The Emperor of Everything

“Because I hate him with all the bitter emptiness of my heart,” the mythagogue said passionately in a rolling dramatic voice. “He it is who has blighted my life, miserable as it was before he found me. He it is who gave me the neurophage that has forever taken my optic nerve, that still keeps watch, coiled up in my skull, that will never let me see again — for no better reason than his foolish fancy. My blindness gives my tales more ‘mystic weight,’ he says. As if those great blind mythagogues who served the ancients wouldn’t have gone out and bought new eyes in a minute, if they could have.” He spit, narrowly missing Ruiz’s foot.

“Don’t you fear him, as well?” Ruiz was almost whispering.

The mythagogue slumped slightly, as if much of his emotion had suddenly leaked out. “Of course, of course. That’s why I didn’t help the lords, though at the time I didn’t know where he was. But then he came to me, speaking of you and how he would take you. I can’t say how I discovered that he was dead, but I knew it, and I wasn’t quite as afraid. Not quite….”

“Dead?”

“Dead! He’s a machine now, someone’s insensate tool. The Gencha have had their way with him, and he is no more. Perhaps you can destroy him, now that he’s dead. Can you?” The cyborg jerked his head toward Ruiz, and though his eyes were still unfocused, they burned.

“I must try,” said Ruiz.

Somehow the news that Remint had been deconstructed by the Gencha came as no great surprise to Ruiz. The events and circumstances of his visit to Sook seemed to be taking on some great incomprehensible symmetry; he felt like a player in some feverish drama, a performance full of obscure symbolism and contrived irony. “Where is he?”

The mythagogue fell silent for a long minute, until Ruiz began to consider how he might force the information from the man without attracting the attention of the Celadon Wind’s security devices. But finally the man spoke in a thin frail voice, completely unlike the declamatory tone he had used before. “If I tell you, and you fail to destroy him, he will punish me in ways I cannot bear to think of.”

“I won’t fail,” said Ruiz in as positive a voice as he could manage.

The man nodded. “Perhaps. You’re much like Remint, as he was before they killed him.” He seemed to come to a decision; his back straightened and he spoke in a stronger voice. “He told me to call him at the SweetShimmer joypalace, which is just two levels below the Celadon Wind, in this very stack. I can’t guarantee that he’s there, of course, but… look for him in Suite B-448.”

“Thank you,” said Ruiz Aw, and slipped away.

“A FINE PERFORMANCE,” said Remint to the cyborg, who had raised his head inquiringly. Then Remint switched to the outside spy bead, and followed Ruiz on his rapid retreat from the Hall of Pain and Renewal.

Corean shook her head in wonderment. “Doesn’t the mythagogue’s hatred concern you? The emotion was unmistakably genuine. Is it safe to leave such a virulent creature alive?”

Remint looked at her without expression and did not speak.

Chapter 22

As far as Ruiz could tell, the woman did not follow him, though he thought he sensed her interest as he left the rotunda.

He moved as quickly as he could without attracting unwelcome attention. As he trotted along, he gave thought to the spy bead the mythagogue had mentioned. Surely it was still locked on him; how could he rid himself of it before he entered the joypalace?

He left the Celadon Wind by a back way provided for those who wished to keep their entertainments private. As soon as he had emerged from the exit, he turned and reentered the fabularium.

As he had hoped, the parallel ingress was equipped with surveillance stripping gear, available to patrons for a price, and he waited in the security lock while the lock’s devices combed three spy beads from the air. A mech arm gathered up the deactivated devices and handed them to him, sealed in a plastic bag.

He examined them with some surprise. Three? He wondered who else was monitoring his movements. Publius owned one of the beads, almost certainly. Perhaps Diamond Bob was the other watcher. He shrugged, tossed the beads down a disposal slot, and left the fabularium again.

Two levels up from the Celadon Wind, he found a market in a low-ceilinged hall. The floor was crammed with tents and booths and kiosks, selling food, fashion, weapons, and various of the cruder forms of entertainment: drugs, wiregames, flashdeath, personality implants.

Ruiz wandered about until he noticed a booth that purveyed information. There he bought a current map of the stack.

Across the hall Ruiz found a cafe. A dozen small tables were scattered about under a canopy of Old Earth plants, gene-tailored to survive under the bluish artificial light. He sat down close to the solid metal at the hall’s perimeter, where he could watch the few other patrons without worrying overmuch that someone might sneak up behind him.