Imajica

Pie went with her, opening the door and stepping out into a twilight sharp with smoke. "Why would I do that?" Pie said.

"Because you loved him," Culus said, her gaze accusatory. "And that"s the real reason why you never came back here. You loved him more than your own people."

"Perhaps that"s true," Pie said. "But why would I do anything in memory of the living?"

"The living?"

The mystif smiled, bowing to its judge as it retreated from the light at the door, fading into the gloom like a phantom. "I told you Sartori was a broken man, not a dead one," it said as it went. "The dream is still alive, Culus"su"erai. And so is my Maestro."

Quaisoir was waiting behind the veils when Seidux came in. The windows were open, and within the warm dusk came a din aphrodisiacal to a soldier like Seidux. He peered at the veils, trying to make out the figure behind them. Was she naked? It seemed so.

"I have an apology to make," she said to him.

"There"s no need."

"There"s every need. You were doing your duty, watching me." She paused. When she spoke again, her voice was sinuous. "I like to be watched, Seidux..."

He murmured: "You do?"

"Certainly. As long as my audience is appreciative."

"I"m appreciative," he said, surrept.i.tiously dropping his cigarette and grinding it out beneath the heel of his boot.

"Then why don"t you close the door?" she said to him. "In case we get noisy. Maybe you should tell the guards to go and get drunk?"

He did so. When he returned to the veils he saw that she was kneeling up on the bed, her hand between her legs. And, yes, she was naked. When she moved the veils moved with her, some of them sticking momentarily to the oiled gloss of her skin. He could see how her b.r.e.a.s.t.s rode up as she raised her arms, inviting his kisses there. He put his hand out to part the veils, but they were too abundant, and he could find no break in them, so he simply pressed on towards her, half blinded by their luxury.

Her hand went down once more between her legs, and he couldn"t conceal a moan of antic.i.p.ation at the thought of replacing it with his own. There was swelling in her fingers, he thought: some device she"d been pleasuring herself with, most likely, antic.i.p.ating his arrival, easing herself open to accommodate his every inch. Thoughtful, pliant thing that she was, she was even handing it to him now, as though in confession of her little sin; thinking perhaps that he"d want to feel its warmth and wetness. She pushed it through the veils towards him, as he in turn pressed towards her, murmuring as he went a few promises that ladies liked to hear.

Between those promises he caught the sound of tearing fabric, and a.s.suming that she was clawing her way through the veils in her hunger to reach him, began to do the same himself, until he felt a sharp pain in his belly. He looked down through the layers that clung about his face and saw a stain spreading through the weave. He let out a cry and started to disentangle himself, catching sight of her pleasuring device buried deep in him as he wrestled to be out of her way. She withdrew the blade, only to plunge it into him a second time, and a third, leaving it in his heart as he fell backwards, his fingers dragging the veils down with him.

Standing at one of the upper windows of Peccable"s house, watching the fires that raged in every direction, Jude shuddered, and looking down at her hands saw them glistening, wet with blood. The vision lasted only the briefest time, but she had no doubt of what she"d seen, nor what it signified. Quaisoir had committed the crime she"d been plotting.

"It"s quite a sight, isn"t it?" she heard Dowd say, and turned to look at him, momentarily disoriented. Had he seen the blood too? No, no. He was talking about the fires.

"Yes, it is," she said.

He came to join her at the gla.s.s, which rattled with each fusillade. "The Peccables are almost ready to leave. I suggest we do the same. I"m feeling much renewed." He had indeed healed with astonishing speed. The wounds on his face were barely visible now.

"Where will we go?" she said.

"Around the other side of the city," he said. "To where I first trod the boards. According to Peccable the theater is still standing. The Ipse, it"s called. Built by Pluthero Quexos himself. I"d like to see it again."

"You want to be a tourist on a night like this?"

"The theater may not be standing tomorrow. In fact, the whole of Yzordderrex could be in ruins by daybreak. I thought you were the one who was so hungry to see it."

"If it"s a sentimental visit," she said, "maybe you should go alone."

"Why, have you got some other agenda?" he asked her. "You have, haven"t you?"

"How could I have?" she protested lightly. "I"ve never set foot here before."

He studied her, his face all suspicion. "But you always wanted to come here, didn"t you? Right from the start. G.o.dolphin used to wonder where you got the obsession from. Now I"m wondering the same." He followed her gaze through the window. "What"s out there, Judith?"

"You can see for yourself," she replied. "We"ll probably get killed before we reach the top of the street."

"No," he said. "Not us. We"re blessed."

"Are we?"

"We"re the same, remember? Perfect partners."

"I remember," she replied.

"Ten minutes, then we"ll go."

"I"ll be ready."

She heard the door close behind her, then looked down at her hands again. All trace of the vision had faded. She glanced back towards the door, to be certain that Dowd had gone, then put her hands to the gla.s.s and closed her eyes. She had ten minutes to find the woman who shared her face, ten minutes before she and Dowd were out in the tumult of the streets and all hope of contact would be dashed.

"Quaisoir," she murmured.

She felt the gla.s.s vibrate against her palms and heard the din of the dying across the roofs. She said her double"s name a second time, turning her thoughts to the towers that would have been visible from this very window if the air between hadn"t been so thick with smoke. The image of that smoke filled her head, though she hadn"t consciously conjured it, and she felt her thoughts rise in its clouds, wafted on the heat of destruction.

It was difficult for Quaisoir to find something discreet to wear among garments she had acquired for their immodesty, but by tearing all the decoration from one of her simpler robes she had achieved something like seemliness. Now she left her chambers and prepared for her final journey through the palace. She had already plotted her route once she was out of the gates: back down to the harbor, where she"d first seen the Man of Sorrows, standing on the roof. If He wasn"t there, she would find somebody who knew His whereabouts. He hadn"t come into Yzordderrex simply to disappear again. He would leave trails for His acolytes to follow, and trials, no doubt, for them to endure, proving in their endurance how much they desired to come into His presence. But first, she had to get out of the palace, and to do so she took corridors and stairways that had not been used in decades, familiar only to her, the Autarch, and the masons who"d laid these cold stones, cold themselves now. Only Maestros and their mistresses preserved their youth, and doing so was no longer the bliss it had been. She would have liked the years to show on her face when she knelt before the Nazarene, so that He would know that she"d suffered, and that she deserved His forgiveness. But she would have to trust that He would see through the veil of her perfection to the pain beneath.

Her feet were bare, and the chill rose through her soles, so that by the time she reached the humid air outside, her teeth were chattering. She halted for a moment, to orient herself in the maze of courtyards that surrounded the palace, and as she turned her thoughts from the practical to the abstract she met another thought, waiting at the back of her skull for just such a turn. She didn"t doubt its source for a moment. The angel that Seidux had driven from her chamber that afternoon had waited at the threshold all this time, knowing she would come at last, seeking guidance. Tears started to her eyes when she realized she"d not been forsaken. The Son of David knew her agony and sent this messenger to whisper in her head.

Ipse, it said. Ipse Ipse.

She knew what the word meant. She"d patronized the Ipse many times, masked, as were all the women of the haut monde haut monde when visiting places of moral dubiety. She"d seen all the works of Quexos performed there; and translations of Plotter; even, on occasion, Koppocovi"s farces, crude as they were. That the Man of Sorrows should have chosen such a place was certainly strange, but who was she to question His purposes? when visiting places of moral dubiety. She"d seen all the works of Quexos performed there; and translations of Plotter; even, on occasion, Koppocovi"s farces, crude as they were. That the Man of Sorrows should have chosen such a place was certainly strange, but who was she to question His purposes?

"I hear," she said aloud.

Even before the voice in her had faded, she was making her way through the courtyards to the gate by which she would be delivered most readily into the Deliquium Kesparate, where Pluthero Quexos had built his shrine to artifice, soon to be reconsecrated in the name of Truth.

Jude took her hands from the window and opened her eyes. There had been none of the clarity she"d experienced when asleep in this contact-in truth she was not even certain she"d made it-but there was no time left to try again. Dowd was calling her, and so were the streets of Yzordderrex, blazing though they were. She"d seen blood spilt from her place by the window; numerous a.s.saults and beatings; troop charges and retreats; civilians warring in rabid packs, and others marching in brigades, armed and ordered. In such a chaos of factions she had no way of judging the legitimacy of any cause; nor, in truth, did she much care. Her mission was seek out her sister in this maelstrom, and hope that she in her turn was seeking out Jude.

Quaisoir would be disappointed, of course, if and when they finally met. Jude was not the messenger of the Lord she was hurrying to find. But then lords divine or secular were not the redeemers and salvers of the world legend made them out to be. They were spoilers; they were destroyers. The evidence of that was out there, in the very streets Jude was about to tread, and if she could only make Quaisoir share and understand that vision, perhaps the promise of sisterhood would not be so unwelcome a gift to bring to this meeting, which she could not help but think of as a reunion.

35

Demanding directions as he went, usually from wounded men, Gentle took several hours to get from the hosannas of Lickerish Street to the mystif s Kesparate, during which period the city"s decline into chaos quickened, so that he went half-expecting that the streets of straight houses and blossom-clad trees would be ashes and rubble by the time he arrived. But when he finally came to the city-within-a-city he found it untouched by looters or demolishers, either because they knew there was little of worth to them here or-more likely-because the lingering superst.i.tion about a people who"d once occupied the Unbeheld"s Dominion kept them from doing their worst.

Entering, he went first to the chiancula, prepared to do whatever was necessary-threaten, beg, cajole-in order to be returned into the mystif s company. The chiancula and all the adjacent buildings were deserted, however, so he began a systematic search of the streets. They, like the chiancula, were empty, and as his desperation grew his discretion fled, until he was shouting Pie"s name to the empty streets like a midnight drunkard.

Eventually, these tactics earned him a response. One of the quartet who"d appeared to offer such chilly welcome when he"d first come here appeared: the mustached young man. His robes were not held between his teeth this time, and when he spoke he deigned to do so in English. But the lethal ribbon still fluttered in his hands, its threat undisguised.

"You came back," he said.

"Where"s Pie?"

"Where"s the girl-child?"

"Dead. Where"s Pie?"

"You seem different."

"I am. Where"s Pie?"

"Not here."

"Where then?"

"The mystif s gone up to the palace," the man replied.

"Why?"

"That was the judgment upon it."

"Just to go?" Gentle said, taking a step towards the man. "There must have been more to it than that."

Though the silk sword protected the man, Gentle came with a burden of power that beggared his own, and sensing this he answered less obliquely.

"The judgment was that it kill the Autarch," he said. "So it"s been sent up there alone?"

"No. It took some of our tribe with it and left a few of us to guard the Kesparate."

"How long ago since they went?"

"Not very long. But you won"t get into the palace. Neither will they. It"s suicide."

Gentle didn"t linger to argue but headed back towards the entrance, leaving the man to guard the blossoms and the empty streets. As he approached the gate, however, he saw that two individuals, a man and a woman, had just entered and were looking his way. Both were naked from the waist up, their throats painted with the blue triple stripe he remembered from the siege at the harbor, marking them as members of the Dearth. At his approach, both acknowledged him by putting palm to palm and inclining their heads. The woman was half as big again as her companion, her body a glorious machine, her head-shaved but for a ponytail-set on a neck wider than her cranium and, like her arms and belly, so elaborately muscled the merest twitch was a spectacle.

"I said he"d be here!" she told the world. "I don"t know what you want," he said, "but I can"t supply it."

"You are are John Furie Zacharias?" John Furie Zacharias?"

"Yes."

"Called Gentle?"

"Yes. But-"

"Then you have to come. Please. Father Athanasius sent us to find you. We heard what happened on Lickerish Street, and we knew it had to be you. I"m Nikaetomaas," the woman said. "This is Floccus Dado. We"ve been waiting for you since Estabrook arrived."

"Estabrook?" said Gentle. There was a man he hadn"t given a thought to in many a month. "How do you know him?"

"We found him in the street. We thought he was the one. But he wasn"t. He knew nothing."

"And you think I do?" Gentle said, exasperated. "Let me tell you, I know f.u.c.k-all! I don"t know who you think I am, but I"m not your man."

"That"s what Father Athanasius said. He said you were in ignorance-"

"Well, he was right."

"But you married the mystif."

"So what?" said Gentle. "I love it, and I don"t care who knows it."

"We realize that," Nikaetomaas said, as though nothing could have been plainer. "That"s how we tracked you."

"We knew it would come here," Floccus said. "And wherever it had gone, you would be."

"It isn"t here," Gentle said. "It"s up in the palace."

"In the palace?" said Nikaetomaas, turning her gaze up towards the lowering walls. "And you intend to follow it?"

"Yes."

"Then I"ll come with you," she said. "Mr. Dado, go back to Athanasius. Tell him who we"ve found and where we"ve gone."

"I don"t want company," Gentle said. "I don"t even trust myself."

"How will you get into the palace without someone at your side?" Nikaetomaas said. "I know the gates. I know the courtyards."

Gentle turned the options over in his head. Part of him wanted to go as a rogue, carrying the chaos he"d brought to Lickerish Street as his emblem. But his ignorance of palace geography could indeed slow him, and minutes might make the difference between finding the mystif alive or dead. He nodded his consent, and the parties divided at the gate: Floccus Dado back to Father Athanasius, Gentle and Nikaetomaas up towards the Autarch"s fortress.

The only subject he broached as they traveled was that of Estabrook. How was he, Gentle asked: still crazy?

"He was almost dead when we found him," Nikaetomaas said. "His brother left him here for dead. But we took him to our tents on the Erasure, and we healed him there. Or, more properly, his being there healed him."

"You did all this, thinking he was me?"

"We knew that somebody was going to come from the Fifth to begin the Reconciliation again. And of course we knew it had to be soon. We just didn"t know what he looked like."

"Well, I"m sorry to disappoint you, but that"s twice you"ve got it wrong. I"m no more your man than Estabrook."

"Why did you come here, then?" she said.