“My fate was chewed to pieces, so I jumped closer to your lines. You probably came up against the corruption before it actually closed in. All different. This is all that’s left now—fallen bits, colliding chunks.”
“Memories of history?”
“Oh, they used to be real enough…” Daniel’s lips worked, as if he were trying to stifle another voice.
“Sorry. I’ve got a frightened, curious landlord to deal with.”
Jack stared at him, not so much shocked as disgusted. “Putting it politely, you’re a hermit crab.”
“Putting it crudely, I’m a tapeworm, a leech,” Daniel shot back.
Glaucous watched both through red-rimmed eyes.
“But I’m not useless, and I’m not so cruel. What did you leave behind for Bidewell and your woman friend?”
Jack shook his head.
“I thought about giving them a stone of their own,” Daniel said. “I have two. Something to protect them when the Chalk Princess comes.”
Glaucous’s eyes grew wide. “That’s impossible,” he said. “No shepherd has evercarried two.”
“No shepherd has ever been as monstrous as me,” Daniel said. He swiveled his head to watch thin blue arcs loop between gray rocks and scattered ruins. Always in pairs—a kind of cosmic handshake.“In the end, I knew Bidewell would turn down the offer. Three is the minimum—four is safety.”
Jack turned away. He had no idea what this information meant. “This islike where we go in our dreams,” he said. “Where Jebrassy goes after he leaves the city.”
“Who’s Jebrassy?”
“I think we’re going to find out soon enough. We’re supposed to meet.”
“Past and future self? How’s that going to work?”
Jack shook his head.
“I’m not going to meet anyone,” Daniel said. “More or less of a puzzle…can’t say.”
“We’re living in text-time,” Jack said.
“Something Bidewell talked about before we arrived, presumably,” Glaucous grumbled.
“Maybe,” Jack said. “Can’t you feel it? We’re just shells filled with explosive. When we land—we’re done with. This text is finished. Close the book.”
“And open another,” Daniel said.
CHAPTER 93
Ginny walked with the waves of haunted marchers into the valley, observing them with pity and wonder; they hardly seemed solid, much less alive, their armor in strips, feet worn and bloody, the blood long dried—like walking corpses, yet they spoke to each other in high, sapped, tinny tones of triumph and enthusiasm, though harsh with fatigue.
To them, she might have been a wisp, a vapor. Yet one or two stopped to watch her pass, their pale eyes weak and blinking. She could barely make out their words, but some of Tiadba returned to her, and she began to recognize the breed speech of her dreams. What little she could understand told her they were happy, that they thought they were arriving at the conclusion of a long-destined journey, and for a while, surrounded by their shambling, rushing forms, she wondered if they were right; perhaps the dark green edifice rising from the bowl in the middle of the valley waswhere they all needed to be. The journey had been hard, the marchers were simply worn down; but in the dreams, Tiadba had never heard of thousandsjoining in a march. How could they all arrive on the edge of the valley at once, all together?
One of the marchers, a female breed—not Tiadba; Ginny would have known the connection—tried to watch her more closely. She had a broad face, large eyes, and a blunt, simian nose bearing a scut of fine fur, now crusted and patchy.
“Something’s there. Is it a monster?” another asked.
“I’m not sure,” the female answered. “The armor’s silent.”
“The armor’s dead. We’redead.”
“Hush with that! It’s as big as a Tall One. If it’s really there.”
“It’s a monster. Stay clear.”
The female tried to reach out and touch this apparition. “ Areyou a monster?” she asked. Ginny did not trust herself to answer. What would her voice sound like to such as these? As if she could be any more real than everything else between the statue-lined mountains. And why couldn’t she seeand comprehend those statues? Gigantic, twisted, motionless…might as well be dead…That much she could be sure of.
A substantial number of marchers—dozens—had slowed and matched their pace with the one that seemed able to keep her in view. “Is it still there?” several asked.
“You!” the female shouted, rushing in again to touch her—but the bruised, broken hand was gently repelled by Ginny’s bubble. Something bright arced out of Ginny and formed a ring of pale blue between them, then winked out.
Entanglement. They shared a little matter; they were made of some of the same stuff. But not much of it. Ginny looked away, blinking back tears, and concentrated on the broken, stony path. There was nothing she could do and they frightened her. She did not want to end up like them, but she knew Tiadba would suffer a worse fate.
“You!”
The female muttered to those around her, and they suddenly stopped and formed a ring, blocking Ginny. She could not pass—she tried and was pushed back. She could not leap or close her eyes and move ahead or do any of the things that might have seemed possible earlier; they had confined her within their circle.
“What is it? I can barely see it.”
“It’s a Tall One.”
“Another Pahtun?”
“No—don’t break the circle! Keep it here until we know what it is.”
“We should move on.”
“Doesn’t anyone remember?” the female cried. “We keep trying to get across the valley and into the city. We keep being sent back and starting over.”
“That’s not what Iremember. We’re almost there. It’s beautiful and bright and close—look! We’ve crossed the Chaos. We’re going to make it…”
Ginny hugged herself and studied the wan, peeling faces. Some of the figures were little more than wisps floating above the jagged, crusted surface. Who was more or less real here, and what did it matter?
She finally tried her voice. “I understand you. I know what you’re saying.” Those words startled them—drove them back and widened the circle. Even now she could not be sure what language she used.
She looked up to the green structure—the city. It seemed closer and much larger, but something about its outline, its margins…it might have been a high mountain viewed through a living, smoky haze, deliberately closing and then revealing. Endlessly teasing, jealous, disappointed, angry. Tormenting.
“It speaks. I hear it,” several figures murmured, and they all closed in, reaching out to touch the bubble. Several more elliptical arcs of blue pulsed between them, wreathed their hands and arms, pulled away in slips and curls, and vanished.
The marchers withdrew, paler and less defined, as if the interaction had weakened their very existence.
“What are you?” the female asked. “Where are you from?” Her weary, filmed eyes glanced one way, then another. She could not see Ginny—couldn’t see anything clearly. “Tell us we’re on the right path. Tell us we know where we’re going.”
Before Ginny could answer, a wave of grainy darkness surged outward from the base of the city. The marchers flinched, hunched their shoulders…then dropped and tried to hug the rugged ground, as if this had happened many times before. So familiar, like a delivery of fresh fire to the damned. The wave spread and lifted all, seemed to haul up the very earth. Ginny closed her eyes and rode within her bubble through the wave.
It shook—spun the sky, then moved on.
Fell back onto a dark, syrupy foam.
The foam soaked down into the black surface, hissing.
After a sickening wait, the ground seemed stable again. Ginny got to her feet and looked around. The marchers were gone. On the threshold of what they seemed to think was their salvation, within sight of the place they had been created and trained to reach, they were snatched, shoved back. Tricked. The valley was a place of endless temptation and disappointment.