Monster Planet(117)

'We're inside his soul, then. So you must know he's crazy,' Sarah tried.

'I've seen his visions here. They're here and they're real. I've seen the father of tribes at the bottom of his bog. He's never lied about that'he really did see what he claims he saw. If you want me to stop him because he's insane, you'll have to convince me that what he saw was less true than what you're seeing right now.'

Sarah's rib cage flexed in despair. 'So you believe him? You believe that he should kill everyone just because some moldy old god told him to? You think that gives him a right?'

'I think he's a monster,' Nilla said, and her skull turned toward the sky. There was a moon up there, directly above them. It was, of course, an enormous skull. Sarah imagined that it might be Mael Mag Och's skull. 'But I don't think that makes him wrong. I think we gave you a chance and you failed. I'm sorry, Sarah. I hate saying that, it just sounds mean. But it's true.'

'Bullshit!' Sarah leapt up and down in her rage. 'I didn't fail anything. I was never told the rules of the game. I never knew what was at stake!'

'That's one of the rules: no humans were allowed to know they were playing the game. You were asked the riddle and you failed to answer it correctly. That's all there is to it.'

'Yeah, well, I'm pretty much f*cking well done with people telling me what a screw-up I am.' Shame made her arms drop to her sides.

'Relax, Sarah. Won't it be such a relief not to have to fight any more? I can tell you from personal experience. Death is no biggie. You come here and you spend eternity with your own memories.'

'And your own guilt?' Sarah demanded.

'Yeah, there's some of that, too. But I know what I'm talking about. Before Mael taught me how to access this place I was a mess. I had massive brain damage and I couldn't even remember my real name. Now I'm back in touch with my life. It was a good life, if a little short, and I'm grateful. That's what I owe him.'

'And me?' Sarah said, grabbing for Nilla's ulna. 'What do you owe me? Why did you bring me here?'

'You were so upset. I thought it might help if I showed you the other side. It's so calm here. Peaceful. But maybe you don't see it that way'you're still alive, so maybe this place is scary to you.'

It wasn't. That was the weird thing. Standing on the edge of a lake of blood, watched over by a moon that was nothing but a giant grinning skull Sarah did feel the peace, the tranquility. The permanence of the boneworld gave it a certain kind of security. Nothing would ever happen there'which meant nothing bad would ever happen there.

Which didn't let her off the hook. “Look,” she said. “You have to help me. You have to stop him.”

Nilla stood up very straight and tilted her skull back as if she were watching the moon. “Why?”

“Well, for, for humanity,” Sarah said, but the words fell flat around her. “For the sake of your. Your soul.” The word might have been a moth flittering around Sarah pointlessly.

Nilla looked down at her, as if waiting for something more. It seemed that inside the network intangibles and abstracts just didn't cut it. Sarah needed something more, something more concrete.

Nilla touched her jawbone with slender phalanges. 'You can go back now, if you like. I won't hold you against your will.'

Sarah thought about it. She was going to die in just a few minutes anyway. Would it be easier if she just stayed there in paradise or whatever it was? She kicked at some of the bones at her feet and a fine powdery dust blew up, the dust of bones so old they had been worn down by eternity and yet still something remained. Her own memories were in that dust, in a very real way. Everybody's were. As the dust spun and billowed around her she felt her brain working, felt the memories flooding through her. Some of her memories concerned Ayaan. Ayaan was back in the real world. Would Ayaan think she was being abandoned? Sarah dug in the bone meal with her hallux. The dust brought up memories, random memories, but literally'as she stirred the dust her brain cast itself backwards on days she recalled of her life. The day she had ridden a camel with the Bedouins. Wow, that had been a good day. The day her father had told her she was going away to boarding school in Switzerland and she cried because she was afraid of all the white girls with their straight hair. The day Ayaan had first let her hold a pistol. The day Nilla told her that she had been asked the riddle and that she had failed to answer it properly.