“It seemed so to me,” he answered.
She put her head down on his chest. “To me as well,” she whispered.
Before long her breathing softened and became regular. A little while later he drifted into sleep, his arm across her back, his fingers brushing the elegant rise of her buttocks — and his last stumbling, slightly wistful thought was, This is far too pleasant to be anything but imaginary.
Ruiz lifted his head to find himself sitting on a bench in Leel’s courtyard. Beside him sat Somnire, wearing an ornate silver and garnet crown, his hair dressed in lank braids. Around the Librarian’s shoulders was an ermine cloak. At his feet lay the maimed sarim, watching Ruiz with its wise dog eyes.
The water in the little pond was black and the bougainvillea dead.
“So,” said Somnire, smiling. “How are you?”
A shudder of distaste ran through Ruiz. “Don’t you know?”
“No. Leel made me promise not to peek, during or after. A funny girl, she was.”
“Was? What’s happened to Leel?” Ruiz felt a sort of sick dread.
The smile disappeared, and Somnire looked very old and very tired, despite his boyish face. “Leel is dead, Ruiz.”
“I thought you were all dead,” said Ruiz in a low voice.
“Well, of course we are, of course, but there are several levels of death here, and I’m sorry to say that Leel has descended to a lower one.”
“I don’t understand.” Ruiz rose and would have run back into Leel’s house, but the frail-seeming boy put a restraining hand on his arm, and it was as if he had been gripped by a killmech’s steel claw.
“Leel is gone,” Somnire said gently. “Her house is full of empty rooms and dust. Sit down and I’ll explain.”
Ruiz sat numbly.
“It’s time and energy, Ruiz, Time and energy,” Somnire said. “When the virtual was built, its designers thought of it as an emergency data backup system, not as a refuge for dead librarians.
“The virtual is powered by magma taps, with the bulk of the energy earmarked to maintain static data storage. The personality support functions are less well endowed, since they were merely a convenience for users, none of whom were expected to reside for long within the virtual.
“The tap that powers the remaining personalities is failing, very slowly… but steadily. Occasionally we have a lottery, to see who goes into cold storage. The winner’s pattern is retired, to be resurrected if ever we get a new source of energy. Leel won the last lottery — or lost it, you would say. She was nearly ready when you arrived.”
Ruiz absorbed the information gradually. At last he glanced down at the Librarian’s pet and said, “Why didn’t you put the sarim into storage and let Leel stay a little longer?”
Somnire looked down at Idirin and his eyes glittered with what Ruiz saw to be tears. “It’s an idea I’ve several times proposed. And in fact, most of the island’s sarim are in cold storage. They were our dearest symbol, beautiful fliers who gifted us with their grace and loyalty… the other dons couldn’t bear to see the virtual completely emptied of them. Anyway, they’re simple creatures, they’re dim candles to the fiery furnace of a human being’s personality, so it doesn’t cost us much to keep a few of them flying.”
“I see,” said Ruiz. He felt a terrible weight of disoriented denial. Only a few minutes ago, he had lain in Leel’s bed; he could still feel the comforting weight of her body. “And I thought I’d left the monsters outside.”
“Monsters? You call us monsters, you who have been on Roderigo? All we did was take you in and give you a respite, some breathing room.”
“Why?” asked Ruiz. “Why did you go to the trouble, you and Leel?”
Somnire seemed almost haggard. “Leel’s reasons were different from mine. I told you I was a vengeful ghost.” He made a swirling gesture with his hand, and a concrete-lined pit opened up at Ruiz’s feet.
Ruiz looked down and saw two long-legged reptilian creatures tearing at each other in a bloody blur.
“Lervals,” said Somnire. “People bet on the outcome. At first they simply dumped the lervals into the pit and let them fight to the death. But then the handlers discovered that if they separated the creatures after ninety seconds and returned them to the company of their packmates between rounds, the lervals would fight much harder and much longer, until they were nothing but clots of raw meat. It’s a little like what the Roderigans were doing when they spared your folk. All I had for you… was Leel.”
The pit closed, became the flagstones of the courtyard again.
“I see,” said Ruiz. He began to feel a slow hot anger.
“Do you? I want you to be my weapon against the Roderigans. I’ve waited centuries for you, and I would have put your edge to the grindstone any way I could. You were dying, looking for a place to lie down and rot. Not much use to me or anyone else. Now you’re mending. Look in your heart and tell me I’m wrong.”
Ruiz could not. “What were Leel’s reasons?”
Somnire shrugged and spoke slowly. “Leel was exactly who she seemed to be: a sweet loving person, who helped me only because she couldn’t see how it could harm you. And because she thought you a beautiful animal, too fine to be allowed to die of a broken heart.”
A little twisty wind swirled through the courtyard, scattering the dead leaves.
“Couldn’t you have let her say good-bye?” Ruiz asked finally. “Did you have to take her while I slept?”
“She chose the time, Ruiz.”
Ruiz felt a moment of vertigo; then he and Somnire stood on a slender high-arched bridge above a foggy chasm. Both ends of the bridge were lost in misty darkness; the light was vague and sourceless.
The bridge seemed too fantastic to be real, built of lacey black wrought-iron, as delicate as a spider web. Ruiz grabbed at the slim guardrails, and the whole bridge quivered.
“It’s safe,” said Somnire over his shoulder. “Let’s go. We need to get down to business, Ruiz Aw.”
Ruiz moved carefully, still clinging to the rails. He looked down at the roiling mist and fancied that he could see ominous shapes, almost recognizable. The mist swirled, threatened to coalesce.
“Don’t look down,” said Somnire. “It’s one of my safeguards, in case the Roderigans somehow managed to inject an independent entity into the virtual. I don’t know how they could do that, but why take chances?”
Ruiz fixed his eyes on Somnire’s ermine-clad back until they reached the far pier.
They stepped down onto a path paved with opalescent glass, lit from beneath. The glass rang under their feet, as though each slab of glass were a great gong.
“I like a little drama,” said Somnire.
A hundred paces took them to a brazen door, carved with a many-times-life-size portrait of Somnire.
The carving’s eyes appeared to be of flesh, and they fixed a bloodshot disapproving gaze on Ruiz as they approached the door. Ruiz almost expected the carving to speak, but it remained mute, even when Somnire reached up and tweaked its large nose.
The door swung open on a well-lit room filled with flat-screens and holotanks. Somnire led the way inside and sat down before a big dataslate. He took off his crown and set it aside.
“So, welcome to my inner sanctum,” Somnire said.
Ruiz wondered why he had ever thought the Librarian a boy. The smooth youthful face was alight with an ancient craftiness. A thousand years of cunning seemed to glow in Somnire’s dark eyes, and the Librarian had an almost hysterically cheerful look.
“And why not?” Somnire asked. “How often do I get to stick Roderigo in the eye with a sharp stick? Why shouldn’t I take delight where I may? You must strive to do the same!”