“He didn’t tell you anything?”
“All he said was that he had ‘a couple of errands’ he had to run and that he’d tell me about them later, if he could.”
Cayleb’s tone was light, but Sharleyan heard the worry in its depths, anyway. Not because he distrusted Merlin, and certainly not because he was angry at having his authority flouted. No, he was worried for the same reason she was.
What are you up to, Merlin? she asked the silent night. Where are you? And what could be so dangerous you can’t tell anyone about it even now?
A sudden thought struck her, and she started to speak. But she stopped herself in time, swallowing the words unspoken.
Surely not! He wouldn’t—however big the circle’s grown!
She bit her lip, remembering a conversation with Merlin after his return from Delferahk. Remembering what he’d said, the satisfaction in his voice, as he’d talked about the size the circle had attained. About how many native born Safeholdians knew the truth now … about how they could carry on if “something happened” to him.
Merlin. She sent the plea winging out into the gathering darkness. Merlin, don’t start taking chances you wouldn’t’ve taken before just because you think we don’t need you anymore! We do need you, and not just because you’re our magical seijin! We don’t need you as our guide—we need you as you, because we love you.
“Well,” she said serenely to her distant husband after a moment, “I’m sure he’ll tell you all about it as soon as he gets back.”
.XX.
A Recon Skimmer, Above the Tarot Channel
Merlin Athrawes turned the skimmer up on its side so he could activate the zoom function of his artificial eyes as he gazed down through the transparent canopy to the herringbone geometry of the waves sweeping endlessly across the waters of the Tarot Channel, the better part of four miles below his present altitude.
It wasn’t often he saw Safehold’s surface from so high above in daylight. There wasn’t really any reason why he shouldn’t. The skimmer’s engines left no contrails, and its stealth systems had been designed to defeat sensors far more capable than the human eye. For that matter, darkness offered no protection from the one set of sensors he might actually have to fear. The sensor arrays serving the bombardment platform still patiently orbiting Safehold cared very little about the quantity of visible light.
No, the main reason for his nocturnal flight habits was simply that it was extraordinarily difficult for Seijin Merlin to simply disappear when human beings were up and about. It could be done—in fact, he’d done it several times, but almost always in emergencies when he had no choice. Partly because of the possibility someone might go looking for him and find him inexplicably not where he was supposed to be, but also because the moments when Owl sent the skimmer to fetch him were also the moments when they were most vulnerable to being spotted. Owl’s SNARCs and the skimmer’s own surveillance systems were good enough to make it almost impossible for them to fail to spot any potential, awkward witnesses, but almost wasn’t the same thing as a certainty. And the odds that someone would stumble across them at an exceedingly inconvenient moment were considerably greater during daylight than in the middle of the night.
On the other hand, there were certain advantages (and quite a few disadvantages) to having Owl pick him up at sea. For one thing, boats and ships tended to stand out rather distinctly in the middle of vast, empty stretches of ocean, which made it even more unlikely Owl would miss any potential witnesses. For another, a PICA had no need to breathe, and Merlin was as much at home swimming below twenty or thirty feet of seawater as he was bobbing about on the surface, which turned Safehold’s oceans into one, vast hiding place where he could remain comfortably out of sight, waiting until the ship he’d left disappeared in the distance before the skimmer picked him up. The main disadvantage, of course, was that ships were very small places packed with relatively large numbers of people. That made “dropping out of sight” more than a bit difficult.
Fortunately, Seijin Merlin’s need for occasional periods of meditation had become an accepted part of his legend. Everyone understood why he’d been assigned his own cabin, even in the crowded precincts of Empress of Charis, and no one would dream of disturbing him for anything short of fire or shipwreck once he’d announced his need for privacy and retired to it. It scarcely eliminated the risk, but it clearly reduced it, and he’d had little choice but to get an earlier start than usual for this particular flight.
You really should’ve told Cayleb and Sharleyan about this little project, he told himself, watching water give way to the coast of Malitar Province far below him. They’re probably going to be pissed when they find out you didn’t, and it’s going to be hard to blame them. Of course, if it doesn’t work, they won’t be finding out about it after all, will they?
“Pissed” could turn out to be an understatement, he reflected, although he expected they’d probably understand why he hadn’t told them once they’d had a chance to think it over. And the bottom line was that it had been his decision to make—if it was anyone’s—not theirs. And if it worked out as well as he hoped it might.…
He looked down at the green, deceptively peaceful Malitar coast, thinking about the brutality of the fighting and hatred and starvation he was about to fly so swiftly across, and a fresh flicker of guilt washed through him. He wasn’t the one who’d orchestrated the uprising in Siddarmark, and certainly not the one who’d ordered his agents to destroy and sabotage food sources. He knew who to blame for instigating that barbarity, yet he couldn’t really absolve himself of responsibility for the Church of God Awaiting’s jihad. The Group of Four might be the ones who’d instigated the actual fighting, who’d attempted to casually crush a problem which was merely potential when they unleashed their initial attack on the Kingdom of Charis without so much as a moment’s hesitation. And there was no question that Zhaspahr Clyntahn and the Inquisition must bear the blood guilt for the atrocities being committed in God’s name. Yet there was equally no question that Nimue Alban’s mission had made the jihad inevitable. It was the only way to destroy the Church’s death grip on human innovation and freedom, and that death grip had to be broken. So in the end, Group of Four or no Group of Four, Merlin Athrawes would have brought religious war and all its brutality and savagery to Safehold in the fullness of time, for he would have had no other choice.
He grimaced and gave himself a shake, pushing the familiar thought back into its mental cupboard and locking the door behind it. If Maikel Staynair was correct and he still had a soul, the time would come when he had to render an accounting for everything he’d done—and had still to do—but that time wasn’t yet. And if the judgment was against him in the end, so be it. He couldn’t—and wouldn’t—pretend he hadn’t known exactly what he was doing, and that mission was worth any sentence a rational deity might impose.
But for now, there were other things to think about, and he checked the time display racing downward towards his ETA in the Mountains of Light.
.XXI.
Nimue’s Cave, The Mountains of Light
He woke up.
He lay there for a moment, trying to understand why that surprised him, but he couldn’t. It was as if there was something he couldn’t quite remember, which was a most unusual experience. He pursed his lips, frowning in thought as he hung a moment longer on the lip of wakefulness, yet nothing would come to him, and he shrugged the question away and opened his eyes. He looked up at a familiar ceiling, hearing the distant sound of waves and the whistles of the palace’s song wyverns through the open window, and a sense of delicious well-being banished his momentary sense of confusion. It was early morning, past dawn but still cool, the sun still low on the eastern horizon. That wasn’t going to last, since the city of Eraystor sat almost directly upon the equator, but this was where he’d grown up. He knew the pulse and pattern of the days, which was why morning had been his favorite time of day since childhood. The world was quiet, still in
the process of waking up, and the morning air was like a clear, cool wine or a lover’s caress. He treasured that sensual, caressing freshness almost as much as he did the star-strewn clarity of the breezy night, and he stretched luxuriously before he sat up. He inhaled deeply, filling his lungs to the aching point before he exhaled once more, and climbed out of bed.
He pulled on a robe without summoning any of the servants and opened the glass doors to his private balcony. He stepped out into the morning breeze, feeling it pluck at his hair, and smiled as he saw the tray of melon balls, strawberries, and grapes beside the carafe filled with his favorite blend of apple and grape juice. He stood for several moments, leaning on the rail, looking out over the palace grounds and, beyond them, to the roofs and steeples of Eraystor. He could hear the city beginning to rouse—the sound of voices, the rattle of wagon wheels, the cadence of a Guard sergeant marching his detail off to relieve the night watch. He listened to it, absorbing it, feeling the world coming awake, before he turned to the table and poured himself a glass of juice.
He drank slowly, savoring the taste, then dropped into the rattan chair and reached for the first melon ball. He popped it into his mouth, chewing slowly, and his brow furrowed as he tried again to pin down whatever it was that was, not disturbing, yet somehow … wrong. There was something he should be recalling. Something which would have explained why this restful, peaceful morning seemed … out of kilter somehow.
He swallowed the mouthful of melon and smiled as he recalled the first time he’d heard Merlin use that phrase—“out of kilter”—and asked what it meant. It was a very useful one, actually. A lot of the odd turns of phrase Merlin used with those who knew his secret were that way, and quite a few had started leaking out into the language. It was a gradual process, filtering down from the circle of Cayleb and Sharleyan’s most trusted subordinates and advisors, but it also appeared to be inevitable. That was the way things usually worked, he’d observed. In fact, he reflected, reaching for another melon ball, he’d been discussing that very point only day before yesterday with Rayjhis Yowance. The First Councilor had said—
His eyes flared suddenly wide. No, that couldn’t be right … could it? Rayjhis had said … but Rayjhis was dead. He’d been … been killed. In … in an explosion? But … but if that was true, then what—?
The melon ball crushed in his hand, juice running over his fingers, and he looked down at it, amazed to find his hand trembling. He inhaled deeply, not luxuriously this time, but in something too much like panic, trying to marshal the thoughts crashing around inside his brain. But his mind’s habitual focus failed him. He couldn’t make the jumble of thoughts and impressions make sense, couldn’t hammer them into obedience while he—
“Hello, Nahrmahn,” a voice said quietly, and he whirled in his chair.
He’d never before seen the tall, black-haired, extraordinarily attractive young woman in the bizarre black and gold uniform. He knew that. Yet there was something about those sapphire eyes … about that contralto voice he’d never heard before, almost like a lighter, sweeter echo of another voice.…
“Merlin?” He heard the confusion in his own voice and shook his head. “But … but—”
“I know this is all very confusing,” the young woman who wasn’t Merlin Athrawes said. She crossed the balcony and pulled out the other chair, sitting with the same graceful economy of motion he’d seen out of Merlin so many times. And yet it was indefinably different. Merlin was a man; this person definitely wasn’t.
“You’re … Nimue,” he said slowly, and she nodded.
“Here I am, anyway.” She smiled. It was exactly the same smile he’d seen from Merlin more times than he could count, he thought, but without the dagger beard and the fierce mustachios. And without the scarred cheek, either. “I’m afraid the interface wasn’t loaded with Merlin, though. An oversight.” The smile turned wry. “I forgot Owl isn’t supplied with an overabundance of initiative or intuition. I simply assumed he would’ve adjusted it, and there wasn’t time to fix it after I realized he hadn’t.”
“Here? Interface?” Nahrmahn shook his head. “I … I don’t understand,” he said, and yet even as he spoke, he had the strangest sensation he did understand … and simply didn’t want to admit it to himself.
“Yes.” Nimue/Merlin’s smile faded, and she sat back, regarding him intently. Those blue eyes searched his face with an intensity that was almost unnerving, and her nostrils flared as if she’d drawn a deep breath, steeling herself for something.
“Nahrmahn,” she said, “I owe you an apology. I didn’t really have any right to do this—or even try to do it—without your permission. But there wasn’t time for that, either, I’m afraid. And I didn’t know whether or not it would even work. Or how well it would work, assuming it worked at all. For that matter, I still don’t know.”
“You’re making me a bit nervous … Nimue,” he said, and was relieved to hear it come out in something almost like his normal tone.
“Sorry.” She smiled again, fleetingly. “It’s just … well, the truth is, Nahrmahn, that you and I have something very much in common now.”
“In common?” He cocked his head. “And what would that be?”
“The fact that we’re both dead,” she said quietly.
* * *
“So let me get this straight,” Nahrmahn Baytz said, a great many minutes later, sitting back and waving both hands at the balcony, the palace, the sunlight, the quickening noises of the city. “All of this—everything—is inside a computer? It’s not real at all?”
“No, for certain values of ‘real,’ it’s as real as it gets.” Nimue popped one of the melon balls from the plate into her mouth, chewing appreciatively. “By every test you could give it, it’s completely real, Nahrmahn. Too much of that sunlight up there will cause you to turn red as a boiled spider crab. Fall off this balcony, and you’ll be lucky if you only break an ankle. Of course, that’s because Owl’s still in charge of the governors.”
“The governors?” he repeated in a resigned tone.
“The software that controls the parameters. There are some restrictions on what anyone inside the reality can change, but there’s actually quite a bit of elasticity. You can … readjust things in quite a few ways, once you get the hang of it.”
“But for the purposes of this discussion,” Nahrmahn leaned forward over the table, tapping it with an intent fingertip, “it’s not real. It’s a simulation. Obviously a very convincing simulation, but still a simulation?”
“It’s called a virtual reality, Nahrmahn. And it’s a construct, put together out of your own memories and the software’s extrapolations of them, supplemented by data—a lot of it in near real-time—from Owl’s SNARCs. In every sense that matters, it’s just as ‘real’ as you or Merlin Athrawes. But just as ‘Merlin’ exists only in his PICA, what you can almost think of as a mobile virtual-reality module that happens to be capable of interacting with the physical world, you exist only inside this module.”
“But … how?” Nahrmahn folded his arms. “I understand that Merlin is actually, well, you, or at least an electronic recording of you. But that recording was made long before you ever woke up here on Safehold. How did I end up”—he unfolded one arm to wave at the world about them—“here?”
“You remember the explosion?” she asked gently, and his mouth tightened.
“Yes,” he said shortly. “I remember. And I remember holding Ohlyvya’s hand.” He swallowed and closed suddenly stinging eyes. “I remember her crying. And … and I remember you—or Merlin, anyway—turning up.” His eyes opened once more and narrowed. “Turning up with that … whatever it was you put on my head. Is that what caused all this?”
“Yes,” Nimue admitted. “And that’s what I meant when I said I really didn’t have any right to do this without your permission. In fact, I violated at least half a dozen Federation laws by doing it at all, much less without your informed consent. But I wasn’t certain it would work, and
… and I wasn’t going to take away any of the time you had left with Ohlyvya trying to explain it.”
“And if you weren’t sure it would work,” he said slowly, “you weren’t about to mention it to her, were you?” Nimue looked back at him without speaking, her blue eyes very dark and still, and he nodded. “No, you weren’t. You wouldn’t’ve given her what might’ve turned out to be false hope.”
“That … was part of it. And another part was that I didn’t know if you’d have wanted me to tell her.”
“Of course I would have!”
“Really?” She cocked her head. “I hoped you would—I hope you still will—but think about it first. Outside this VR module, you don’t have a body anymore. In that sense, you’re even more of a ghost than I am, and you know I’ve never been really certain whether I’m still me or just a pattern of electrons that only thinks it is. I love Ohlyvya, and I might as well admit—if it won’t make you uncomfortable, remembering you only ever knew me as Merlin—that I love you, too. But I can’t guarantee how she’d react if she started hearing your voice from the dead. She watched you die, Nahrmahn. She held your hand, and she wept on your chest, and she buried you. I think she has the strength and heart to understand what’s happened, but I can’t guarantee that, and the human heart can be a very unpredictable thing. And before you rush into anything, you have to understand that Ohlyvya will never be able to visit you here the way I can.”