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The lake might be made of ice—greenish, glassy ice.
And at the center of the lake—
The Crux or heart…
A blurry black point. Too far off, too small to see any details from where he stands—just a foggy, dimensionless darkness. Nearby, another hollow opens up, carved out of the ice. Within the hollow he sees a lovely actinic glow—a billion arcs of brilliant blue. Vague shapes move there, small enough to be human—all but one, a nacreous cone with a brilliant luminosity at its apex—a face. Even from here he sees it is the face of a woman—or at least some sort of magnificent female. Looking through the blue light at that shape, Jack shivers. He knows where this is—and what thatis, or was. The icy surface of the lake is scored all around, as if giant skaters have carved deep pathways, gouges that would rise over his head if he went down there and fell into one. The tortured tracks of the Queen in White.
And so he isgoing. The sum-ru
Now about those giants. Were they there before? He sees them on the opposite side of the whirling bands, gathered like extraordinary chess pieces, waiting in timeless judgment. They are horrifyingly beautiful—he is inadequate to the task of assessing their grandeur, their former power. Seeing them carries by itself a kind of knowledge, access to what had once been a tremendous future history. Once, they were judges, he guesses, builders and movers of galaxies—and then they became prisoners, held in thrall to witness the fumbling, inane destruction of everything they had ever lived and loved. Now they are gathered to await another judgment, another conclusion. The mighty and glorious await the arrival of the tiny and insignificant.
He has an audience.
He holds onto the sum-ru
CHAPTER 114
Whitlow is triumphant as they approach the Queen in White in her abode. Above, the magnificent confusion of the armillary makes a humming backdrop.
The Crux lies within the black point around which pivots this stately gyre. Whitlow exults. They were just there—at the center. They are powerful and privileged. They will be rewarded magnificently for their success. All that was promised will finally be attained.
The Moth is above, around, everywhere—guiding them with a silken, dusty enthusiasm. Ahead Glaucous can make out, through a lattice of ever-changing shadows, one of the shepherds—the girl Virginia, walking carefully across the ice. She is attended by a few cats. He and Whitlow will soon be upon her.
Glaucous steels himself.
“A brilliant conclusion,” Whitlow tells him. “We need to present just one shepherd, one sum-ru
Glaucous moves cautiously. All around, the grooves and cuts yawn in expectation of the clumsy. He is wondering how they can remove the girl and deliver her—before the cats do what the cats must do. The Moth brushes past, alerts them. Other visitors are crossing the circular green lake. Even at this distance Glaucous recognizes his own prey—Jack. The boy is following a much larger contingent of felines, like a fuzzy gray blanket.
Cats, ever the friends of books and stories—ever ready to attend to the reading of stories by sitting in a lap and purring. The death of all stories would not make them happy. The Moth touches his shoulder again. A third is now on the lake. It is Daniel, the bad shepherd. There are no cats with Daniel. He moves alone.
“Consider the depths of time,” Whitlow natters on reverently. “Beyond our understanding. And yet here we are—among the few, the last. It makes me proud. All of our pains, justified. All of our poor deeds.”
Glaucous nods absently, focused on the Crux, the center—still working to draw down the last, best strand of fate.
Beyond the spi
CHAPTER 115
Across the lake of green ice, from three directions the travelers move toward the center of the armillary fortress.
Jebrassy in his armor steps out carefully on the slick surface. The Kalpa has two final voices—the voice of his armor, and his own. “There are watchers,” the armor tells him, something he already knows—the giants from the vale of Dead Gods. They remind him of point-minders in the little wars, presiding over the endgames but forbidden by certain rules to intervene, possibly because they actually aredead. That doesn’t seem to stop anything else in the Chaos. But he is just as glad they come no closer.
“There are Silent Ones closing in,” the armor warns him. “They may be held back by the armillary. Sum-ru
Jebrassy is not at all sure what he can do about any of that. He is intent on the shimmering dome sketched by the arcs of blue light. That is where Tiadba must be; he is sure of it.
“There are no intact suits of armor in this vicinity. But there are breeds. And others.”
Jebrassy is aware of those others, moving in, like him, on the center. “Who are they?” he asks.
“Pilgrims.”
“Like me?”
“Very like you.”
“My visitor?”
“Unknown.”
He nods and pauses to think that over. He would have said, in any other place, at any other point in his young life, that there were ghosts out there—but now reality travels along a sliding scale. These pilgrims may be less real than himself, but more real than the Silent Ones or the Dead Gods. One came to him in dreams. And is this any more real than a dream? Yet he suspects there are still rules of a sort. Not just anything will happen. Fewer things might be possible here than out in the Chaos. Teamwork. Do your part.
The voice of his other brings him some relief. They are near.
“Where’s Tiadba?” he asks.
“Unknown,” the armor says.
“Is she alive?”
“Unknown.”
“Everything’s closing in.”
“Yes.”
“Am I doing the right thing?”
“There is no going back.”
“Will I just crumble away like the Keeper?”
“Unknown.”
Jebrassy shakes his head. They’ve all come so very far—he can’t begin to understand how far. Yet he does not feel small. For once he feels quite large. Bigger even than the Dead Gods, and certainly more powerful. More powerful than any Eidolon. He tries to imagine the Kalpa—but all that is gone. He tries to imagine what Nataraja was once like—now reduced to the deadfall and, at the last, crushed against the spi
“Unknown.”
“Anything else you care to tell me?”
“Yes.”
The armor’s voice becomes a gentle rush in his ears, like sifting sand. He does not want to be completely alone out here. The lake and the whirl change perspective whichever way he turns. So he looks straight ahead at the blue light. He still clutches the small piece of sculpture given to him by Polybiblios.