T4b was the first to speak. He sounded lost, younger than Paul had ever heard him. "Old Grail-knocker . . . won, him? Just . . . over? All over?"
Sam Fredericks was crying. Beside her, Orlando Gardiner put a muscular barbarian arm around her shoulder. "I knew it!" she said for the fourth or fifth time. "So impacted—we were all so stupid! He was just waiting!"
Paul could only nod in stunned agreement. I should have seen it coming—should have known a device like that lighter would be worth something to someone—to Jongleur. But he had let himself be lulled by Jongleur's unusual volubility, his surrender of secrets. The old man had acted like someone without hope. Paul had recognized the feeling, and so he had believed it.
"We may have only moments," Martine said softly.
"It's in God's hands," said Bonita Mae Simpkins. "We don't know what He has planned."
It is out of our hands, Martine replied, that is the one certain thing."
Florimel stood. "No. I cannot believe that. I will not give up my life, my daughter's life, without a fight."
"Who are you going to fight?" Paul's own misery made it difficult even to speak. "We underestimated him. Now he's gone. And even if something keeps him from shutting down the system, what about that?" He pointed to the dome of clouds, the silhouette of Dread moving along the edge like a shadow-puppet demon. "What about him?"
"Where has the boy gone?" asked Nandi. "Sellars' boy. He was frightened. He ran."
Orlando pointed. "Over there."
Paul could see Cho-Cho crouched on the rim of the Well, a small shadow against the flickering lights. "I'll get him," he said heavily. He knew what it was to be lost and confused. We should face it together, as Martine said.
"Something is happening." Martine Desroubins' face tightened in concentration. Paul hesitated, but then turned to go after the boy.
The end, he thought. The end is happening, that's all.
The weakening glare of the Well made him think of Ava as she had last appeared, suffering, fighting hopelessly against the inevitable. I'm sorry, he told her memory. Whatever you were, whoever, it doesn't matter. You risked everything for me—lost everything. And I failed you.
The boy was on all fours, shuddering. When Paul touched him he scrambled back along the edge, making Paul fear he might tumble into the Well.
But what difference does it make, really? Still, he put out his hand. "It's all right, lad. It's all right. I'm one of the good guys." And that's a laugh, isn't it?
"He here," the boy said.
"No, he's gone. The man is gone."
"He not! He in my head, verdad!"
Paul paused, his hand still stretched toward the boy. "What are you talking about?"
"El viejo! Sellars! He in my head—I can hear him!" The boy backed a little farther along the rim of the pit, keeping well out of Paul's reach. "It hurts!"
My God, Paul thought. Just don't scare him into falling. He squatted down, then extended his hand again. "We can help you. Please come back." What if he falls? What if he falls and we never find out? "What is Sellars saying to you?"
"Don't know! Can't understand—it hurts my head! He want . . . he want . . . want you to listen. . . ." The boy began to cry, then rubbed his face angrily as if to push the tears back into the ducts. "Leave me alone, m'entiendes?" It was hard to tell who he was shouting at.
Paul risked turning away for a moment so he could wave to some of his companions to come and help, but he could not tell if anyone had seen him. "Cho-Cho—that's your name, right? Come back with me. That man who tried to hurt you is gone. Sellars can tell us how to get out of here—how we can all get out of here. You want that, don't you?"
"Mentiroso," the boy snarled. "Heard what you said before. All gonna die here."
"Not if Sellars can help us." He inched a little closer. "Please, just come with me. I won't touch you, I promise. No one will touch you. I'll just turn and walk back to the others, and you walk with me." The boy crawled a little farther away. Paul looked around, but none of the others were coming, although a few were watching with a kind of glazed curiosity. "Look. I'm getting up now and I'm going back to the fire. You come with me if you want. We're friends here." Who is this boy, anyway? What can I say to him that will convince him? "There really are people in the world who want to help, you know. There really are."
He waited a few seconds, but the boy did not move or speak. Knowing that he was almost certainly doing a foolish thing—how many minutes did they have left, in any case?—Paul got up, turned, and walked deliberately back to the campfire. He did not look back. He heard no sounds behind him: if the boy was there, he was moving silently across the gray, dead ground.
Florimel and Nandi were nearest; they looked up at him with a question in their eyes. Paul stopped beside them, then carefully sat down, eyes still averted.
"Anybody touch me," the boy promised, "I cut them."
"Then you just sit there," said Florimel.
Paul cleared his throat. "Sellars is talking to him."
"What?"
"He trying to," the boy said sullenly. "But it locking up my head."
The others around the fire had turned toward them now. "The child is terrified," said Bonnie Mae.
"Just tell us what you think he is trying to say," said Florimel. "That is all we want. Martine, are you listening?"
"I am . . . trying. It is . . . There are . . . distractions."
Paul could tell it was far worse than a distraction. Martine Desroubins had the look of someone suffering a five-alarm migraine.
"He talking again," Cho-Cho said suddenly. The others leaned toward him. "He say . . . he say. . . ." The boy sighed and his eyes squeezed shut. For a long, tense moment he was silent, his jaw working. "This . . . is very difficult," he said at last. "I apologize . . . for the confusion." But though it still was Cho-Cho's voice, a child's voice, the intonation had changed.
"Sellars?" asked Florimel. "Is that you?"
"Yes." Cho-Cho's eyes remained closed even as his mouth moved, as though the child were talking in his sleep. As though he were possessed, Paul thought. "In fact," Sellars continued, "I have many apologies to make, but we don't have the time. It is not easy to manipulate the child's neurocannular connection to speak directly to you, but what I have to say is too important and too complicated to be relayed through little Cho-Cho."
"What's going on?" Florimel's voice held anger as well as relief. "Where have you been all this time? While everything in this damned artificial universe was trying to kill us?"
"No time to explain, I'm afraid. I am deep into the workings of the network and the operating system and my head feels like it's going to explode—and that's the least of our problems." Paul could hear the incredible strain even through the child's supple voice.
"You know about Jongleur escaping, then?" he asked.
"What?" The boy's face remained impassive but the voice was clearly startled. "Jongleur?"
Paul told him, with help from the others.
"He was planning it all along," said Sam Fredericks miserably.
"It's not your fault, Frederico," Orlando told her. "But if we get another chance, let's cut his head off, okay?"