World's End

Page 136

My breath catches. The Lake is speaking to me, through Song. "But what are you?" I shout, shouting down the echoes inside my head.

"Your servant... Lake." Song's eyes are vacant, helpless.

I turn away, shaking my head, wanting to shake her.

"How can I help you?"

"Ask . . ." she gasps, "ask the right questions."

What are you, what do you want from me, how can I help you--? "I can't think of anything else!"

And unspeakable anguish fills me.

Song falls out of Transfer into a sobbing heap. "Please, please . . . I" she cries, as if her heart is breaking. "I can't

... I can't . . . bear it. Help me--"

I fall on my knees beside her and take her in my arms, holding her against my heart, because her pain is mine, as bitter and unstoppable as tears. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry

. . ."I groan, to her, to the raving monster that holds us captive. "I tried." Seeing now that she is as much its

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prisoner as I am. "Why does it do this to you ... to us?

By all the gods, what does it want from us--tell me, Song!" I do shake her now, to make her listen.

She looks at me in fear, as if she thinks she will fall into Transfer again. "Don't!" I shout. She doesn't. "It's so alone--" Her voice trembles. "There's no one else who hears it--not through a thousand years. So it keeps

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WORLD S END

me here ... I keep it here ..." She wipes at her eyes.

"It's lost in time. It needs ..." She caresses the fire globe that lies in her lap.

"What?" I ask.

"You were supposed to know! You're supposed to

... to know."

"Why? Why me? Why not--Goldbeard, or somebody

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