World's End

Page 154

I watch a ghost wander through him, and through the rug that hangs motionless across the doorway. The Lake stirs restlessly inside me. I laugh once. "I'm sure."

"Not everyone around here is afraid of sibyls. Some of them really are insane . . . and some of them don't have enough imagination to go crazy, or to be afraid 193

JOAN D. VINGE

of anything either. Your luck won't hold forever."

"They don't touch Song." But I remember that she still keeps Goldbeard and a company of guards.

"Song!" He makes her name into a curse. "Everyone needs gods ... especially in a place like this.

If they don't have gods they invent them. They think she has power over Fire Lake--that her being here keeps Sanctuary from

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melting down and running into some crack in space."

"She does."

"What?" He snorts with laughter.

"She does communicate with the Lake. So do I. It's something to do with a sibyl's the receptivity, but I don't completely understand it yet. I see and hear things you wouldn't believe, since . . ."

"Shit, you are insane." He looks away. "And so is she.

She's crazier than anyone here--or she's a better actor than anybody I've ever seen."

"She's both." I sigh, remembering the first time I saw her. "But she's trapped here just like the rest of us. And

I swore I'd get her out--" I watch his face fill with disbelief "--just like I swore I'd get you out, and HK."

"Why, for gods' sakes?"

I stare at him. Finally I shake my head. "I wish I

knew." I put out my hand. "Give me the gun."

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He pulls back, his body tensing. "Anubah--"