's surprise, Kunohara looked at !Xabbu with something like respect. “You sound a bit like the Circle people, but more sensible,” the bug man said. “As far as dreams, I do not know—there is much in a network this complicated that cannot be known by anyone, even the creators, and there were also many details that the Brotherhood kept hidden from the rest of us. But as to what I said about story, surely you have seen something of that. The entire network has lost its randomness, somehow,” he paused, musing, “. . . or perhaps randomness itself is only a name for stories we have not recognized yet.”

“You are saying that something is guiding the network?” Florimel asked. “But we knew that already. Surely that is the Grail Brotherhood's purpose—it is their invention, after all.”

“Or perhaps the operating system itself . . .” Renie suggested. “It must be very complicated, very sophisticated.”

“No, I mean something even more subtle is at work.” Kunohara shook his head impatiently. “My idea is not something I can explain, perhaps. It does not matter.” He hung his head in mocksorrow. “The fancies of a solitary man.”

“Please tell us!” Renie was frightened he might disappear again, as he had done to them twice before. Despite his sarcasm, his discomfort at the situation was palpable—this was not a man who felt comfortable with others.

Kunohara closed his eyes; for a moment, he seemed to be talking to himself. “It is no good. A story-meme? Who would do such a thing. Who
could
do such a thing? You cannot infect a mechanism with words.”

“What are you talking about?” Renie reached to touch his arm, but !Xabbu's warning squeeze stayed her. “What's a . . . a storymean ?”

“Meme. M-E-M-E.” He opened his eyes. His expression had grown tight and angrily mirthful. “Do you wish to go to Troy?”

“What?” Renie looked around the little company. T4b was cradling Emily, who was still only half-conscious. Factum Quintus was across the chilly room, apparently oblivious to their conversation as he inspected the frame of one of the broken windows. Only Florimel and !Xabbu were paying close attention.

“You heard me—or you heard the Lady of the Windows. You have been invited, or commanded, or implored. Are you going? I can open a gateway for you.”

Renie slowly shook her head. “We can't—not yet. Our friend has been kidnapped. Will you help us get her back?”

“No.” Kunohara now seemed distant, glacial, but the half-smile remained. “I have spent too much time here as it is—intervened, broken my own rules. You have your part in this story, but I do not. None of it concerns me.”

“But why won't you just
help
us?” Renie said. “All you give us are these irritating riddles, like something out of a . . . a story.”

“Look,” said Kunohara, ignoring her troubled expression. “I have done more than I should. Do you want honesty from me? Very well—I will be honest. You have set yourself up against the most powerful people in the world. Worse than that, you have invaded their own network, where they are more than people—they are gods!”

“But you're a god, too. You said so.”

Kunohara made a scornful noise. “A very small god, and with very little power outside my own fiefdom. Now be quiet and I will tell you the honest truth. You have set yourself an impossible task. That is your business. Somehow you have stayed alive so far, and that is interesting, but it is nothing to do me with me. Now you ask me to intervene—to join you, as though I were some friendly spirit standing by the path in a children's tale. But you are not going to succeed. The Brotherhood may destroy themselves someday with their own cleverness, but that will have nothing to do with you. Instead they are going to capture you, either here or in the real world, and when they do, they are going to torture you before they kill you.”

He swiveled from one member of the company to another, swaying a little, but making eye contact with each of them, some for the first time. “When it happens, you will tell them anything they want to know. Should I give you information from the privacy of my own mind so that you can give it to them? Should I provide you a tale of how I helped you work against their interests, so that you may tell it to them between screams?” He shook his head, staring down at his own hands; it was hard to tell who was the target of his disgust, Renie and her companions or himself. “I told you—I am a small man. I want nothing to do with your imaginary heroism. The Brotherhood are far, far too strong for me, and I exist here and enjoy my freedom of the network only because I am not an impediment. You think I speak in riddles just to torment you? In my way, I have tried to help. But should I lay down everything I have for you, including my own small life? I think not.”

“But we don't even understand those things you told us . . .” Renie began. An instant later she was talking to nothing but cold air. Kunohara had vanished.

 

“You're safe,” Renie told Emily. She felt the girl's forehead and checked her pulse, knowing as she did so that it was a pointless exercise with what was at best a virtual body, and which might not even belong to an actual human being. How could you tell if code was seriously ill, anyway? And what if the code claimed to be pregnant? The whole thing was crazy. “You're safe,” she said again. “Those people are gone.”

With Florimel's help she got Emily into a sitting position. T4b hovered nearby making attempts at assistance that wound up interfering more than helping.

“Say my name,” the girl requested. Her eyes were still almost shut; she sounded like someone half-dreaming. “Did you say it? I can't remember.”

“You are . . .” Florimel began, but Renie, remembering what the girl had said before, grabbed Florimel's arm and squeezed, shaking her head.

“What do you think your name is?” Renie asked instead. “Quick, tell me your name.”

“It is . . . I think it is . . .” Emily fell silent for a moment. “Why are the children gone?”

“Children?” T4b sounded frightened. “Those raggedy ma'lockers, they hit her? She funny?”

“What children?” Renie asked.

Emily's eyes flicked open, scanning the room. “There aren't any here, are there? For a moment I thought there were. I thought the room was full of them, and they were making lots of noise . . . and then they just . . . stopped.”

“What's your name?” Renie asked again.

The girl's eyes narrowed as though she feared a trick. “Emily, isn't it? Why are you asking me that?”

Renie sighed. “Never mind.” She sat back, letting Florimel finish checking the girl for any sign of damage. “So here we are.”

Florimel looked up from her ministrations. “We have much to talk about. Many questions to try to answer.”

“But finding Martine still comes first.” Renie turned to the monk, who was inspecting the statue of the Mother with rapt fascination. “Factum Quintus, do you know how to get to that other place from here? The one you said we'd check second?”

“The Spire Forest?” He was bending at the waist, a gaunt shape like a drinking-bird toy, his nose only inches from the glass-shard face of the Mother. “I suppose so, if I can find the main Attic throughway. Yes, that would be best. We can't be more than a few hundred paces away in a straight line, but we will have to find a route, and the Attic is a bit of a maze.” He turned to face her, his expression suddenly intent. “Hmmm, yes. Speaking of mazes . . .”

“I'm sure you want to know what that was all about,” Renie said wearily. “And as you can tell, we need to talk about it ourselves.” She wondered how much it would be permissible to tell Factum Quintus without threatening the monk's sanity. “But our friend comes first, and it feels like we've wasted hours.”

“There are unfamiliar stars in the sky,” !Xabbu said from his perch on the windowsill. “I cannot recognize any of them. But it is true the sun has been down for some time now.”

“So let's move.” Renie stood, realizing for the first time since they had been captured how sore and exhausted she was. “Martine needs us. I just hope we find her in time.”

As T4b helped Emily to her feet, Florimel turned to Renie, speaking softly. “One thing we have learned—no approach without a plan next time. And we
must
succeed. Even if we rescue Martine, we will be helpless if we do not recover the lighter as well.”

“Amen.” Renie nervously watched !Xabbu teetering on the windowsill, trying to remind herself that in this world he wore the body of a monkey, and clearly had a monkey's balance and climbing skills. But it was still hard to watch him leaning out into the cold night air through which a man had just fallen to his death a few minutes earlier. “!Xabbu—we're going.”

As he hopped down, Florimel said, “But I have to admit Kunohara's words haunt me. If he had not been here, we would have been helpless in the hands of those quite ordinary bandits. How are we going to strike at the masters of this network? What chance do we have?”

“It's not what chance do we have,” Renie replied, “it's what
choice
do we have.”

Silent then, they turned and followed the others out the door, leaving the room of broken windows to the night and the wind.

P
AUL felt small as a mouse, a cornered thing squeaking out its last moments of life. As the Cyclops' massive hand stretched wide he stumbled backward, terror draining the strength from his legs.

Nothing around you is true,
the golden harp had told him,
and yet the things you see can hurt you or kill you . . .

Kill me,
he thought dazedly, groping on the cavern floor for something to use as a weapon. The giant's roar was so throbbingly loud his own thoughts seemed about to blow away.
Going to kill me—but I don't want to die . . . !

He found the monster's shears, far too short and heavy to be a useful weapon. He heaved them up and flung them as hard as he could, but Polyphemus only swatted them away. Somewhere behind the Cyclops lay Azador, knocked aside by a blow, his skull probably crushed. The great stone that sealed the cavern had not been pushed all the way closed, but Paul knew he could not wriggle through the narrow space before the monster caught him.

He snatched at something that felt like a rock, but it was too light; only after he had bounced it uselessly off the Cyclops' broad chest did he see it was a human skull.

Mine . . . !
The thought swirled past like a spark.
The next fool who tries that—he'll use mine . . .