Simon tried to reach around to tap Doc on the shoulder, but his view of the world around him rocked and swam dizzyingly, almost giving him an attack of real life vertigo. Apparently the Memory Palace computer had decided that that sudden movement was beyond him. He settled for saying ‘Doc’ in a warning tone. He didn’t think that was the was to talk to a nanotechnological cluster that needed nothing from them, and was probably smarter than all of them combined, or would be if it weren’t a mere figment of the game.
The deep voice sounded amused rather than offended. “Perhaps most of my brain could nap rather than deal with whatever pitiful problems you couldn’t be bothered to solve yourself. But I will make you a bargain. I will ask you a riddle, and if you can collectively answer it to my satisfaction, your party will not need to ascend the stairs.”
Doc replied, “Thank you for your offer, but it seems that –”
The deep voice interrupted him firmly. “You are about to protest that my offer is too generous, because you get something if you succeed, but you lose nothing if you fail? Perhaps I should amend it.”
“No, I just wanted to make sure I understood,” Doc said hastily. “Please ask your riddle.”
The voice replied drily, “If that’s how you feel. So why is it that I put those who wish to ask me questions through so much trouble?”
Was that the riddle? Kind of a dirty trick, since Doc had sort of admitted to not knowing the answer before it was declared an official riddle. And somehow he had thought of this voice as just another part of the test, rather than the voice of the River. So they were already speaking with the River itself. As defined in the game of course.
Doc said, “Um, do you want us to read your mind?”
Hex-Daisy laughed. “I don’t think that will be necessary. A couple of the books mention it. I don’t remember which species of the Eightfold first built you, but I think they became very dependent on you. Working and thinking in any way went out of style, since they could both be done better by you. They began to blame you for what was happening. One group claimed you were controlling the government, and wanted an armed revolution against you. A few people near the top became embarrassed when it was pointed out that their ideology didn’t really make sense. They secretly asked you to rework it. When you pointed out that this didn’t really make sense if they didn’t trust you, they said that you never asked anyone else questions about their ideology. In the end you managed to make it that you were chased off the planet with a bare minimum of your nanotechnological substance destroyed. In a sense they were right – it took them a long time to recover from the road that they had begun to walk down.”
The voice that seemed to be all around them replied, “All that is true, but this world is not Relhar. Why am I so intransigent even on other worlds?”
Doc and Mitch looked at each other. Daisy remained silent. But Simon knew the answer. “Similar things happened on many other worlds. On my own homeworld Rigel, there was a time when Seers would ask you questions because it was less stressful and ambiguous than cultivating their own powers. Also, because of your nature, large clusters of your substance were housed on or near different worlds, and they did not communicate easily with each other – sometimes due to connivance of members of the Eightfold. Entire species might go to war with each other, questioning you elaborately on how they should do so, without asking your advice as to whether they should do so at all.”
Simon had a whole bunch of comic books based on those storylines somewhere. They might have been worth money if he had kept them in better condition.
“That’s fine. Will you ladies and gentlemen just face the map on the wall?”
Suddenly Simon felt his face splitting with a huge grin. He hadn’t ruined it for everyone after all.
Carlos whispered, “Good job. The next stair is harder, and we don’t always make it up.”
So had he actually won them a victory, better than risking the stairs?
They all turned as they had been instructed. Simon was pretty sure that wall had been empty a moment ago. Judging from their momentary hesitation, the others felt the same way. All the same, the five of them faced toward the wall, where sure enough their was a multilevel map of the tower posted – be it accurate or false. Before any of them could examine it carefully, the voice said, “Alright, that’s enough. You can turn around now.”
Simon resisted the impulse to disobey – what was he going to do, find a ventilation duct and crawl past the remaining challenges, faux head injury and all? Instead he turned around with the others.
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The voice intoned, “I teleported home one night, with Tom and Sid and Meg. Tom stole Meggie’s heart away, while I got Sidney’s leg.”
Simon grinned at the Adams quote, presumably meant to implant the suggestion that they had been teleported, just as the faux stairs implanted the idea that they were moving to a different room.
And when they turned around it did look like a different room. The lighting, the shape and texture of the stone blocks and the color of the stone itself had all changed subtly.
In the middle of the room was a large chair, almost a throne. The giant seated on it looked human, except it might have been nine or ten feet tall if it had been standing. Simon had seen pictures of Michelangelo’s David, and this might have been the result if you had dressed David as Paul Bunyan. It would have sounded silly if said aloud, but looked impressive.
When it spoke, it’s voice was the voice they had already been hearing. The voice came from all around them instead of the middle of the room, but the figure’s lips moved correctly as it spoke.
“So now, tell me why you have come. Tell me what you wanted to ask me, and why you could not have figured it out for yourself. Tell me what question is important enough for me to suspend my millennia old neutrality.”
That last was not quite true – the whole point of the tower was to allow Eightfold to show their determination and competence and plead their case. But there was no point n arguing about that. He looked at Doc to speak for them.
Doc was motioning him forward. That made sense since he was the one having the nightmares. It was too bad Simon couldn’t think what he needed to say. Maybe he should have planned it in advance, tried to memorize it or even made notes.
He forced himself to start speaking, to say anything. “Ummm, it’s like this. I used to play Eightfold Invasion in a different campaign. My character was about to die before I left. I’m having these nightmares now, and I think there may be some sort of psychic link between me and my character, so we need to travel back in time and save him.”
Only after he finished speaking did Simon realize how little sense he had made. He tried to start over but the resonant voice was already replying. “You need to speak to someone you are acquainted with. On brief reflection you will know whom. Someone who might seem hard to talk to at first, but will give you a sympathetic ear.”
Simon stared in dismay. It sounded like a cross between an extremely vague prophecy designed to come true no matter what, and something they might say to a suspected mentally ill person whom they wished to gently encourage to seek help without offending a customer. Perhaps they wanted him to talk to his parents, not knowing that they had emancipated him at seventeen and moved out of state because neither of them wanted custody of him.
Before he could protest or ask for clarification, the giant shifted it’s attention to Doc. “And what would you ask of my shifty and unreasonable self?”
Doc showed no reaction to being needled. “A sorcerer used his power to make a woman think of him as a god. She did whatever he wished but became suicidal. I convinced her that women at least tried to avoid sleeping with some gods, such a Zeus. She’s managed to avoid all contact with him so far but I’m not sure how it will work out in the long term. I’m afraid to try and counter his work because I think he’s left … traps in her mind for other sorcerers who try and reverse his work.”
Simon knew there was a human voice actor controlling the giant image’s speech. He wondered what the man was thinking. Did he think Doc was crazy, or asking him questions about a private game he knew nothing about for the heck of it? Despite either, could the River somehow guide his words?
It replied, “Only a sorcerer with the memories and experience of lifetimes could help.”
That wasn’t help.
It occurred to Simon that he himself should have asked about how to avoid the timeline in the Adam nightmare rather than how to help Lord Regal, who might or might not still be helpable, who might or might not still need his help. Not that the answers they were getting sounded very serious anyway, but he had just resolved to be less passive, and there was nothing to lose by trying.
He said, “Could one of you please give me your question? It’s really important, because magic is real, and …”
He clamped his jaws shut, recognizing the Delirium coming out of his mouth. He was speaking faster and at a higher pitch, and soon his words would become less coherent.
Suddenly he felt a flash of rage at a system of rules that would let humans use sorcery on each other, but not explain and discuss it. Supposedly new cultures were protected from shock, but it was a two edged ‘protection’ at best.
Carlos grinned at him, “Nice try, but don’t take yourself so seriously.”
Simon couldn’t blame him. He asked about how to cross the Rainbow Bridge, presumably a routine part of the Augumented Reality game. The River gave him a special code, warning that it would only work for him, and only three times.
Mitch had the exact same request.
Daisy said, “Simon can have my question.”
Carlos gave her a look. “Mindgames are part of Eightfold, but don’t go overboard. You need a key for the rainbow bridge if you want to come with us next week.”
She shrugged. “I might have to cut down on AR gaming. Save a few bucks, and they’ll be having more overtime at work. It’s cool.”
Despite the words, Simon’s intuition screamed at him, ‘She knows this is real.’
Of course, he’d never been any good at understanding people, but it was the only thing that made sense.
He smiled. “Thank you very much.”
Then he asked the giant, “What can I do to make sure we don’t end up in a timeline where the world is devastated by war?”
The giant replied, “That is a very broad question, and your species faces many potential dangers that might involve war. All the same, the answer to your previous question is a good start. Lord Regal’s fate is intertwined with your own.”
Simon stared in dismay at the useless answer. Well, at least he had tried. Or maybe it would be better if he went back to being more passive again.
He said to Daisy, “Thank you very much.”
Then because she had seen the whole debacle, he also said, “I’m sorry.”