Imajica

She"d put on a few pounds in weight since they"d begun their journey together, and her hug, when she returned it, was strong.

"I"m hungry," she murmured in his ear.

"Then we"ll find somewhere to eat," he replied. "We can"t have our angel going hungry."

They walked up through the steep streets of the Oke T"Noon until they were clear of the throng of itinerants coming off the causeway. Here there were any number of establishments offering breakfast, from stalls selling barbecued fish to cafes that might have been transported from the streets of Paris, but that the customers sipping coffee were more extraordinary than even that city of exotics could boast. Many were species whose peculiarities he now took for granted: Oethacs and Heratea; distant relatives of Mother Splendid and Hammeryock; even a few who resembled the one-eyed croupier from Attaboy. But for every member of a tribe whose features he recognized, there were two or three he did not. As in Vanaeph, Pie had warned him that staring too hard would not be in their best interests, and he did his best not to enjoy too plainly the array of courtesies, humors, lunacies, gaits, skins, and cries that filled the streets. But it was difficult. After a time they found a small cafe from which the smell of food was particularly tempting, and Gentle sat down beside one of the windows, from which he could watch the parade without drawing too much attention.

"I had a friend called Klein," he said as they ate, "back in the Fifth Dominion. He liked to ask people what they"d do if they knew they only had three days to live."

"Why three?" Huzzah asked.

"I don"t know. Why three anything? It"s one of those numbers."

" "In any fiction there"s only ever room for three players,"" the mystif remarked. " "The rest must be..."" its flow faltered in mid-quotation. "... "agents," something, and something else. That"s a line from Pluthero Quexos."

"Who"s he?"

"Never mind."

"Where was I?"

"Klein," said Huzzah.

"When he got around to asking me this question, I told him, If I had three days left I"d go to New York, because you"ve got more chance of living out your wildest dreams there than anywhere. But now I"ve seen Yzordderrex-"

"Not much of it," Huzzah pointed out.

"It"s enough, angel. If he asks me again I"m going to tell him: I"d like to die in Yzordderrex."

"Eating breakfast with Pie and Huzzah," she said.

"Perfect."

"Perfect," she replied, echoing his intonation precisely.

"Is there anything I couldn"t find here if I looked hard enough?"

"Some peace and quiet," Pie remarked.

The hubbub from outside was certainly loud, even in the cafe.

"I"m sure we"ll find some little courtyards up in the palace," Gentle said.

"Is that where we"re going?" Huzzah asked.

"Now listen," said Pie. "For one thing, Mr. Zacharias doesn"t know what the h.e.l.l he"s talking about-"

"Language, Pie," Gentle put in.

"And for another, we brought you here to find your grandparents, and that"s our first priority. Right, Mr. Zacharias?"

"What if you can"t find them?" Huzzah said.

"We will," Pie replied. "My people know this city from top to bottom."

"Is that possible?" Gentle said. "I somehow doubt it."

"When you"ve finished your coffee," Pie said, "I"ll allow them to prove you wrong."

With their bellies filled, they headed on through the streets, following the route they"d had laid out for them: from the Oke T"Noon to the Caramess, following the wall until they reached Smooke Street. In fact the directions were not entirely reliable. Smooke Street, which was a narrow thoroughfare, and far emptier than those they"d left, did not lead them onto the Viatic.u.m as they"d been told it would, but rather into a maze of buildings as plain as barracks. There were children playing in the dirt, and among them wild ragemy, an unfortunate cross between porcine and canine strains that Gentle had seen spitted and served in Mai-Ke but which here seemed to be treated as pets. Either the mud, the children, or the ragemy stank, and their smell had attracted zarzi in large numbers.

"We must have missed a turning," the mystif said. "We"d be best to-"

It stopped in mid-sentence as the sound of shouting rose from nearby, bringing the children up out of the mud and sending them off in pursuit of its source. There was a high unmusical holler in the midst of the din, rising and falling like a warrior cry. Before either Pie or Gentle could remark on this, Huzzah was following the rest of the children, darting between the puddles and the rooting ragemy to do so. Gentle looked at Pie, who shrugged; then they both headed after Huzzah, the trail leading them down an alleyway into a broad and busy street, which was emptying at an astonishing rate as pedestrians and drivers alike sought cover from whatever was racing down the hill in their direction.

The hollerer came first: an armored man of fully twice Gentle"s height, carrying in each fist scarlet flags that snaked behind him as he ran, the pitch and volume of his cry undimmed by the speed at which he moved. On his heels came a battalion of similarly armored soldiers-none, even in the troop, under eight feet tall-and behind them again a vehicle which had clearly been designed to mount and descent the ferocious slopes of the city with minimum discomfort to its pa.s.sengers. The wheels were the height of the hollerer, the carriage itself low-slung between them, its bodywork sleek and dark, its windows darker still. A gull had become caught between the spokes of the wheels on the way down the hill, and it flapped and bled there as the wheels turned, its screeches a wretched but perfect complement to the cacophony of wheels, engine, and hollerer.

Gentle took hold of Huzzah as the vehicle raced past, though she was in no danger of being struck. She looked around at him, wearing a wide grin.

"Who was that?" she said.

"I don"t know."

A woman sheltering in the doorway beside them furnished the answer. "Quaisoir," she said. "The Autarch"s woman. There"s arrests being made down in the Scoriae. More Dearthers."

She made a small gesture with her fingers, moving them across her face from eye to eye, then down to her mouth, pressing the knuckles of first and third fingers against her nostrils while the middle digit tugged at her lower lip, all this with the speed of one who made the sign countless times in a day. Then she turned off down the street, keeping close to the wall as she went.

"Athanasius was a Dearther, wasn"t he?" Gentle said. "We should go down and see what"s happening."

"It"s a little too public," Pie said.

"We"ll stay to the back of the crowd," Gentle said. "I want to see how the enemy works."

Without giving Pie time to object, Gentle took Huzzah"s hand and headed after Quaisoir"s troop. It wasn"t a difficult trail to follow. Everywhere along the route faces were once more appearing at windows and doors, like anemones showing themselves again after being brushed by the underbelly of a shark: tentative, ready to hide their tender heads again at the merest sign of a shadow. Only a couple of tots, not yet educated in terror, did as the three strangers were doing and took to the middle of the street, where the comet"s light was brightest. They were quickly reclaimed for the relative safety of the doorways in which their guardians hovered.

The ocean came into view as the trio descended the hill, and the harbor was now visible between the houses, which were considerably older in this neighborhood than in the Oke T"Noon or up by the Caramess. The air was clean and quick here; it enlivened their step. After a short while the domestic dwellings gave way to docklands: warehouses, cranes, and silos reared around them. But the area was by no means deserted. The workers here were not so easily cowed as the occupants of the Kesparate above, and many were leaving off their labors to see what this rumpus was all about. They were a far more h.o.m.ogenized group than Gentle had seen elsewhere, most a cross between Oethac and h.o.m.o sapiens, ma.s.sive, even brutish men who in sufficient numbers could certainly trounce Quaisoir"s battalion. Gentle hoisted Huzzah up to ride on his back as they joined this congregation, fearful she"d be trampled if he didn"t. A few of the dockers gave her a smile, and several stood aside to let her mount secure a better place in the crowd. By the time they came within sight of the troops again they were thoroughly concealed.

A small contingent of the soldiers had been charged to keep onlookers from straying too close to the field of action, and this they were attempting to do, but they were vastly outnumbered, and as the crowd swelled it steadily pushed the cordon towards the site of the hostilities, a warehouse some thirty yards down the street, which had apparently been laid siege to. Its walls were pitted with bullet strikes, and its lower windows smoked. The besieging troops-who were not dressed showily like Quaisoir"s battalion, but in the monochrome Gentle had seen paraded in L"Himby-were presently hauling bodies out of the building. Some were on the second story, pitching dead men-and a couple who still had life in them-out of the windows onto the bleeding heap below. Gentle remembered Beatrix. Was this cairn building one of the marks of the Autarch"s hand?

"You shouldn"t be seeing this, angel," Gentle told Huzzah, and tried to lift her off his shoulders. But she held fast, taking fistfuls of his hair as security.

"I want to see," she said. "I"ve seen it with Daddy, lots of times."

"Just don"t get sick on my head," Gentle warned.

"I won"t," she said, outraged at the suggestion.

There were fresh brutalities unfolding below. A survivor had been dragged from the building and was kicked to the ground a few yards from Quaisoir"s vehicle, the doors and windows of which were still closed. Another was defending himself as best he could from bayonet jabs, yelling in defiance as his tormentors encircled him. But everything came to a sudden halt with the appearance on the warehouse roof of a man wearing little more than ragged underwear, who opened his arms like a soul in search of martyrdom and proceeded to harangue the a.s.sembly below.

"That"s Athanasius!" Pie murmured in astonishment.

The mystif was far sharper sighted than Gentle, who had to squint hard to confirm the identification. It was indeed Father Athanasius, his beard and hair longer than ever, his hands, brow, and flank running with blood.

"What the h.e.l.l"s he doing up there," Gentle said, "giving a sermon?"

Athanasius" address wasn"t simply directed at the troops and their victims on the cobblestones below. He repeatedly turned his head towards the crowd, shouting in their direction too. Whether he was issuing accusations, prayers, or a call to arms, the words were lost to the wind, however. Soundless, his display looked faintly absurd and undoubtedly suicidal. Rifles were already being raised below, to put him in their sights.

But before a shot could be fired the first prisoner, who"d been kicked to his knees close to Quaisoir"s vehicle, slipped custody. His captors, distracted by Athanasius" performance, were slow to respond, and by the time they did so their victim was already dashing towards the crowd, ignoring quicker escape routes to do so. The crowd began to part, antic.i.p.ating the man"s arrival in its midst, but the troops behind him were already turning their muzzles his way. Realizing they intended to fire in the direction of the crowd, Gentle dropped to his haunches, yelling for Huzzah to clamber down. This time she didn"t protest. As she slipped from his shoulders several shots were fired. He glanced up and through the mesh of bodies caught sight of Athanasius falling back, as if struck, and disappearing behind the parapet around the roof.

"d.a.m.n fool," he said to himself, and was about to scoop Huzzah up and carry her away when a second round of shots froze him in his tracks.

A bullet caught one of the dockers a yard from where he crouched, and the man went down like felled timber. Gentle looked around for Pie, rising as he did so. The escaping Dearther had also been hit, but he was still staggering forward, heading towards a crowd that was now in confusion. Some were fleeing, some standing their ground in defiance, some going to the aid of the fallen docker.

It was doubtful the Dearther saw any of this. Though the momentum of his flight still carried him forward, his face-too young to boast a beard-was slack and expressionless, his pale eyes glazed. His lips worked as though to impart some final word, but a sharpshooter below denied him the comfort. Another bullet struck the back of his neck and appeared on the other side, where three fine blue lines were tattooed across his throat, the middle one bisecting his Adam"s apple. He was thrown forward by the bullet"s impact, the few men between him and Gentle parting as he fell. His body hit the ground a yard from Gentle, with only a few twitches of life left in it. Though his face was to the ground, his hands still moved, making their way through the dirt towards Gentle"s feet as if they knew where they were going. His left arm ran out of power before it could reach its destination, but the right had sufficient will behind it to find the scuffed toe of Gentle"s shoe.

He heard Pie murmuring to him from close by, coaxing him to come away, but he couldn"t forsake the man, not in these last seconds. He started to stoop, intending to clasp the dying fingers in his palm, but he was too late by seconds. The arm lost its power, and the hand dropped back to the ground lifeless.

"Now will you come?" Pie said.

Gentle tore his eyes from the corpse and looked up. The scene had gained him an audience, and there was a disturbing antic.i.p.ation in their faces, puzzlement and respect mingled with the clear expectation of some p.r.o.nouncement. Gentle had none to offer and opened his arms to show himself empty-handed. The a.s.sembly stared on, unblinking, and he half thought they might a.s.sault him if he didn"t speak, but a further burst of gunfire from the siege site broke the moment, and the starers gave up their scrutiny, some shaking their heads as though waking from a trance. The second of the captives had been executed against the warehouse wall, and shots were now being fired into the pile of bodies to silence some survivor there. Troops had also appeared on the roof, presumably intending to pitch Athanasius" body down to crown the cairn. But they were denied that satisfaction. Either he"d faked being struck, or eke he"d survived the wounding and crawled off to safety while the drama unfolded below. Whichever, he"d left his pursuers empty-handed.

Three of the cordon-keepers, all of whom had fled for cover as their comrades fired on the crowd, now reappeared to claim the body of the escapee. They encountered a good deal of pa.s.sive resistance, however, the crowd coming between them and the dead youth, jostling them. They forced their way through with well-aimed jabs from bayonets and rifle b.u.t.ts, but Gentle had time to retreat from in front of the corpse as they did so.

He had also had time to look back at the corpse-strewn stage visible beyond the heads of the crowd. The door of Quaisoir"s vehicle had opened, and with her elite guard forming a shield around her she finally stepped out into the light of day. This was the consort of the Imajica"s vilest tyrant, and Gentle lingered a dangerous moment to see what mark such intimacy with evil had made upon her.

When she came into view the sight of her, even with eyes that were far from perfect, was enough to s.n.a.t.c.h the breath from him. She was human, and a beauty. Nor was she simply any any beauty. She was Judith. beauty. She was Judith.

Pie had hold of his arm, drawing him away, but he wouldn"t go.

"Look at her. Jesus. Look at her, Pie. Look! Look!"

The mystif glanced towards the woman.

"It"s Judith," Gentle said.

"That"s impossible."

"It is! It is! Use your f.u.c.king eyes! It"s Judith!"

As if his raised voice was a spark to the bone-dry rage of the crowd all around, violence suddenly erupted, its focus the trio of soldiers who were still attempting to claim the dead youth. One was bludgeoned to the ground while another retreated, firing as he did so. Escalation was instantaneous. Knives were slid from their sheaths, machetes unhooked from belts. In the s.p.a.ce of five seconds the crowd became an army and five seconds later claimed its first three lives. Judith was eclipsed by the battle, and Gentle had little choice but to go with Pie, more for the sake of Huzzah than for his own safety. He felt strangely inviolate here, as though that circle of expectant stares had lent him a charmed life.

"It was Judith, Pie," he said again, once they were far enough from the shouts and shots to hear each other speak, Huzzah had taken firm hold of his hand and swung on his arm excitedly. "Who"s Judith?" she said. "A woman we know," Gentle said. "How could that be her?" The mystif s tone was as fretful as it was exasperated. "Ask yourself: How could that be her? If you"ve got an answer, I"m happy to hear it. Truly I am. Tell me."

"I don"t know how," Gentle said. "But I trust my eyes."

"We left her in the Fifth, Gentle."

"If I I got through, why shouldn"t she?" got through, why shouldn"t she?"

"And in the s.p.a.ce of two months she takes over as the Autarch"s wife? That"s a meteoric rise, wouldn"t you say?"

A fresh fusillade of shots rose from the siege site, followed by a roar of voices so profound it reverberated in the stone beneath their feet. Gentle stopped, walked, and looked back down the slope towards the harbor.

"There"s going to be a revolution," he said simply.

"I think it"s already begun," Pie replied.

"They"ll kill her," he said, starting back down the hill.

"Where the h.e.l.l are you going?" Pie said.

"I"m coming with you," Huzzah piped up, but the mystif took hold of her before she could follow.

"You"re not going anywhere," Pie said, "except home to your grandparents. Gentle, will you listen to me? It"s not Judith."

Gentle turned to face the mystif, attempting a reasoning tone. "If it"s not her then it"s her double; it"s her echo. Some part other, here in Yzordderrex."

The mystif didn"t reply. It merely studied Gentle, as if coaxing him with its silence to articulate his theory more fully.

"Maybe people can be in two places at one time," Gentle said. Frustration made him grimace. "I know know it was her, and nothing you can say"s going to change my mind. You two go in to the Kesparate. Wait for me. I"ll-" it was her, and nothing you can say"s going to change my mind. You two go in to the Kesparate. Wait for me. I"ll-"

Before he could finish his instructions, the holler that had first announced Quaisoir"s descent from the heights of the city was raised again, this time at a higher pitch, to be drowned out almost instantly by a surge of celebratory cheering.

"That sounds like a retreat to me," Pie said, and was proved right twenty seconds later with the reappearance of Quaisoir"s vehicle, surrounded by the tattered remnants of her retinue.

The trio had plenty of time to step out of the path of wheels and boots as they thundered up the slope, for the pace of the retreat was not as swift as that of the advance. Not only was the ascent steep but many of the elite had sustained wounds in defending the vehicle from a.s.sault and trailed blood as they ran.

"There"s going to be such reprisals now," Pie said.

Gentle murmured his agreement as he stared up the slope where the vehicle had gone. "I have to see her again," he said.

"That"s going to be difficult," Pie replied.

"She"ll see me," Gentle said. "If I know who she is, then she"s going to know who I am. I"ll lay money on it."

The mystif didn"t take up the bet. It simply said, "What now?"

"We go to your Kesparate, and we send out a search party to look for Huzzah"s folks. Then we go up-" he nodded towards the palace "-and get a closer look at Quaisoir. I"ve got some questions to ask her. Whoever she is."

The wind veered as the trio retraced their steps, the relatively clear ocean breeze giving sudden way to a blisteringly hot a.s.sault off the desert. The citizens were well prepared for such climatic changes, and at the first hint of a shift in the wind, scenes of almost mechanical, and therefore comical, efficiency were to be seen high and low. Washing and potted plants were gathered from window sills; ragemy and cats gave up their sun traps and headed inside; awnings were rolled up and windows shuttered. In a matter of minutes the street was emptied.

"I"ve been in these d.a.m.n storms," the mystif said. "I don"t think we want to be walking about in one."

Gentle told it not to fret, and hoisting Huzzah onto his shoulders, he set the pace as the storm scourged the streets. They"d asked for fresh directions a few minutes before the wind veered, and the shopkeeper who"d supplied them had known his geography. The directions were good even if walking conditions were not. The wind smelt like flatulence and carried a blinding freight of sand, along with ferocious heat. But they at least had the freedom of the streets. The only individuals they glimpsed were either felonious, crazy, or homeless, into all three of which categories they themselves fell.

They reached the Viatic.u.m without error or incident, and from there the mystif knew its way. Two hours or more after they"d left the siege at the harbor they reached the Eurhetemec Kesparate, The storm was showing signs of fatigue, as were they, but Pie"s voice fairly sang when it announced, "This is it. This is the place where I was born."

The Kesparate in front of them was walled, but the gates were open, swinging in the wind.