03 Mountain of Black Glass by Tad Williams

Author:Tad Williams
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Fantasy
Published: 2010-04-10T22:37:42+00:00

"But why won't you just help us?" Renie said. "All you give us are these irritating riddles, like something out of a . . . a story."

"Look," said Kunohara, ignoring her troubled expression, "I have done more than I should. Do you want honesty from me? Very well-I will be honest. You have set yourself up against the most powerful people in the world. Worse than that, you have invaded their own network, where they are more than people-they are gods!"

"But you're a god, too. You said so,"

Kunohara made a scornful noise. "A very small god, and with very little power outside my own fiefdom. Now be quiet and I will tell you the honest truth. You have set yourself an impossible task. That is your business. Somehow you have stayed alive so far, and that is interesting, but it is nothing to do me with me. Now you ask me to intervene-to join you, as though I were some friendly spirit standing by the path in a children's tale. But you are not going to succeed. The Brotherhood may destroy themselves someday with their own cleverness, but that will have nothing to do with you. Instead they are going to capture you, either here or in the real world, and when they do, they are going to torture you before they kill you."

He swiveled from one member of the company to another, swaying a little, but making eye contact with each of them, some for the first time. "When it happens, you will tell them anything they want to know. Should I give you information from the privacy of my own mind so that you can give it to them? Should I provide you a tale of how I helped you work against their interests, so that you may tell it to them between screams?" He shook his head, staring down at his own hands; it was hard to tell who was the target of his disgust, Renie and her companions or himself. "I told you-I am a small man. I want nothing to do with your imaginary heroism. The Brotherhood are far, far too strong for me, and I exist here and enjoy my freedom of the network only because I am not an impediment. You think I speak in riddles just to torment you? In my way, I have tried to help. But should I lay down everything I have for you, including my own small life? I think not."

"But we don't even understand those things you told us. . . ." Renie began. An instant later she was talking to nothing but cold air. Kunohara had vanished.

"You're safe," Renie told Emily. She felt the girl's forehead and checked her pulse, knowing as she did so that it was a pointless exercise with what was at best a virtual body, and which might not even belong to an actual human being. How could you tell if code was seriously ill, anyway? And what if the code claimed to be pregnant? The whole thing was crazy.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.