He started to yell to the man as he approached, by no means certain that his voice would carry in the din of wind and screams. But the monk heard. He looked round at Gentle, the hood half eclipsing his face. There was nothing untoward about his placid features. His face was in need of a shave; his nose, which had been broken at some time, in need of resetting; his eyes in need of nothing. They had all they wanted, it seemed, seeing the Maestro approach. A broad grin broke over the monk"s face, and he instantly rose to his feet, bowing his head.
"Maestro," he said. "You do me honor." His voice wasn"t raised, but it carried through the commotion. "Have you seen the mystif yet?"
"The mystif s gone," Gentle said. He didn"t need to yell, he realized. His voice, like his limbs, carried an unnatural weight here.
"Yes, I saw it go," the monk replied, "But it"s come back, Maestro. It broke through the Erasure, and the storm came after it."
"Where? Where?" Gentle said, turning full circle. "I don"t see it!" He looked accusingly at the man. "It would have found me if it was here," he said.
"Trust me, it"s trying," the man replied. He pulled back his hood. His gingery curls were thinning, but there was the vestige of a chorister"s charm there. "It"s very close, Maestro."
Now it was he who stared into the storm: not to left and right, however, but up into the labyrinthine air. Gentle followed his gaze. There were swaths of tattered canvas on the wind high above them, rising and falling like vast wounded birds. There were pieces of furniture, shredded clothes, and fragments of flesh. And in among these clouds of dross, a darting form darker than either sky or storm, descending even as he set his eyes upon it. The monk drew closer to Gentle.
"That"s the mystif," he said. "May I protect you, Maestro?"
"It"s my friend," Gentle said. "I don"t need protecting." "I think you do," the other replied, and raised his arms above his head, palms out as if to deflect the approaching spirit.
It slowed at the sight of this gesture, and Gentle had time to see the form above him plainly. It was indeed the mystif, or its remains. Either by stealth or sheer force of will it had breached the Erasure. But its escape had brought it no comfort whatsoever. The uredo burned more venomously than ever, almost entirely consuming the shadow body it had fixed upon and poisoned; and from the sufferer"s mouth, a howl that could not have been more pained had its guts been drawn out of its belly in front of its eyes.
It had come to a complete halt now and hovered above the two men like a diver arrested in mid-descent, arms outstretched, head, or its traces, thrown back. "Pie?" Gentle said. "Have you done this?" The howl went on. If there were words in its anguish, Gentle couldn"t make them out.
"I have to speak to it," Gentle said to his protector. "If you"re causing it pain, for G.o.d"s sake stop."
"It came out of the margin howling like this," the man said.
"At least drop your defenses." "It"ll attack us." "I"ll take that risk," he replied.
The man let his shunning hands fall to his side. The form above them twisted and turned but did not descend. Another force had a claim upon it, Gentle realized. It was thrashing to resist a summons from the Erasure, which was calling it back into the place from which it had escaped.
"Can you hear me, Pie?" Gentle asked it.
The howl went on, unabated.
"If you can speak, do it!"
"It"s already speaking," the monk said.
"I only hear howls," Gentle said.
"Past the howls," came the reply, "there are words."
Drops of fluid fell from the mystif s wounds as its struggles to resist the Erasure"s power intensified. They stank of putrescence and burned Gentle"s upturned face, but their sting brought comprehension of the words encoded in Pie"s screeches.
"Undone," the mystif was saying. "We"re... undone...."
"Why did you do this?" Gentle asked.
"It wasn"t... me. The storm was sent to claim me back."
"Out of the First?"
"It"s... His will," Pie said. "His... will...."
Though the tortured form above him resembled the creature he"d loved and wed scarcely at all, Gentle could still hear fragments of Pie "oh" pah in these replies and, hearing them, wanted to raise his own voice in anguish at the thought of Pie"s pain. The mystif had gone into the First to end its suffering; but here it was, suffering still, and he was powerless to help it or heal it. All he could do by way of comfort was tell it that he understood, which he did. Its message was perfectly clear. In the trauma of their parting Pie had sensed some equivocation in him. But there was none, and he said so.
"I know what I have to do," he told the sufferer. "Trust me, Pie. I understand. I"m the Reconciler. I"m not going to run from that."
At this, the mystif writhed like a fish on a hook, no longer able to keep itself from being hauled in by the fisherman in the First. It started to scrabble at the air, as if it might gain another moment in this Dominion by catching hold of a mote. But the power that had sent such furies in pursuit of it had too strong a hold, and the spirit was drawn back towards the Erasure. Instinctively Gentle reached up towards it, hearing and ignoring a cry of alarm from the man at his side. The mystif reached for his hand, extending its shadowy substance to do so, and curling grotesquely long fingers around Gentle"s. The contact sent such a convulsion through his system he would have been thrown to the ground but that his protector took hold of him. As it was his marrow seemed to burn in his bones, and he smelled the stench of rot off his skin, as though death were coming upon him inside and out. It was hard, in that agony, to hold on to the mystif, much less to the words it was trying to say. But he fought the urge to let go, struggling for the sense of the few syllables he was able to grasp. Three of them were his name.
"Sartori..."
"I"m here, Pie," Gentle said, thinking perhaps the thing was blinded now. "I"m still here."
But the mystif wasn"t naming its Maestro. "The other," it said. "The other..." "What about him?"
"He knows," Pie murmured. "Find him, Gentle. He knows."
With this command, their fingers separated. The mystif reached to take hold of Gentle again, but with its frail hold lost it was prey to the Erasure and was instantly s.n.a.t.c.hed towards the tear through which it had appeared. Gentle started after it, but his limbs had been more severely traumatized by the convulsion than he"d thought, and his legs simply folded up beneath him. He fell heavily, but raised his head in time to catch sight of the mystif disappearing into the void. Sprawled on the hard ground, he remembered his first pursuit of Pie, through the empty, icy streets of Manhattan. He"d fallen then, too, and looked up as he did now to see the riddle escaping him, unsolved. But it had turned that first time; turned and spoken to him across the river of Fifth Avenue, offering him the hope, however frail, of another meeting. Not so now. It went into the Erasure like smoke through a drafty door, its cry stopping dead.
"Not again," Gentle murmured.
The monk was crouching at his side. "Can you stand," he asked, "or shall I get help?"
Gentle put his hands beneath him and pushed himself up into a kneeling position, making no reply to the question. With the mystif s disappearance, the malignant wind that had come after it, and brought such devastation, was dropping away, and as it did so the debris it had been keeping aloft descended in a grim hail. For a second time the monk raised his hands to ward off the descending force. Gentle was barely aware of what was happening. His eyes were on the Erasure, which was rapidly losing its roiling motion. By the time the rain of canvas, stones, and bodies had stopped, every last trace of detail had gone from the divide, and it was once again an absence over which the eye slid, finding no purchase.
Gentle got to his feet and, turning his eyes from the nullity, scanned the desolation that lay in every other direction but one. The circle of Madonnas he"d glimpsed through the storm was still intact, and sheltering in its midst were half a hundred survivors, some of them on their knees sobbing or praying, many kissing the feet of the statues that had shielded them, still others gazing towards the Erasure from which the destruction that claimed all but these fifty, plus the Maestro and the monk, had come.
"Do you see Athanasius?" Gentle asked the man at his side.
"No, but he"s alive somewhere," came the reply. "He"s like you, Maestro; he"s got too much purpose in him to die."
"I don"t think any purpose would have saved me if you hadn"t been here," Gentle remarked. "You"ve got real power in your bones."
"A little, maybe," the monk replied, with a modest smile. "I had a fine teacher."
"So did I," Gentle said softly. "But I lost it." Seeing the Maestro"s eyes filling, the monk made to withdraw, but Gentle said, "Don"t worry about the tears. I"ve been running from them too long. Let me ask you something. I"ll quite understand if you say no."
"What, Maestro?"
"When I leave here, I"m going back to the Fifth to prepare for a Reconciliation. Would you trust me enough to join the Synod; to represent the First?"
The monk"s face broke into bliss, shedding years as he smiled, "It would be my honor, Maestro," he said.
"There"s risk in it," Gentle warned.
"There always was. But I wouldn"t be here if it weren"t for you."
"How so?"
"You"re my inspiration, Maestro," the man replied, inclining his head in deference. "Whatever you require of me, I"ll perform as best I can."
"Stay here, then. Watch the Erasure and wait. I"ll find you when the time comes." He spoke with more certainty than he felt, but then perhaps the illusion of competence was part of every Maestro"s repertoire.
"I"ll be waiting," the monk replied.
"What"s your name?"
"When I joined the Dearthers they called me Chicka Jackeen."
"Jackeen?"
"It means worthless fellow," the man replied.
"Then we"ve got much in common," Gentle said. He took the man"s hand and shook it. "Remember me, Jackeen."
"You"ve never left my mind," the man replied.
There was some subtext here Gentle couldn"t grasp, but this was no time to delve. He had two demanding and dangerous journeys ahead of him: the first to Yzordderrex, the second from that city back to the Retreat. Thanking Jackeen for his good offices, Gentle left him at the Erasure and picked his way back through the devastation towards the circle of Madonnas. Some of the survivors were leaving its shelter to begin a search of the site, presumably in the hope-vain, he suspected-of finding others alive. It was a scene of grief and bewilderment he"d witnessed too many times on his journey through the Dominions. Much as he would have liked to believe it was mere happenstance that these scenes of devastation coincided with his presence, he couldn"t afford to indulge such self-delusion. He was as surely wedded to the storm as he was to Pie. More so now, perhaps, with the mystif gone."
Jackeen"s observation that Athanasius was too purposeful a soul to have perished was confirmed as Gentle drew closer to the circle. The man was standing at the center of a knot of Dearthers, leading a prayer of thanks to the Holy Mother for their survival. As Gentle reached the perimeter, Athanasius raised his head. One eye was closed beneath a scab of blood and dirt, but there was enough hatred in the other to burn in a dozen eyes. Meeting its gaze, Gentle advanced no further, but the priest dropped the volume of his prayer to a whisper anyway, preventing the trespa.s.ser from hearing the terms of his devotion. Gentle"s ears were not so dulled by the din he didn"t catch a few of the phrases, however. Though the woman represented in so many modes around the circle was clearly the Virgin Mary, she appar-" ently went by other names here; or else had sisters. He heard her called Uma Umagammagi, Mother Imajica; and heard too the name Huzzah had first whispered to him in her cell beneath the maison de sante: Tishalull6. There was a third, though it took Gentle a little time to be certain he"d understood the naming aright, and that was Jokalaylau. Athanasius prayed that she"d keep a place for them at her side in the snows of paradise, which made Gentle wonder rather sourly if the man had ever trodden those wastes, that he could think them a heavenly place.
Though the names were strange, the inspiring spirit was not. Athanasius and his forlorn congregation were praying to the same loving G.o.ddess at whose shrines in the Fifth countless candles were lit every day. Even Gentle at his most pagan had conceded the presence of that woman in his life and worshiped her the only way he"d known how: with the seduction and temporary possession of her s.e.x. Had he known a mother or a loving sister he might have learned a better devotion than l.u.s.t, but he hoped and believed the Holy Woman would forgive him his trespa.s.ses, even if Athanasius would not. The thought comforted him. He would need all the protection he could a.s.semble in the battle that lay ahead, and it was no little solace to think that the Mother Imajica had her worshiping places in the Fifth, where that battle would be fought.
With the ad hoc service over, Athanasius let his congregation go about the business of searching the wreckage. For his part, he stayed in the middle of the circle, where a few survivors who"d made it that far, but perished, lay sprawled.
"Come here, Maestro," Athanasius said. "There"s something you should see."
Gentle stepped into the circle, expecting Athanasius to show him the corpse of a child or some fragile beauty, broken. But the face at his feet was male, and far from innocent.
"You knew him, I think."
"Yes. His name was Estabrook."
Charlie"s eyes were closed, his mouth too: sealed up in the moment of his pa.s.sing. There was very little sign of physical damage. Perhaps his heart had simply given out in the excitement.
"Nikaetomaas said you brought him here because you thought he was me."
"We thought he was a Messiah," Athanasius said. "When we realized he wasn"t we kept looking, expecting a miracle. Instead-"
"You got me. For what it"s worth, you were right. I did bring all this destruction with me. I don"t quite know why, and I don"t expect you to forgive me for it, but I want you to understand that I take no pleasure in it. All I want to do is make good the damage I"ve done."
"And how will you do that, Maestro?" Athanasius said. His one good eye brimmed with tears as he surveyed the bodies. "How will you make this good? Can you resurrect them with what"s between your legs? Is that the trick of it? Can you f.u.c.k them back into life?"
Gentle made a guttural sound of disgust.
"Well, that"s what you Maestros think, isn"t it? You don"t want to suffer, you just want the glory. You lay your rod on the land, and the land bears fruit. That"s what you think. But it doesn"t work that way. It"s your blood the land wants; it"s your sacrifice. And as long as you deny that, others are going to die in your place. Believe me, I"d cut my throat now if I thought I could raise these people, but I"ve been played a wretched trick. I"ve the will to do it, but my blood"s not worth a d.a.m.n. Yours is." I don"t know why. I wish it weren"t. But it is."
"Would Uma Umagammagi like to see me bleed?" Gentle said. "Or Tishalulte? Or Jokalaylau? Is that what your loving mothers want from this child?"
"You don"t belong to them. I don"t know who you belong to, but you didn"t come from their sweet bodies."
"I must have come from somewhere," Gentle said, voicing that thought for the first time in his life. "I"ve got a purpose in me, and I think G.o.d put it there."
"Don"t look too far, Maestro. Your ignorance may be the only defense the rest of us have got against you. Give up your ambition now, before you find out what you"re really capable of."
"I can"t."
"Oh, but it"s easy," Athanasius said. "Kill yourself, Maestro. Let the land have your blood. That"s the greatest service you could do the Dominions now."
There was the bitterest echo, in these words, of a letter he"d read months ago, in another kind of wilderness.
Do this for the women of the world, Vanessa had written. Slit your lying throat.
Had he really traveled the Dominions simply to have the advice he"d been given by a woman whom he"d cheated in love returned to him? After all this striving for comprehension, was he finally as injurious and fraudulent a Maestro as he was a lover?
Athanasius read the accuracy of this last dart off his target"s face and with a feral grin hammered it home.
"Do it soon, Maestro," he said. "There are enough orphans in the Dominions already, without you indulging your ambitions for another day."
Gentle let these cruelties go. "You married me to the love of my life, Athanasius," he said. "I won"t ever forget that kindness."
"Poor Pie "oh" pah," the other man replied, grinding the point home. "Another of your victims. What a poison there must be in you, Maestro."
Gentle turned and left the circle without responding, with Athanasius repeating his earlier advice to usher him on his way.
"Kill yourself soon, Maestro," he said. "For you, for Pie, for all of us. Kill yourself soon."
It took Gentle a quarter of an hour to make his way through the ravagement to open ground, hoping as he went that he"d find some vehicle-Floccus", perhaps-that he could commandeer for the return journey to Yzordderrex. If he found nothing, it would be a long trek on foot, but that would have to be the way of it. What little illumination the fires behind him proffered soon dwindled, and he was obliged to search by starlight, which would most probably have failed to show him the vehicle had his path not been redirected by the squeals of Floccus Dado"s porcine pet Sighshy^ who, along with her litter, was still inside. The car had been thrown over in the storm, and so he went to it simply to let the animals out, planning to go on to find another. But as he struggled with the handle a human face appeared at the steamed-up window. Floccus was inside and greeted Gentle"s appearance with a clamor of relief almost as high-pitched as Sighshy"s. Gentle clambered up onto the side of the car and after much swearing and sweating wrenched the door open with brute force.
"Oh, you"re a sight to behold, Maestro," Floccus said. "I thought I was going to suffocate in there."
The stench was piercing, and it came with Floccus when he clambered out. His clothes were caked in the litter"s excrement, and Mama"s too.
"How the h.e.l.l did you get in there?" Gentle asked him.
Floccus wiped a t.u.r.d trail off his spectacles and blinked at his savior through them.
"When Athanasius told me to summon you, I thought, Something"s wrong here, Dado. You"d better go while you can. I"d just got into the car when the storm started, and it was simply turned over, with all of us inside. The windows are unbreakable, and the locks were jammed. I couldn"t get out."
"You were lucky to be in there."
"So I see," Floccus observed, surveying the distant vista of destruction. "What happened out here?"
"Something came out of the First, in pursuit of Pie "oh" pah."
"The Unbeheld did this?"