World's End

Page 162

I aim the gun at the lock mechanism on the door. I shut my eyes against the glare and press the firing button down for a count of ten. When I open them again, there is a glowing hole in the door where the lock used to be.

I kick the door open.

I see Song lyin§ on the floor, in a wash of light. I go to her and touch her throat, feeling for a pulse. She is alive, just unconscious. I sit down beside her, relieved.

But it is night. I decide that now is the best time to try to get out of here. I shake her gently, but she doesn't stir.

I bring the brandy and let some trickle into her mouth.

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She coughs and swallows convulsively; her eyes blink open.

She stares at me, astonished. Her astonishment changes slowly to comprehension, and a shining peace.

"BZ ..." she murmurs, "you understand!" I nod, smiling a little. "I never thought you would--I never thought anyone would. . . ." Tears well up in her eyes; she buries her face in her ring-covered hands.

"Song," I say, pulling at her elbow, trying to get her to her feet, "we're not out of this yet. But we can leave here, now."

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"Leave?" Her face fills with terror. "No! I can't leave--"

And all the helplessness, the dismay, the terror, that

I thought I was free of rolls back into my mind. Every

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possible thing that could go wrong if we escape flashes across my inner eye, paralyzing me. "But I understand!"

I shout. "It's not fair!" I grab Song by the shoulders.

"What the hell do you want from me--?"

She falls into Transfer, and the Lake moans, "Need you . . . need you . . . order me. . . ."

Suddenly I see that understanding is not a cure--recognizing insanity does not heal a twisted mind. It needs more . . . more than we can ever give it.

"I can't heal you!" I say the words to Song. I think of how helpless I am here, helpless to save the Lake, to control it, to give it what it really wants. "I can't heal you. Song can't. There are people who can--" People who had understood the technology for centuries, lacking only the raw Page 163

material to make it work. "Those people would sacrifice anything for the knowledge I have in my head! But I have to tell them! If I stay here I'll die, and the truth will die with me."

The helplessness and terror surge inside me . . . and fade. Song shudders and falls back into herself, lying limp in my arms. I have made it understand. I take a deep breath and get to my feet, thanking a thousand ancestors

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. . . the ancestors who created the technology of the Old Empire. "Come with me," I say gently. "It's all right now." I take her arms, trying to lift her up.

She slides out of my grasp, shaking her head. "No."

"But you hate it here; you hate what the Lake is doing to you--"

"It needs me. It's alone, it needs me. I'm important here, I'm a queen! I belong here, I want to stay--"

"Goddamn it," I shout, losing all patience, "you're crazy! You need more help than the god damned Lake

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does, and I'm going to see you get it. Come on--" I jerk her to her feet.

She pulls away from me, and begins to scream. I hit

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her; the scream stops and she slumps to the floor.

I go to the door and shout down to the guards. "Something's happened to Song!" They come running up the steps, their guns out. I hit the first one with a chair as he starts through the doorway, and knock them both back down the steps. They don't come up again.

I start to pick up Song; stop, and go back into the other room. I take the globe that holds the droplet of Fire Lake.

I fold it in a piece of heavy cloth, and tie it to my belt.

Then I wrap Song in a dark rug and carry her over my shoulder down the steps.

We leave the skeleton tower unchallenged, and I

search for a way back through the treacherous light and-shadow alleyways of the town. I get lost half a dozen times before I find the place where I left my brothers, but nobody I meet is crazy enough to challenge an armed man carrying a body.