‘And whenever I hear a man talk about moving mountains and great quests, there is always someone he is doing it for, and that someone is not just a friend. It would be better for you to go to her, and make things right.’
‘The … other woman and I have danced that dance many times,’ le Flambeur says. ‘We have hurt each other too much.’ There is a wistful look in his eyes.
She takes his hand. ‘Then what do you have left to prove to her? Sirr can be a place of healing, too. We know much about the Aun. My father and the muhtasib council know many Secret Names. Perhaps we could free you from your … other side. Perhaps then you could find peace.’
He smiles a bitter smile. ‘I’m afraid it is far too late for that. And I need my other side, where I’m going. And the story will be better for that.’
He kisses her forehead, gently, and pulls away. ‘Still, I thank you. I shall not forget Sirr, or gentle Tawaddud. But there are monsters even she can’t heal.’ He looks past Tawaddud’s shoulder. ‘Speaking of which – you’ll have to excuse me for a moment.’
Tawaddud turns around. The Aun stand there, near the edge of the Shard, on the side of the wildcode desert. The little girl in a mask, the old man in green, and the thing that shifts and glows. Le Flambeur squeezes her hand and goes to join them.
I look at the Aun in the eternal soletta twilight of Irem, standing on the edge of the Shard, the wildcode desert and its arabesque patterns of light behind them. They look much more real now, not just echoes inside my mind, but thoughtforms made from the matter of the reborn desert. I can see the grains in the Princess’s mask, the creases in the Soldier’s uniform, the play of light in the glassy innards of the Kraken. But even now, it is hard to look at their faces: they always remind you of someone you once knew, but have forgotten.
‘Happy now?’ I ask. ‘Not a story for a boon, this time, but a city.’
‘They are one and the same,’ says the Princess.
‘The lords of this place will be coming for you soon, brother,’ the Soldier says, in a voice like gravel. ‘Are you ready?’
‘We shall see,’ I say, and glance at the sky. He is right, the Great Game or their pawns will be here soon. The use of Notch-zoku entanglement on this scale is not something that will go unnoticed, no matter how carefully I tried to be to hide my tracks.
It wasn’t easy: creating a Notch identity, endless concept mining in the design Realms to build up enough entanglement to make the transition to matter. Then there was notchcube grinding, improving the impact tolerances of Plates and Strips, sculpting a trollface on a fresh mountain range. My mind still echoes with the countless hammer blows. And then, finding the Ender Egg in the Sayanagi Belt, the entrance to the hidden Realm of Vipunen the Notch-zoku Elder whose jormungandr body is a thunder-and-lightning storm that circumscribed the entire planet. I broke into the zoku jewel bank inside his hurricane gut and got away with a few Plate-level jewels.
I shrug. Does that make me ready for the Great Game Zoku? Not a chance. The moment I give up the Notch-zoku membership, they will come.
‘We are whole,’ the Kraken says, in a voice like a glass flute. ‘We remember now.’
‘So, what was it?’ I ask. ‘What caused the Collapse?’
‘You did,’ the Princess says.
I stare at them.
‘Why would have I done that?’ I whisper. ‘You are lying.’
‘You are the only one of us who lies,’ the Soldier says.
‘We do not judge,’ the Kraken says. ‘It was Father who set us free from flesh. But it was you who broke all old things, so we could grow.’
The Collapse. Sirr falling from the sky. Cities waking up, full of gogols, breeding uncontrollably. The machine nervous system of the world, flooding with mad minds. Fleshbodies repossessed by the millions by automated corporate entities, black box uploading their inhabitants who could no longer afford to live—
It’s too big. It’s too much to bear. I belong with Chen and Joséphine and the Great Game. I deserve them. I would leap from the Shard and let the wildcode desert take me, except that it already did, once, and spat me back out.
‘It was you,’ I hiss at them, the desert devils. ‘You planned it. Your Flower Prince came into my mind in the prison, to have an agent in the flesh-world. He made me do it. He broke the world so you could be free. I have been his puppet for centuries. Saving you was a mistake. Chen was right to try to wipe you out. You are nothing but a disease.’
The Princess steps forward. I raise my hand to strike her. Then I see her eyes, embers full of truth, see my face reflected in them, contorted with hate.
She reaches up and removes my sunglasses, touches my cheek. Her small hand is hot. I breathe in the smell of smoke. It reminds me of a tent in a desert, of a brazier burning in the night, of waking up and a hard-faced woman watching me.
‘We never made you do anything,’ she says. ‘We do not choose. We simply are. We call you brother because we miss him. But you are not him. No one is ever just one thing, except us.
‘He touched you, through the crystal stopper. But all your choices were your own.’
There are tears in my eyes.
‘But why? Why the Collapse?’ I whisper.
‘For the same reason you did everything,’ the Princess says. ‘To please the goddess.’
Joséphine. I served her, on Earth, I know that much. She opened a door for me. I gathered the Founders for her. There was a time I would have done anything to make her smile. No. I freed myself from her. That’s why I went to Mars. It was the best thing I ever did.
And this was the worst.
I lock the feeling away. I let the metaself calm the storm between my temples, make it smooth and cool and empty like the wildcode desert.
‘That’s not the answer I need,’ I say slowly. ‘I need to know how, not what. I need you to show me.’
‘We told you already,’ the Princess says. ‘You need to remember yourself.’
‘But I don’t. It is one of the secrets I burned when I was caught—’
The Princess smiles a wooden smile.
‘The other me,’ I breathe. ‘Matjek said something about the other me who spoke to him. That’s why the Leblanc felt haunted. There is a partial of the old me there, or a gogol even. It was watching me.’
The Princess hands my glasses back.
‘See?’ she says. ‘Which one is it who loves secrets so much? The boy from the desert, or the Flower Prince?’
She steps back, to stand with the others. They fade away into the light, become sand and wind.
Farewell, brother. We will be here when you return.
When le Flambeur comes back, he is uncharacteristically quiet. There is a strange fire in his eyes, and Tawaddud leaves him to his thoughts during the descent along the curve of the empty Shard, in one of his magic bubbles.
In the end, Dunyazad gives him the jewel, and he offers her the necklace. Tawaddud has to admit it suits Duny: the brightness of the jewels against her dark skin makes her look like a queen.
‘I trust you will not misuse them,’ le Flambeur says. ‘People of Sirr will need jewels of their own, too. And jinni may want bodies. This place has the power to give it to them. It may become a very different city from the Sirr on Earth.’
Tawaddud thinks of the Axolotl. Perhaps there are other monsters I can heal. She gives the thief a smile for that, a small one.
Dunyazad’s smile vanishes, suddenly. ‘Look.’ She points at the sky.
Fear opens a sharp-nailed hand inside Tawaddud’s chest.