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Okay, she thought blearily. Don't have to hit me over the head. Know when I'm not wanted.
A thin wail floated down into the valley. Renie shivered, wondering what she was going to do now, lost and alone.
She was staggering down the twisting thoroughfare when a shape came out of the shadows.
"I left." The Stone Girl's voice was very small.
Renie wasn't certain—she wasn't certain about anything—but it seemed something important had happened.
"You . . . ran away?"
"The stepmother is getting meaner and meaner. And she won't listen to me about the Ending." The Stone Girl made a fu
Renie was touched but a bit overwhelmed. As she wrapped the blanket around her shoulders, she couldn't help wondering whether she had been given a huge favor or a huge responsibility. "Go with me . . . where?"
"I'll take you to the Witching Tree. Ask it for help. That's where I was trying to go today, but the Ending has eaten up the path I used to take. We'll have to go through the Wood."
"Right now?"
The little shape nodded. "It's the best time to find it. But we have to be careful—there are things hunting. Ji
Renie let out a breath. "Oh, definitely. If you promise you'll explain a few things to me along the way." The Stone Girl's dark line of a smile was odd but genuine. "That's right, you like to ask questions, don't you?"
The world around them, Sam decided, was becoming both more and less real.
More real because as they walked farther upriver, what had been glassy translucency became more substantial, the meadows and hills all solid objects now, the river itself un-arguably wet, splashing noisily beside them. More unreal because nothing seemed quite normal, as though it were all a picture improperly copied from life—or even a picture copied from another picture. The colors and shapes were all subtly wrong, too regular or simply not quite recognizable.
"It is purely an invention, I think," said !Xabbu as he examined one of a small, scattered stand of trees by the riverside, the bark whorled like fingernails, the perfectly circular leaves like translucent silver coins. "Like the first flower I made—a flower that was more an idea than anything else."
"The first flower you made?" Sam asked.
"When Renie was teaching me how things are done in these virtual worlds." He shook his head. "This seems the same—as though made by a child playing, or someone experimenting."
"Wasn't Renie talking about that? She said the mountain might have been made by . . . the Other. That system-thing. So maybe this all is, too."
"It seems likely. It certainly is not a perfect copy of some real-world place." He brushed aside some of the silvery leaves and smiled, "Look, there is too much shininess, too much color! In that way, it is much like what a child would do."
Jongleur turned back toward them, his bony face set hard. "Are you two still wasting time? It will be dark soon."
!Xabbu shrugged. "Perhaps. We do not know the rules of this place."
"Do you want to get eaten by something, then, because you don't know the rules?"
The little man paused, restraining his temper. Until recently, Sam had thought of him as pere
"We're not going to find that . . . your friend. Not before dark." Jongleur's early mood of quiet withdrawal was over. He looked at Sam and !Xabbu as though he would gladly have hit them both with a stick, although he, too, kept his voice almost civil. "This is not like being on the mountain—there may be living things here that we would not want to meet."
"Very well," said !Xabbu. "Then this is as good a place as any to stop, since at least the ground is flat." He turned to Sam. "The man is right about one thing—we do not know what will come to us in this new land."
"If you want me to gather wood or something, you could go have one last look around for Renie. Call her or whatever."
He nodded, grateful. "Thank you, Sam. I think I can make a fire—it worked in that unfinished place where we were before. See what you can find that is loose on the ground."
She was not surprised when !Xabbu returned slowly, as though carrying something heavy. She had heard him shouting Renie's name for a long time. She decided to spare him the effort of making cheerful conversation.
He crouched and began building the fire. Jongleur sat on a spotted stone, brooding silently, his naked legs pressed together. Sam thought the old man looked like a gargoyle off a church roof.
Some of the trees stirred as a breeze blew across the grassy hills and through the camp. Watching the fire ripple, Sam realized that weather was one of the things that had returned when they had reached this area of greater substance.
Will it just keep getting more real? she wondered. It was only when !Xabbu looked up at her in surprise that she realized she had said it aloud. She felt silly, but the thought would not go away. "I mean, if we keep walking, will this world just get more and more real?"
Before !Xabbu could speak, Jongleur leaned forward. "If you think we will walk all the way back to the network, child, you will be painfully disappointed. This is not part of what I built, none of this. We are in some backwater of the net constructed by the operating system, something separate from the rest—very separate."
"Well, what's it all for, then?"
Jongleur only scowled and stared at the fire.
"He doesn't know either," Sam told !Xabbu. "He's just dupping, like he knows everything, but he's scared like we are."
Jongleur snorted. "I am not 'scared like you are,' girl. If anything, I have more to fear, because I have more to lose. But I do not waste energy on pointless talk."
!Xabbu reached over and patted Sam's hand. "If only about one thing, he is again correct. We should get rest now, because who knows what we will find tomorrow?"
Sam hugged herself. "I hope one of the things we find tomorrow is something to wear. It's getting cold." She looked at !Xabbu, as contented in his own bare skin as if he were dressed. "Aren't you cold, too?"
He smiled. "I will be, perhaps. So we will spend some time tomorrow trying to discover if any of the plants here are good for weaving into clothes, or at least blankets."
The idea of a project, however small, lifted Sam's heart. Nothing since Orlando's death had seemed to have much point, and certainly they seemed no closer to learning what they truly needed to know . . . but it would be very nice to be warm again.
She felt sleep pulling on her, so she curled up near the fire.
Sam thought she had only been asleep for a second when !Xabbu's long fingers touched her face. "Quiet," he whispered. "Something is nearby." She tried to thrash herself upright but !Xabbu held her back. Jongleur too was awake and watching as shadows moved in the high grasses just beyond the firelight. Sam realized she was having trouble getting her breath. She reminded herself of all the frightening adventures she and Orlando had experienced together, how she had learned to fight through her nervous excitement to do what was needed.
Yeah, but this is real.
It wasn't, of course—just one look at the strange trees showed her that—but the danger was. A quiet hiss that might have been the wind, or might have been whispering voices, eddied past. Sam fumbled out the hilt of Orlando's sword and held it with both hands because she was trembling too much to hold it steady with just one.