Imajica

"Why?"

In reply came the parent"s eternal answer to a child who asks too many questions.

"Because I tell you to," the G.o.d said.

But Gentle wouldn"t be hushed so readily. He pressed on. "What does it know, Father?"

"Nothing."

"Does it know where Nisi Nirvana comes from? Is that what it knows?"

The fire in the Unbeheld"s skull seethed at this.

"Who told you that?" He raged.

There was no purpose served by lying, Gentle thought. "My mother," he said.

Every motion in the G.o.d"s bloated body ceased, even to its cage-battering heart. Only the lightning went on, and the next word came not from the mingled throats but from the fire itself. Three syllables, spoken in a lethal voice.

"Cel. Est. Ine."

"Yes, Father."

"She"s dead," the lightning said.

"No, Father. I was in her arms a few minutes ago." He lifted his hand, translucent though it was. "She held these fingers. She kissed them. And she told me-"

"I don"t want to hear!"

"-to remind You-"

"Where is she?"

"-of Nisi Nirvana."

"Where is she? Where? Where?"

He had been motionless, but now rose up in His fury, lifting His wretched limbs above His head as if to bathe them in His own lightning.

"Where is she?" he yelled, throats and fire making the demand together. "I want to see her! I want to see her!" "I want to see her! I want to see her!"

On the stairs below the Meditation Room, Jude stood up. The gek-a-gek had begun a guttural complaint that was, in its way, more distressing than any sound she"d ever heard from them. They were afraid. She saw them sloping away from their places beside the door like dogs in fear of a beating, their spines depressed, their heads flattened.

She glanced at the company below: the angels still kneeling beside their wounded Maestro; Monday and Hoi-Polloi leaving off their vigil at the step and coming back into the candlelight, as though its little ring could preserve them from whatever power was agitating the air.

"Oh, Mama," she heard Sartori whisper.

"Yes, child?"

"He"s looking for us, Mama."

"I know."

"You can feel it?"

"Yes, child, I can."

"Will you hold me, Mama? Will you hold me?"

"Where? Where?" the G.o.d was howling, and in the arcs above His skull shreds of His mind"s sight appeared.

Here was a river, serpentine; and a city, drabber than His metropolis but all the finer for that; and a certain street; and a certain house. Gentle saw the eye Monday had scrawled on the front door, its pupil beaten out by the Oviate"s attack. He saw his own body, with Clem beside it; and the stairs; and Jude on the stairs, climbing.

And then the room at the top, and the circle in the room, with his brother sitting inside it, and his mother, kneeling at the perimeter.

"Cel. Est. Ine," the G.o.d said. "Cel. Est. Ine!" "Cel. Est. Ine!"

It wasn"t Sartori"s voice that uttered these syllables, but it was was his lips that moved to shape them. Jude was at the top of the stairs now, and she could see his face clearly. It was still wet with tears, but there was no expression upon it whatsoever. She"d never seen features so devoid of feeling. He was a vessel, filling up with another soul. his lips that moved to shape them. Jude was at the top of the stairs now, and she could see his face clearly. It was still wet with tears, but there was no expression upon it whatsoever. She"d never seen features so devoid of feeling. He was a vessel, filling up with another soul.

"Child?" Celestine said.

"Get away from him," Jude murmured.

Celestine started to rise. "You sound sick, child," she said.

The voice came again, this time a furious denial.

"I Am Not. A. Child."

"You wanted me to comfort you," Celestine said. "Let me do that."

Sartori"s eyes looked up, but it wasn"t his sight alone that fixed on her.

"Keep. Away," he said.

"I want to hold you," Celestine said, and instead of retreating she stepped over the boundary of the circle.

On the landing the gek-a-gek were in terror now, their sly retreat become a dance of panic. They beat their heads against the wall as if to hammer out their brains rather than hear the voice issuing from Sartori; this desperate, monstrous voice that said over and over: "Keep. Away. Keep. Away."

But Celestine wouldn"t be denied. She knelt down again, in front of Sartori. When she spoke, however, it wasn"t to the child, it was to the Father, to the G.o.d who"d taken her into this city of iniquities.

"Let me touch You, love," she said. "Let me touch You, the way You touched me."

"No!" Hapexamendios howled, but His child"s limbs refused to rise and ward off the embrace.

The denial came again and again, but Celestine ignored it, her arms encircling them both, flesh and occupying spirit in one embrace.

This time, when the G.o.d unleashed His rejection, it was no longer a word but a sound, as pitiful as it was terrifying.

In the First, Gentle saw the lightning above his Father"s head congeal into a single blinding flame and go from Him, like a meteor.

In the Second, Chicka Jackeen saw the blaze brighten the Erasure and fell to his knees on the flinty ground. A signal fire was coming, he thought, to announce the moment of victory.

In Yzordderrex, the G.o.ddesses knew better. As the fire broke from the Erasure and entered the Second Dominion, the waters around the temple grew quiescent, so as not to draw death down upon them. Every child was hushed, every pool and rivulet stilled. But the fire"s malice wasn"t meant for them, and the meteor pa.s.sed over the city, leaving it unharmed, out-blazing the Comet as it went.

With the fire out of sight, Gentle turned back to his Father.

"What have You done?" he demanded.

The G.o.d"s attention lingered in the Fifth for a little time, but as Gentle"s demand came again He withdrew His mind from His target, and His eyes regained their animation.

"I"ve sent a fire for the wh.o.r.e," He said. It was no longer the lightning that spoke, but His many throats.

"Why?"

"Because she tainted you... she made you want love."

"Is that so bad?"

"You can"t build cities with love," the G.o.d said. "You can"t make great works. It"s weakness."

"And what about Nisi Nirvana?" Gentle said. "Is that a weakness too?"

He dropped to his knees and laid his phantom palms on the ground. They had no power here, or else he"d have started digging. Nor could his spirit pierce the ground. The same barrier that sealed him from his Father"s belly kept him from looking into His Dominion"s underworld. But he could ask the questions.

"Who spoke the words, Father?" he asked. "Who said: Nisi Nirvana? Nisi Nirvana?"

"Forget you ever heard those words," Hapexamendios replied. "The wh.o.r.e is dead. It"s over."

In his frustration Gentle made fists of his hands and beat on the solid ground.

"There"s nothing there but Me," the many throats went on. "My flesh is everywhere. My flesh is the world, and the world is My flesh-"

On the Mount of Lipper Bayak, Tick Raw had given up his triumphal jig and was sitting at the edge of his circle, waiting for the curious to emerge from their houses and come up to question him, when the fire appeared in the Fourth-Like Chicka Jackeen, he a.s.sumed it was some star of annunciation, sent to mark the victory, and he rose again to hail it. He wasn"t alone. There were several people below who"d spotted the blaze over the Jokalaylau and were applauding the spectacle as it approached. When it pa.s.sed overhead it brought a brief noon to Vanaeph, before going on its way. It lit Patashoqua just as brightly, then flew out of the Dominion through a fog that had just appeared beyond the city, marking the first pa.s.sing place between the Dominion of green-gold skies and that of blue.

Two similar fogs had formed in Clerkenwell, one to the southeast of Gamut Street and the other to the northwest, both marking doorways in the newly reconciled Dominion. It was the latter that became blinding now, as the fire sped through it from the Fourth. The sight was not unwitnessed. Several revenants were in the vicinity, and though they had no clue as to what this signified, they sensed some calamity and retreated before the radiance, returning to the house to raise the alarm. But they were too sluggish. Before they were halfway back to Gamut Street the fog divided, and the Unbeheld"s fire appeared in the benighted streets of Clerkenwell.

Monday saw it first, as he forsook the little comfort of the candlelight and returned to the step. The remnants of Sartori"s hordes were raising a cacophony in the darkness outside, but even as he crossed the threshold to ward them off, the darkness became light.

From her place on the top stair Jude saw Celestine lay her lips against her son"s and then, with astonishing strength, lift his dead weight up and pitch him out of the circle. Either the impact or the coming fire stirred him, and he began to rise, turning back towards his mother as he did so. He was too late to reclaim his place. The fire had come.

The window burst like a glittering cloud and the blaze filled the room. Jude was flung off her feet, but clutched the banister long enough to see Sartori cover his face against the holocaust, as the woman in the circle opened her arms to accept it. Celestine was instantly consumed, but the fire seemed unappeased and would have spread to burn the house to its foundations had its momentum not been so great. It sped on through the room, demolishing the wall as it went. On, on, towards the second fog that Clerkenwell boasted tonight.

"What the f.u.c.k was that?" Monday said in the hallway below.

"G.o.d," Jude replied. "Coming and going."

In the First, Hapexamendios raised His misbegotten head. Even though He didn"t need the a.s.sembly of sight that gleamed in His skull to see what was happening in His Dominion-He had eyes everywhere-some memory of the body that had once been His sole residence made Him turn now, as best He could, and look behind Him.

"What is this?" He said.

Gentle couldn"t see the fire yet, but he could feel whispers of its approach.

"What is this?" Hapexamendios said again.

Without waiting for a reply, He began feverishly to unknit His semblance, something Gentle had both feared and hoped He"d do. Feared, because the body from which the fire had been issued would doubtless be its destination, and if it was too quickly undone, the fire would have no target. And hoped, because only in that undoing would he have a chance to locate Pie. The barrier around his Father"s form softened as the G.o.d was distracted by the intricacies of this dismantling, and though Gentle had yet to get a second glimpse of Pie he turned his thought to entering the body; but for all His perplexity Hapexamendios was not about to be breached so readily. As Gentle approached, a will too powerful to be denied seized hold of him.

"What is this?" the G.o.d demanded a third time.

Hoping he might yet gain a few precious seconds" reprieve, Gentle answered with the truth.

"The Imajica"s a circle," he said.

"A circle?"

"This is Your fire, Father. This is Your fire, coming around again."

Hapexamendios didn"t respond with words. He understood instantly the significance of what He"d been told and let His hold on Gentle slip again, in order to turn all His will to the business of unknitting Himself.

The ungainly body began to unravel, and in its midst Gentle once again glimpsed Pie. This time, the mystif saw him. Its frail limbs thrashed to clear a way through the turmoil between them, but before Gentle could finally wrest himself from his Father"s custody the ground beneath Pie"oh"pah grew unsolid. The mystif reached up to take hold of some support in the body above, but it was decaying too fast. The ground gaped like a grave, and, with one last despairing look in Gentle"s direction, the mystif sank from sight.

Gentle raised his head in a howl, but the sound he made was drowned out by that of his Father, who-as if in imitation of His child-had also thrown back His head. But His was a din of fury rather than sorrow, as He wrenched and thrashed in His attempts to speed His unmasking.

Behind Him, now, the fire. As it came Gentle thought he saw his mother"s face in the blaze, shaped from ashes, her eyes and mouth wide as she returned to meet the G.o.d who"d raped, rejected, and finally murdered her. A glimpse, no more, and then the fire was upon its maker, its judgment absolute.

Gentle"s spirit was gone from the conflagration at a thought, but His Father-the world His flesh, the flesh His world-could not escape it. His fetal head broke, and the fire consumed the shards as they flew, its blaze cremating His heart and innards and spreading through His mismatched limbs, burning them away to every last fingertip and toe.

The consequence for His city was both instantly felt and calamitous. Every street from one end of the Dominion to the other shook as the message of collapse went from the place where its First Cause had fallen. Gentle had nothing to fear from this dissolution, but the sight of it appalled him nevertheless. This was his Father, and it gave him neither pleasure nor satisfaction to see the body whose child he was now reel and bleed. The imperious towers began to topple, their ornament dropping in rococo rains, their arches forsaking the illusion of stone and falling as flesh. The streets heaved and turned to meat; the houses threw down their bony roofs. Despite the collapse around him, Gentle remained close to the place where his Father had been consumed, in the hope that he might yet find Pie"oh"pah in the maelstrom. But it seemed Hapexamendios" last voluntary act had been to deny the lovers their reunion. He"d opened the ground and buried the mystif in the pit of His decay, sealing it with His will to prevent Gentle from ever finding Pie again.

There was nothing left for the Reconciler to do but leave the city to its decease, which in due course he did, not taking the route across the Dominions but going back the way the fire had come. As he flew, the sheer enormity of what was under way became apparent. If every living body that had pa.s.sed a span on Earth had been left to putrefy here in the First, the sum of their flesh would not begin to approach that of this city. Nor would this carrion rot into the ground and its decomposition feed a new generation of life. It was was the ground; it the ground; it was was the life. With its pa.s.sing, there would only be putrescence here: decay laid on decay laid on decay. A Dominion of filth, polluted until the end of time. the life. With its pa.s.sing, there would only be putrescence here: decay laid on decay laid on decay. A Dominion of filth, polluted until the end of time.

Ahead, now, the fog that divided the city"s outskirts from the Fifth. Gentle pa.s.sed through it, returning gratefully to the modest streets of Clerkenwell. They were drab, of course, after the brilliance of the metropolis he"d left. But he knew the air had the sweetness of summer leaves upon it, even if he couldn"t smell that sweetness, and the welcome sound of an engine from Holborn or Gray"s Inn Road could be heard, as some fleet fellow, knowing the worst was past, got about his business. It was unlikely to be legal work at such an hour. But Gentle wished the driver well, even in his crime. The Dominion had been saved for thieves as well as saints.

He didn"t linger at the pa.s.sing place but went as fast as his weary thoughts would drive him, back to number 28 and the wounded body that was still clinging to continuance at the bottom of the stairs.

At the top, Jude hadn"t waited for the smoke to clear before venturing into the Meditation Room. Despite a warning shout from Clem she"d gone up into the murk to find Sartori, hoping that he"d survived. His creatures hadn"t. Their corpses were twitching close to the threshold, not struck by the blast, she thought, but laid low by their summoner"s decline. She found that summoner easily enough. He was lying close to where Celestine had pitched him, his body arrested in the act of turning towards the circle.

It had been his undoing. The fire that had carried his mother to oblivion had seared every part of him. The ashes of his clothes had been fused with his blistered back, his hair singed from his scalp, his face cooked beyond tenderness. But like his brother, lying in ribbons below, he refused to give up life. His fingers clutched the boards; his lips still worked, baring teeth as bright as a death"s-head smile. There was even power in his sinews. When his blood-filled eyes saw Jude he managed to push himself up, until his body rolled over onto its charred spine, and he used his agonies to fuel the hand that clutched at her, dragging her down beside him.

"My mother..."

"She"s gone."

There was bafflement on his face. "Why?" he said, shudders convulsing him as he spoke. "She seemed... to want it. Why?"

"So that she"d be there when the fire took Hapexamendios," Jude replied.

He shook his head, not comprehending the significance of this.