City of Golden Shadow (31 page)

"Thank you." Renie turned her attention back to !Xabbu. "We must be going now. We're really quite late."

"Are you sure you wouldn't rather stay with us for a while?" Wicket spread his hands before the flames. "We don't get many visitors."

"I would like to. I'm very grateful for your help. But we are running up too much connect time."

Wicket raised his eyebrow as though she had said something faintly off-color, but remained silent. Renie leaned forward and put her hand on !Xabbu's shoulder, conscious that back at the Poly she must be touching his real body. Despite the low quality of the force-feedback, it certainly felt like her friend's narrow, birdlike physique. "Come along. Let's go back."

"I do not know how." There was only a little sadness in his voice, but a great lassitude, as though he spoke from the edge of sleep. "I have forgotten."

Renie cursed to herself and triggered the exit sequence for both of them, but as the cavern around her began to blur and fade, she could see that !Xabbu was not shifting with her. She aborted the exit.

"Something's wrong," she said. "Something is holding him here."

"Perhaps you'll have to stay a little longer." Wicket smiled. "That'd be nice."

"Mister Wonde can tell us some more stories," said Brownbread, pleasure evident on his round face. "I wouldn't mind hearing the one about the Lynx and the Morning Star again."

"Mister Wonde can't tell you any more stories," Renie said sharply. Were these men simple-minded? Or were they just Puppets, enacting some strange looped tableau that she and !Xabbu had stumbled into? "Mister Wonde has to leave. Our time is up. We cannot afford to stay longer."

Greyhound-thin Corduroy nodded his head gravely. "Then you must call the Masters. The Masters see to all comings and goings. They will put you right."

Renie felt sure she knew who the Masters were, and knew she did not want to explain her problem to the club's authorities. "We can't. There . . . there are reasons." The men around the fire frowned. If they were Puppets, they might at any moment trigger some automatic message of breakdown to the club's troubleshooters. She needed time to figure out why !Xabbu could not be removed from the net. "There is . . . there is someone very bad pretending to be one of the Masters. If the Masters are summoned, then this bad one will find us. We cannot call them."

All the men nodded now, like superstitious savages in some Z-grade netflick. "We'll help you, then," said Wicket enthusiastically. "We'll help you against the Bad One." He turned to his companions. "The Colleen. The Colleen will know what to do for these fellows."

"That's right." Whistler's lisp betrayed the origin of his name. He spoke slowly and wore a lopsided grin. "She'll help. But she'll want something."

"Who's Colleen?" Renie struggled with fear and impatience. Something was seriously wrong with her friend, the club authorities were searching for her, and Strimbello had said he knew who she really was, but instead of taking !Xabbu and getting the hell out, she was being forced to participate in some kind of fairy-tale scenario. She looked at the Bushman. His sim sat motionless beside the fire, rigid as a chrysalis.

"She knows things," said Brownbread. "Sometimes she tells."

"She's magical." Wicket waved his long hands as if to demonstrate. "She does favors. For a price."

Renie could not help herself. "Who are you? What do you do here? How did you get here?"

"Those are some very, very good questions," Corduroy said slowly. He seemed to be the thoughtful one. "We'd have to give a lot of gifts to the Colleen to get the answers to all those."

"You mean you don't know who you are or how you got here?"

"We have . . . ideas," Corduroy said meaningfully. "But we're not sure. We argue about it some nights."

"Corduroy is the best arguer," Wicket explained. "Mainly because everyone else gets tired and quits."

They had to be Puppets, these men, but they seemed somehow lost, remote from the rest of the club's bright glare and knowing blandishments. Renie felt a chill at the idea of constructs, bits of coded gear, sitting around a virtual campfire and arguing about metaphysics. It seemed so . . . lonely. She looked up at the glittering lights snarled in the tangle of roots above. Like stars. Little flames to ameliorate the darkness above, as a campfire stands sentinel against the darkness of earth.

"Okay," she said at last "Take us to this Colleen."

Wicket reached down and plucked one of the burning brands from the fire. His three friends did the same, their faces suddenly full of solemnity. Renie couldn't help feeling that in some strange way this was all a game to them. She reached for the final piece of wood, but Corduroy waved his hand. "No," be said. "We always have to leave the fire burning. So we can find our way back."

Renie helped !Xabbu to his feet. He swayed slightly, as though almost faulting with weariness, but stood by himself when she took her hand away and turned to the men. "You said we'd have to take her a gift. I don't have anything."

"Then you must give her a story. Your friend Mister Wonde knows lots-he told us some." Brownbread smiled, remembering. "Good stories, they were."

Wicket took the lead, bending his neck to keep his head below the trailing roots. Whistler came last, holding his torch high so that Renie and !Xabbu were surrounded by light. As they walked, Renie experienced a faint blurring along the edges of her vision. She could never see it happening directly, but the place around them was changing. The feathery roots overhead became thicker and the tiny lights dimmed. The soft, loamy earth beneath their feet hardened. Before long, Renie realized that they were walking through a succession of caves with only the torches for light. Strange shapes covered the cavern walls, drawings that might have been done in charcoal and blood, primitive representations of animals and people.

They seemed to be moving downward. Renie reached out to !Xabbu, wanting mostly to be reassured of his presence. She was beginning to feel almost as much a part of this place as Wicket and the others. What section of the club was this? What was its purpose?

"!Xabbu, can you hear me?" There was still no response on private band. "How are you feeling? Are you okay?"

He was a long time answering. "I . . . I am having trouble hearing you. There are other presences, very close."

"What do you mean, other presences?"

"It is hard to say." His voice was listless. "I think the people of the Early Race are near. Or perhaps it is the Hungry One, the one burned by the fire."

"What does that mean?" She tugged at his shoulder, trying to break through his odd lethargy, but he merely tipped a little to one side and almost stumbled. "What is wrong with you?"

!Xabbu did not answer. For the first time since she had found him, Renie began to feel truly frightened.

Wicket had stopped before a large natural archway. A chain of crudely sketched eyes surrounded it, dark as bruises against the torchlit stone. "We must go quietly," he whispered, lifting a long finger to his lips. "The Colleen hates clatter." He led them under the arch.

The cavern beyond was not as dark as the corridor outside. At the far end, scarlet light glared from a crevice in the floor, staining the rising steam. Barely visible through the redshot mist was someone seated on a tall stone chair, still as a statue.

The figure did not move, but a voice filled the cavern, a throbbing, growling sound which, despite the clearly understandable words, sounded more like a church organ than human speech.

"Come forward."

Renie flinched, but Wicket took her arm and led her toward the crevice. The others helped !Xabbu over the rough ground. It's the what's-it-called-the Delphic Oracle, Renie thought. Someone's been studying Greek mythology.

The shape on the stone chair stood, spreading its cloak like the wings of a bat. It was hard to tell through the rough garment and obscuring steam, but it seemed to have too many arms.

"What do you seek?" The tolling voice came from everywhere at once. Renie had to admit the whole thing was impressively eerie. The question was, would going through this charade actually help?

"They want to leave," said Wicket. "But they can't"

There was a long moment of silence.

"You four must go. My business is now with them."

Renie turned to thank Wicket and his friends, but they were already hurrying back toward the cavern's entrance, jostling each other in their haste like a gang of kids who had just lit the fuse of a firecracker. She suddenly understood what had puzzled her about Wicket since the first meeting, and about his companions as well. They moved and spoke like children, not like adults.

"And what do you offer in return for my help?" asked the Colleen.

Renie turned. !Xabbu had slumped to the ground before the crevice. She squared her shoulders and made her voice as calm as she could. "They told us we could give you a story."

The Colleen leaned forward. Her face was veiled and invisible, but the shape beneath her robes, extra arms or no, was recognizably female. A necklace briefly caught the light as large pale beads glinted against the darkness of her breast. "Not just any story. Your story. Tell me who you are, and I will set you free."

The word gave Renie a moment's pause. "We simply wish to leave, and something is preventing us. I am Wellington Babutu, of Kampala, Uganda."

"Liar!" The word clanged down like a heavy iron gate. "Tell me the truth." The Colleen lifted hands clenched into fists. Eight of them. "You cannot mock me. I know who you are. I know exactly who you are."

Renie stumbled back in sudden panic. Strimbello had said that, too-was this all some game of his? She tried to take another step and found she couldn't, nor could she turn away from the crevice. The burning light was suddenly very bright; the red glow and the dark shape of the Colleen scratched against it were now almost the only things she could see.

"You will go nowhere until you tell me your true name." Each word seemed to have physical weight, a crushing force like a succession of hammer blows. "You are in a place you should not be. You know that you have been caught. Everything will go better for you if you do not struggle."

The power of the creature's voice and the constant serpentine movement of the arms silhouetted against the glare were strangely compelling. Renie felt an almost overwhelming urge to surrender herself, to blurt out the whole story of her deception. Why shouldn't she tell them who she was? They were the criminals, not she. They had harmed her brother, and God knew how many others like him. Why should she keep it secret? Why shouldn't she just scream out everything?

The cavern warped around her. The scarlet light seemed to burn at the bottom of a deep hole.

No. It's some kind of hypnosis, trying to break me down. I have to resist. Resist. For Stephen. For !Xabbu,

"Tell me," demanded the Colleen.

Her sim still wouldn't retreat or turn away. The snakelike arms moved in ever swifter patterns, turning the glare from the crevice into a strobing succession of dark and light.

I must close my eyes. But she couldn't even do that. Renie struggled to think of something other than the shape before her, the demanding voice. How could they stop her even from blinking? This was only a simulation. It couldn't physically affect her, it had to be some kind of high-intensity hypnosis. But what did it all mean? Why "Colleen"? A maiden? A virgin, like the Delphic Oracle? Why go to such lengths just to terrify trespassers? It was the kind of thing you did to scare a child. . . .

Eight arms, A necklace of skulls. Renie had grown up in Durban, a town with a large Hindu population; she understood now what the thing before her was supposed to be. But people from other places might not understand the oracle's name, especially children. Wicket and his friends had probably never heard of the Hindu death goddess Kali, so they had come up with their own version.

Wicket, Corduroy-they weren't adults, she suddenly realized, they were children or childlike Puppets. That was why she had found them so strange. Here in this horrible place, children were being used to catch other children.

Then this monster thinks I'm a child, too! So did Strimbello! They had sniffed a false identity, but they had assumed Renie was a child sneaking through the club in adult guise. But if that was true, then Wicket and his cronies had delivered her to the process that had crippled Stephen and God knew how many others.

!Xabbu was still on his knees, staring helplessly. He, too, was caught-perhaps had been caught before she had ever found him, and was now as far gone as Stephen. He could not exit.

But Renie could, or at least she had been able to a few minutes before.

For a moment she stopped struggling against the invisible restraint. Sensing surrender, the dark shape of Kali expanded, looming now so that it filled her vision. The veiled face tilted forward, cloak billowing around it like a cobra's hood. The lights flashed. Words of warning, commands, threats, all cascaded over Renie, running together into a ragged drone so loud that it seemed to make her hearplugs vibrate.

"Exit."

Nothing happened. Her sim remained frozen, an unwilling worshiper at Kali's feet. But that made no sense-she had spoken the codeword, her system was set for voice commands. There was no reason it shouldn't work.

She stared into a vortex of swirling red light, trying to hold concentration through the shattering, never-ending noise, struggling to block out the panic and think. Any voice command should trigger her system back at the Poly . . . unless these people could somehow jam her voice in the same way they had frozen her sim. But if they could do that, why go to all the trouble to bring her to this particular place when Strimbello could just have immobilized her in the Yellow Room? Why put on such an elaborate show? They must need her here, isolated, exposed to this barrage of light and sound. It had to be hypnosis, some method using high-speed strobing and special sonics that operated right at the nervous system level, something that cut in between her higher thought processes and her physical responses.