World's End

Page 137

else? Why not you?"

"I can't! Nobody can answer it; nobody knows what it wants, nobody knows what it is! ... I'm lost. I can't hold on to anything. It takes everything away from me

. . ." She clings to me, burying her face against my neck.

Her whole body shudders. "It's eating me alive."

"Gods...." I wipe my nose, sniveling with self-pity. I have failed again, failed miserably, and I don't even know at what. Why me? What do I know that matters? I'm no one-- "I thought... I thought you controlled the Lake. I thought you knew what it was! I saw you with those men, you called up a power and you killed them--"

"The Lake killed them!" She pushes away from me. "It took them somewhere else. It touches the crowd through me. When it comes that close, things happen. Things used to happen to Sanctuary all the time, that's what everyone says. Until I came. Now they only happen when I can't hold on, when I hate them so much...." Her hands clench. "I just never know what--"

"Were those men guilty?"

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"I don't know." She looks at me strangely. Suddenly her fingers sink into my flesh. "I don't care!

They're all guilty, those maggots! I suffer to save them--let them suffer too!" She begins to cry again, bruising her fists against my vest.

"Help me find my brothers," I say softly. "I know they're here. You even saw them, you passed judgment on them. Help me find them, and I'll take you away from here."

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JOAND. VINGE

"That's not the answer!" Her eyes are like black glass again. "I know them, two Kharemoughis.

They were worms, even the Lake didn't want them. So I let Gold beard sell them."

I straighten up. "Who owns them? Where can I find them?"

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"You don't want to know. That's not why you came.

You don't care about your family. Nobody does, it's all a lie."

The words sink into my heart like a knife. "That's not

. . . that's not true. My father . . . your mother--"