World's End

Page 140

She repaints my face, my arms, my chest with dripping arabesques; I flinch like a wild animal every time she touches me. "Why--?" I say.

But she only answers, again, "You'll see." She picks up her red/gold cloak and puts it on. She goes out of the tower; Goldbeard follows her, dragging me along.

Guards surround us as we reach the bottom of the steps, the canopy bearers materialize to shelter Song from the heat.

Song leads the procession down through her subjects

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and her ghosts and the morning shadows, as oblivious to one as to another. Goldbeard tosses out handfuls of coins, at her order, and people begin to follow us.

She takes the path along the canyon rim that leads to the fatal platform at the cliff's edge. A straggling mass of humanity trails us out across the plateau. When I realize where we are going I try to turn back, but Gold beard and the guards surround me . . .

and as we go on, farther and farther, an alien excitement begins to rise in me, overpowering my dread.

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WORLD S END

We reach the platform at last; I see it up ahead, hovering on the crest of that bloodred wave of stone. In my memory it is a wonder, a place of magic, hung with silken pennants. But what waits for me now is only a shabby raft of flotsam and faded rags.

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We climb the trembling rope ladder--only Song and

I, this time. Fire Lake is alive below me, murmuring, changing; mesmerizing. I feel my willpower dripping from me like sweat, until I cannot even be afraid. We stand together above the crowd.

"The Lake . . . the Lake calls . . . the Lake will speak to you." Song's voice is thin and reedy as she speaks to the crowd. Misery shimmers in her eyes. But she begins to sway, lifting up her hands, rolling her eyes like a phony occultist. She is an actor, giving them the performance they are expecting. People in the crowd start to shout questions at her--random, inane, absurd questions.

I cover my ears with my hands.

Almost before I know it, she has gone into Transfer again. The questions stop, and she is answering . . . but her answers are as random and meaningless as the questions.

She speaks in languages that I know and ones I've never heard of, reciting fragments of conversation, obscure bits of data, questions, complaints. This is genuine, I know; even as I wonder how it can be. The crowd stands silent with awe, and some of them actually kneel down.

I feel the Lake's energy surge in the air around me.