The Magic Labyrinth

X's recruits have come to realise that those claiming to have lived past 1983 are Ethical agents, and that their stories are a cover and a means of identification between them. The Riverworld is failing, and all the grailstones on one side of the river stop working. After a few days, the people from the left bank invade the right, desperate for food. In the carnage, almost half of the population die, and now they will not be resurrected.

Burton encounters Peter Jairus Frigate once more. However, this PJF died before 1983, and believes that his twin brother (who died before the age of five) may be alive now and working for the Ethicals.

A massive battle takes place at Virolando, the last populated area before reaching the headwaters of the river. The Rex Grandissimus battles the Not For Hire, a brawl that has been brewing for generations. Several people jump ship from both vessels before the battle, and all of them claimed to have lived past 1983. The battle ends in a draw, with major casualties on each side and the destruction of both vessels.

The surviving agents of X leave Virolando for the final and most difficult part of their journey. The dark tower was well protected from intrusion by the riverdwellers, but someone has eased their path. Otherwise impassable areas have had steps and channels created for the travellers to use, and at the shore of the circular polar sea, a boat is waiting to take them to the tower.

The place has been decimated and all the ethicals killed. The man who had posed in the rivervalley as Odysseus, Ah Qaaq, Barry Thorn and many others is revealed to be Loga, a member of the ethical council of twelve, and some of the answers are revealed.

• Loga and the other Ethicals are the children who died on Earth before the age of five. They were raised on the Gardenworld by Monat and his people.
• The Riverworld was set up to allow one hundred years of extra life for those who lived between 100,000 BC to 1983. The scenario would then begin anew for those born after 1983. After that, there would be no more energy available for the machinery, which is powered by the internal forces of the planet.
• The Wathan, or the soul if you prefer, is synthetic. It was created long ago by a race that has been forgotten. During their experiments, they made something that they themselves could not understand, something outside of space and time that holds the concept of me, myself and I. Once created, this alternate energy attached itself to individual living beings. It is this that retains the memories of self and is immortal, and Goes On to become part of the Overwathan.
• The Tau Cetans (or Arcturans or whatever, neither the author or Monat made this clear) are the latest in a long line of guardians that create places like the Riverworld and the Gardenworld, so that the deceased can have a second chance, and more time, to achieve the perfection necessary to join with the Overwathan. Only a small number are ever expected to do so.
• Loga could not bear to think of his earthly family not attaining Wathanhood, and the actions he has taken were meant to ensure that they would have more than a hundred years to do so.

Loga has made a terrible mistake, however. The computer that controls the tower and holds all the souls that have died is dying itself as a result of his interference. Once the souls are lost they can never be recaptured, they will be lost forever. Only the Operator, now known to be Monat, could force the computer to rebuild itself, and his soul is one of those waiting in the collection chamber. His last command to the computer was to protect itself against intruders. Hermann Goring has made his own way to the tower, and makes a brave attempt to breach the computers security in the hope that success would perhaps atone for some of his sins on earth. He fails, and now Alice has the only answer, using the logic of the computer against itself in a way that she remembers from the Rev. Charles Dodgsons stories.

"And here ends the Riverworld saga, resolved in a sword-resisting Gordian knot"

Don't you believe it - onward to:

Gods of Riverworld