"And against all my dark certainties, we have rescued Paul Jonas as well, injured and traumatized, but still alive, still sane. Even now, his skin washed clean of blood, his many wounds bandaged to the best of my ability, he is sleeping beside my feet. Nandi and Bonnie Mae have also survived torture, although there is a shadow across them both. The virtual galley slaves are rowing the barge of Osiris upstream, like an engine that does not care who is driving—upstream toward the Temple of Set.

"I did not need Bes to tell me how dangerous our journey is. Orlando and Fredericks were drawn to this temple once, sucked in like leaves into a whirlpool, and Orlando said they barely survived it. Still, I cannot help feeling at least a little optimistic, foolish as that is. We are still alive, when good sense proclaims we should not be. And we have escaped from under the very nose of Dread, at least for a moment. Something inside me dances like a child let out into the garden after a long boring day inside. I am alive! There is nothing more important than that. It is all I have. For the moment, it is enough.

"But as I sense Paul lying near me—so deep in exhausted, trembling sleep that he resembles Robert Wells after Javier jabbed that strange, glowing hand of his into the back of Wells' head, dropping someone who was a great god in this Egyptian simworld straight to the floor like a slaughtered bullock—I cannot help wondering what it all means. Is it only luck that we are again rescued? We are inside an operating system that has been fed with the idea of stories, so perhaps the thread of coincidence and strange chance is not so unbelievable. Perhaps T4b having been damaged in just the way that would save us makes a kind of sense—perhaps it was part of the story of the network. But that does not explain every odd stroke of fortune that has affected us. I came into this network by my own choice, trying to help Renie Sulaweyo find her brother, absolutely unaware that it might have anything to do with that long-ago day I lost my sight. How could such an extreme coincidence be?

"Unless there is more to this idea of story than anyone understands.

"After all, is it not the way we humans shape the universe, shape time itself? Do we not take the raw stuff of chaos and impose a beginning, middle, and end on it, like the simplest and most profound of folktales, to reflect the shapes of our own tiny lives? And if the physicists are right, that the physical world changes as it is observed, and we are its only known observers, then might we not be bending the entire chaotic universe, the eternal, ever-active Now, to fit that familiar form?

"If so, the universe, from the finest quantum dust to the widest vacuum spaces, does indeed have a shape. It begins 'Once upon a time. . . .'

"And if it is true, then only we humans, poor, naked semi-apes crouching in the thin light of our single star, marooned on the rim of a minor galaxy, can determine whether there will be a 'Happily ever after'?

"It makes my head hurt to think of it. It is a possibility too large and strange to contain for long, especially when we are still in such danger.

"The ship of Osiris breasts the sluggish river current, rocking beneath me, the timbers creaking, the oars beating an inhumanly steady rhythm. We are heading up the Nile to the darkest place in this world, maybe in any of these worlds. I am very tired. I think I will try to sleep for a little while.

"Code Delphi. End here."

Dread floated in the white spaces of his bone-sparse Outback castle. The yip of a dingo sounded through the archway, offering a weird but compelling counterpoint to the piano melody shivering in the air. Dread muted the light, pushing the arid landscape into twilight so he could better see the abstract which Dulcie Anwin had prepared for him.

He frowned, annoyed by having to pay attention when he would rather have drifted and daydreamed. The abstract was an expanding treasure box of charts, three-dimensional graphs, and lists of assets—a neat summation of the hugely various holdings controlled by Felix Jongleur. A forest of markers sprang from each point, containing information about access and connection, and for a little while he entertained himself with contemplating how each subcorporation, holding company, and business asset could be used as an instrument of pain.

He listened with pleasure to the lonely, atonal lurch of the piano. I can make a true symphony out of it, he thought. An economic collapse here, a plague there, so that even the rich ones cop it sweet. War, famine—all the bloody horsemen of the Apocalypse, one after the other. Like World War Three, but in slow motion. Which will make it easier to enjoy.

Of course, I'll have to play it carefully—make sure it doesn't get too far out of hand. After all, I don't want anything happening to me, now do I?

But before the real fun could begin he had to get the last details dealt with. It was one thing to be able to access Felix Jongleur's high-level information, another to implement the kind of wild art projects Dread was now envisioning. Surely at some point Jongleur's absence would officially become Jongleur's death, and his various boards of directors and successor-designates would step in, sending armies of accountants and data analysts ahead of them. Before that happened, Dread knew he would have to firm up his own controls, transferring the assets and connections he needed into his own hands.

Did he need Dulcie for that? No. She had lived out her usefulness. In fact, she knew far too much. Another day or so while she helped him handle the various transfers of power, then her trip to Australia would end. He had decided that he could combine the need for an unsuspicious resolution with a little pleasure for himself, after all. Who would be surprised if an American tourist were to be found robbed and murdered in one of the seamier parts of Sydney?

The piano was joined again, not by a wild dog this time, but by the quiet beeping of an urgent message. Dread considered ignoring it, but knew it might be from Dulcie. Since they had such a short time left together, he wanted to keep her working. A good manager didn't waste an asset.

To his surprise, the call was on a line he hadn't yet used. The head that filled the view-window was shaved bald, the robes streaked gray and black with soot.

"O Lord of All!" the priest said, stuttering in his haste and panic. "Woe is come upon us, O Great House. Your servants are full of despair—all the Black Land is in terror!"

Dread frowned. It was one of the Old Man's virtual priests. The call had been routed directly to him through Jongleur's connection to the Grail network, just as though the servitor were calling from the real world instead of an imaginary Egypt.

"What do you want?"

"O blessed Anubis, master of the final journey, there is fire in great Abydos! Many priests are dead, many more lie burned and dying!"

Which was a pretty funny thing to call him about, Dread reflected, since he had been torturing and murdering priests himself in the temple complex of Abydos-That-Was not twenty-four hours ago. "So?"

The ash-smeared face went paler still. The man's mouth worked without noise for a moment. "And the prisoners of the great god have escaped."

"What?" He narrowed his eyes. "You let those two idiots from the Circle get away? Both of them?"

The priest swallowed. When he spoke, it was almost a whisper. "All of them. All of the great god's prisoners."

"What are you talking about?" He heard his voice rise to an angry howl, as though he truly were the god the priest must be seeing. "Don't move!"

With a flick of thought, he threw himself into Egypt.