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patterns on my own arms; finally I know how they got there.
I hear the tower door burst open, and heavy footsteps cross the floor of the
next room. Suddenly Goldbeard is
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standing in the doorway. He looks from Song to me with morbid eagerness.
"Him?" he asks, his hands flexing.
"Now, Song?"
Song draws a leisurely line of red down her bare arm, and smiles. "Just hold
him," she says softly.
I stand frozen, too stunned by the unexpectedness of this to do anything at
all. Goldbeard moves behind me;
his huge hands circle my throat and tighten. My own hands fly up in reflex,
prying at his fingers.
"Don't," Song says. "Don't move, and he won't hurt you." She goes on calmly
painting herself.
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JOAND. VINGE
My hands drop, and the pressure on my throat eases.
I take a deep breath, trying not to think. Fear leaves my mind too clear. Song
comes toward me, carrying the pot of paint. She dips her fingers into the
liquid again. She
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draws a line down my cheek, and then another. Is this all? I wonder dimly. But
the paint has an oddly familiar consistency ... a faintly nauseating odor. The
color-- A
trickle of red drips onto the corner of my Up, and I lick at it with my
tongue. A salty sweetness fills my mouth.
Blood. I spit and gag, knocking Song's reddened hand away. Goldbeard's thick
fingers close like a band of iron around my throat, crushing my windpipe until
my ears sing, until my vision blurs and my knees buckle under me . . . and I
stop struggling.
He holds me on my feet, letting me breathe again in ragged gasps, while Song
smears me lovingly with blood.
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 [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]