World's End

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"Where do you want me to start, geddal Here--?" His fingers jabbed at my throat, and I retched.

"Or here?" He twisted my sprained arm until I screamed again. "Or here--?" Pain exploded in my groin; I fell to my knees, sobbing help

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lessly. "What are you the most afraid of?" He waited for my mind to clear, until I was sane enough to understand again, and then he stepped back to study me. As he moved, a red glow lit his face. He looked toward the light, and froze. "No!" he murmured. "No, it can't

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be ... I"

His sun-blistered face hung above me like a bloody moon: the face of an animal, the face of my enemy. I

wanted to kill him. I wanted it more than I wanted to live-- And suddenly his knife was in my hand, instead of in its hidden sheath. I looked down at it with a kind of hunger. My fist tightened around its hilt; its blade shone red. "Spadrin!" I hissed.

Disbelief swelled his eyes as he saw the knife. He backed away from me, stumbled and went down. I

threw myself on top of him and pressed the knife to his throat.

"Gedda," he gasped, "don't, don't! I didn't mean it, I swear by the Unspoken Name! I'll do anything . . . name it, name it, what do you want from me!"

There was only one thing I wanted from him. I raised the knife, letting it hang in the air above him while I

watched his face.

"Please--" he blubbered.

I smiled. And then I drove the knife into his chest.

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He screamed, thrashing on the ground under me. I

held him there, pulling the knife out of him. Blood spurted over my hands, splattering my face, as he died.

The life went out of him like a sigh.

But I drove the knife into him again, and again; because it wasn't enough, because he deserved so much more . . . because it felt good. And with every death the poisoned blood poured out of him, another demon flew up--he was filled with demons, too much monstrous evil for one Page 98

human body to contain. I saw every one of his faces, I knew every one of his secret names--I killed

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him over an dover an dover. And every time I destroyed another I was freer; I would be free forever when I destroyed them all-- I killed him and killed him and killed him. . . .

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he antique watch began to chime, disturbing the funereal silence of his office, in which he sat like a mourner. Gundhalinu stirred at last; time present began to flow again. He raised an unsteady hand to his belt and shut off the recorder; took the watch from his pocket, listening to its familiar music.

But still the ghosts would not leave him. . . .

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I'm free! I'm free free free freefreefreefreefreefreefreefreefree.

. . .

I sit laughing in the turbid sand, laughing, laughing.

. . .

The deathwatch beetles begin to gather around me, clicking their mandibles in mourning. I scramble up with a curse, leaving them to their business. Looking down at Spadrin's corpse, suddenly I wonder what he saw that made him look away from me. The glowing blackness whispers secret words, and somehow I know what the

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answer must be--

It is. Beyond the curve of wall I see it at last, waiting.

Fire Lake. I run shouting and crying out of the shadows onto the shore, the endless beach of congealed rock leading down to the shining sea. It is all black and red, death and blood. I fall to my knees in wonder. The sky is completely starless, and the molten Lake fills the darkness with fire, a singularity in the heart of night.

The gnarled stone of the beach is as warm as flesh beneath my touch. The surface has congealed into the sightless eyes and gaping mouths of a million tiny faces; Page 99

they scream soundlessly beneath my weight, my probing fingers. I crawl over them toward the perimeter of the

Lake.

But suddenly figures block my way. Not alone--? I sit back, cradling my throbbing arm. Looking up, I know them, these shuffling, trilling matchstick forms.

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JOAN D. VINGE

The cloud ears ring me in like a tumbledown fence. I

push myself to my feet within their circle. The missionary woman we left in the steaming valley stands before me in a corona of light, her ragged arms outstretched.

"Have you discovered the true nature of time?"

"You," I murmur. "How can you be here? We left you in the steaming valley days ago. . . ."

"Months and months ago." Her voice comforts me.

She takes my hands gently, peering into my eyes. Her face is hidden in shadow. She begins to turn me in a shuffling dance between light and darkness.

"Months and months . . . ?" I say, stumbling over my feet.

Eynstyn and B'ryllas lost all track of Time, When Time went to sea in a bottle by Klyn."

I sing the old rhyme, laughing as her face goes into

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darkness again. "Time is adrift on Fire Lake!" I shout exultantly. "Time is at sea!" I realize that she is not mad at all, but speaking perfect sense. "Moon, Moon, our time is coming. . . . Ah, gods--"

I see the old woman's face again, but a frown is filling it up. Her eyes are suddenly white with fear, looking down at my hands. "Where are the others?" she asks, pulling away. Her eyes are clear and sharp.

"The others?" I shrug. "They're dead. Spadrin killed Ang. 1 killed Spadrin. He's lying over there. I stabbed him, and I'm glad." I look at my red-stained hands. "He deserved it."

She backs away from me. "No," she mutters, "no, no, no. You understand nothing. Don't touch Page 100

me. It's too late for you--"

"There is no late!" I call, reaching after her. "There's no time like the present, no time to lose, no time at all-- Wait!"

But the cloud ears close around her like a rattling

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world's end

forest, and she flees with them toward the wall of shadows.

I try to run after them. I stumble and fall, and the sky and the sea change places--black and red, red and black

. . . blackness.

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Íwake, to the sun's fiery face drowning in light at the sky's blue-black zenith. Sweat burns in the cracks of my parched lips. I lift a hand to shield my eyes from the glare--but a shadow blocks out the sun, falling on me like a blow. I push myself up. I am ringed in again by figures. This time they are all human, all men, all armed. Their hard, closed faces and ragtag clothing tell me half a dozen different stories, all with the same ending.

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"There's a dead one over here!" a voice calls. A grunt of disgust. "Nothing left on him worth taking."

One of the men who watch me gestures with his hand.

The others pull me back down, spread-eagling me on the ground. He straddles me, looking down. He has mottled skin, a thick red-gold braid and beard. He must weigh close to a hundred and fifty kilos. "Search him." They do. They take the knife sheath from my arm. They take the pouch from my belt. "You kill him?" Goldbeard asks me.

"Yes!" I shout hoarsely.

"Why?"

"He deserved it."

Goldbeard grins. I can see in his eyes that he understands.