Dying of the Light

easily ten meters high; he had no trouble setting them down in the vast airlot on the hundredth level.

As they climbed out, a deep bass voice spoke to them from nowhere. 'Welcome,' it said. 'I am the Voice of Challenge. May I entertain you?'

Dirk glanced back over his shoulder, and Gwen laughed at him. 'The city brain,' she explained. 'A supercomputer. I told you this city still lived.'

'May I entertain you?' the Voice repeated. It came from the walls.

'Maybe,' Dirk said tentatively. 'I think we're probably hungry. Can you feed us?'

The Voice did not answer, but a wall panel rolled back several meters away and a silent cushioned vehicle moved out and stopped before them. They got in and the vehicle moved off through another obliging wall.

They rolled on soft balloon tires through a succession of spotless white corridors, past countless rows of numbered doors, while music played soothingly around them. Dirk remarked briefly that the white lights were a harsh contrast to the dun evening sky of Worlorn, and instantly the corridors became a soft, muted blue.

The fat-tired car let them off at a restaurant, and a robowaiter who sounded much like the Voice offered them menus and wine lists. Both selections were extensive, not limited to cuisine from ai-Emerel or even to the outworlds, but including famous dishes and vintage wines from all the scattered worlds of the manrealm, including a few that Dirk had never heard of. Each dish had its world of origin printed in small type beneath it on the menu. They mulled the selection for a long time. Finally Dirk chose sand dragon broiled in butter, from Jamison's World, and Gwen ordered bluespawn-in-cheese, from Old Poseidon.

The wine they picked was clear and white. The robot brought it frozen in a cube of ice and cracked it free, and somehow it was still liquid and quite cold.

That, the Voice insisted, was the way it should be served. Dinner came on warm plates of silver and bone. Dirk pulled a clawed leg from his entree, peeled back the shell, and tasted the white, buttery meat.

'This is incredible,' he said, nodding down at his plate. 'I lived on Jamison's World for a while, and those Jamies do love their fresh-broiled sand dragon, and this is as good as any I had. Frozen? Frozen and shipped here? Hell, the Emereli must have needed a fleet to move all the food they'd need for this place.'

'Not frozen,' came the reply. It wasn't Gwen, though she stared at him with a bemused grin. The Voice answered him. 'Before the Festival, the trading ship Blue Plate Special from ai-Emerel visited as many worlds as it could reach, collecting and preserving samples of their finest foodstuffs. The voyage, long planned, took some forty-three standard years, under four captains and as many crews. Finally the ship came to Worlorn, and in the kitchens and bio-tanks of Challenge the collected samples were cloned and recloned to feed the multitudes. Thus were the fishes and loaves multiplied by no false prophet but by the scientists of ai- Emerel.'

'It sounds very smug,' Gwen said with a giggle.

'It sounds like a set speech,' Dirk said. Then he shrugged and went back to his dinner, as did Gwen. The two of them ate alone, except for their robowaiter and the Voice, in the center of the restaurant built to hold hundreds. All around them, empty but immaculate, other tables sat waiting with dark red tablecloths and bright silver dinnerware. The customers were gone a decade ago; but the Voice and the city had infinite patience.

Afterwards, over coffee (black and thick with cream and spices, a blend from Avalon of fond memory), Dirk felt mellow and relaxed, perhaps more at ease than he had been since coming to Worlorn. Jaan Vikary and the jade-and-silver-it gleamed dark and beautiful in the dim lights of the restaurant, exquisitely wrought yet oddly drained of menace and meaning-had shrank somehow in importance now that he was back with Gwen. Across from him, sipping from a white china mug and smiling her dreamy faraway smile, she looked very approachable, very like the Jenny that he had known and loved once, the lady of the whisperjewel.

'Nice,' he said, nodding, meaning everything around them.

And Gwen nodded back at him. 'Nice,' she agreed, smiling, and Dirk ached for her, Guinevere of the wide green eyes and the endless black hair, she who had cared, his lost soulmate.

He leaned forward and stared down into his cup. There were no omens in the coffee. He had to talk to her. 'It's all been nice tonight,' he said. 'Like Avalon.'

When she murmured, agreeing yet again, he continued. 'Is there anything left, Gwen?'

She regarded him levelly and sipped at her coffee. 'Not a fair question, Dirk, you know that. There is always something left. If what you had was real to begin with. If not, well, then it doesn't matter. But if it was real, then something, a chunk of love, a cup of hate, despair, resentment, lust. Whatever. But something.'

'I don't know,' Dirk t'Larien said, sighing. His eyes looked down and inward. 'Maybe you're the only reality I've had, then.'

'Sad,' she said.

'Yes,' he said. 'I guess.' His eyes came up. 'I've got a lot left, Gwen. Love, hate, resentment, all of that. Like you said. Lust.' He laughed.

She only smiled. 'Sad,' she said again.

He was not willing to let it go. 'And you? Something, Gwen?'

'Yes. Can't deny it. Something. And it's been growing, off and on.' 'Love?' 'You're pressing,' she said gently, setting down her cup. The robowaiter at her elbow filled it again, already creamed and spiced. 'I asked you not to.'

'I have to,' he said. 'Hard enough to be so close to you, and talk about Worlorn or Kavalar customs or even hunters. That's not what I want to talk about!'

'I know. Two old lovers standing together talking. That's a common situation and a common strain. Both of them afraid, not knowing whether to try to open old gates again, not knowing if the other one wants them to reawaken those sleeping thoughts or let them go. Every time I think a thought of Avalon and almost say it, I wonder, Does he want me to talk about it or is he praying that I won't?'

'I suppose that depends on what you were going to say. Once I tried to start it all again. Remember? Just afterwards. I sent you my whisperjewel. You never answered, never came.' His voice was even, with a faint tinge of reproach and regret, but no anger. Somehow he had lost his anger, just for now.

'Did you ever think why?', Gwen said. 'I got the jewel and cried. I was still alone then, hadn't met Jaan yet, and I wanted someone so badly. I would have gone back to you if you'd called me.'

'I did call you. You didn't come.'

A grim smile. 'Ah, Dirk. The whisperjewel came in a small box, and taped to it was a note. 'Please,' the note said, 'come back to me now. I need you, Jenny.' That was what it said. I cried and cried. If you'd only written 'Gwen,' if you'd only loved Gwen, me. But no, it was always Jenny, even afterwards, even then.'

Dirk remembered, and winced. 'Yes,' he admitted after a short silence. 'I guess I did write that. I'm sorry. I never understood. But I do now. Is it too late?'

'I said so. In the woods. Too late, Dirk, it's all dead. You'll hurt us if you press.'

'All dead? You said something was left, and growing. Just now you said it. Make up your mind, Gwen. I don't want to hurt you, or me. But I want-' 'I know what you want. It can't be. It's gone.'

'Why?' he asked. He pointed across the table at her bracelet. 'Because of that? Jade-and-silver forever and ever, is that it?'

'Maybe,' she said. Her voice faltered, uncertain. 'I don't know. We… that is, I…'

Dirk remembered all the things that Ruark had told him. 'I know it's not easy to talk about,' he said carefully, gently. 'And I promised to wait. But some things can't wait. You said Jaan is your husband, right? What is Garse? What does betheyn mean?'

'Heldwife,' she said. 'But you don't understand. Jaan is different than other Kavalars, stronger and wiser and more decent. He is changing things, he alone. The old ties, of betheyn to highbond, our ties are not like that. Jaan doesn't believe that, no more than he believes in hunting mockmen.'

'He believes in High Kavalaan,' Dirk said, 'and in code duello. Maybe he's atypical, but he's still a Kavalar.'

It was the wrong thing to say. Gwen only grinned at him and rallied. 'Pfui,' she said. 'Now you sound like Arkin.'

'Do I? Maybe Arkin is right, though. One other thing. You say Jaan doesn't believe in many of the old ways, right?' Gwen nodded.