Imajica

"I don"t want you watching me," she said. "Get out. Hear me? Or shall I scream rape?"

She began to tear at her already ragged clothes, exposing her b.r.e.a.s.t.s. Seidux retreated in confusion, averting his eyes.

"As you wish!" he said, heading out of the chamber. "As you wish!"

Quaisoir slammed the door on him and turned her attention back to the haunted room.

"Where are you, spirit?" she said, moving back through the veils. "Gone? No, not gone." She turned to Concupiscentia. "Do you feel its presence?" The creature seemed too frightened to speak. "I feel nothing," Quaisoir said, now standing still amid the shifting veils. "d.a.m.n Seidux! The spirit"s been driven out!"

Without the means to contradict this, all Jude could do was wait beside the bed and hope that the effect of Seidux"s interruption-which had seemingly blinded them to her presence-would wear off now that he"d been exiled from the chamber. She remembered as she waited how Clara had talked about men"s power to destroy. Had she just witnessed an example of that, Seidux"s mere presence enough to poison the contact between a dreaming spirit and a waking one? If so, he"d done it all unknowing: innocent of his power, but no more forgivable for that. How many times in any day did he and the rest of his kind-hadn"t Clara said they were another species?-spoil and mutilate in their unwitting way, Jude wondered, preventing the union of subtler natures?

Quaisoir sank back down on the bed, giving Jude time to ponder the mystery her face represented. She hadn"t doubted from the moment she"d entered this chamber that she was travelling here much as she"d first traveled to the tower, using the freedom of a dream state to move invisibly through the real world. That she no longer needed the blue eye to facilitate such movement was a puzzle for another time. What concerned her now was to find out how this woman came to have her face. Was this Dominion somehow a mirror of the world she"d left? And if not-if she was the only woman in the Fifth to have a perfect twin-what did that echo signify?

The wind was beginning to abate, and Quaisoir dispatched her servant to the window to remove the shutters. There was still a red dust hanging in the atmosphere, but, moving to the sill beside the creature, Jude was presented with a vista that, had she possessed breath in this state, would have taken it away. They were perched high above the city, in one of the towers she"d briefly glimpsed as she"d gone around the Peccable house with Hoi-Polloi, bolting and shuttering. It was not simply Yzordderrex that lay before her, but signs of the city"s undoing. Fires were raging in a dozen places beyond the palace walls, and within those walls the Autarch"s troops were mustering in the courtyards. Turning her dream gaze back towards Quaisoir, Jude saw for the first time the sumptuousness of the chamber in which she"d found the woman. The walls were tapestries, and there was no stick of furniture that did not compete in its gilding, If this was a prison, then it was fit for royalty.

Quaisoir now came to the window and looked out at the panorama of fires.

"I have to find Him," she said. "He sent an angel to bring me to Him, and Seidux drove the angel out. So I"ll have to go to Him myself. Tonight..."

Jude listened, but distractedly, her mind more occupied by the opulence of the chamber and what it revealed about her twin. It seemed she shared a face with a woman of some significance, a possessor of power, now dispossessed, and planning to break the bonds set upon her. Romance seemed to be her reason. There was a man in the city below with whom she desperately wanted to be reunited, a lover who sent angels to whisper sweet nothings in her ear. What kind of man? she wondered. A Maestro, perhaps, a wielder of magic?

Having studied the city for a time, Quaisoir left the window and went through to her dressing room.

"I mustn"t go to Him like this," she said, starting to undress. "That would be shameful."

The woman caught sight of herself in one of the mirrors and sat down in front of it, peering at her reflection with distaste. Her tears had made mud of the kohl around her eyes, and her cheeks and neck were blotchy. She took a piece of linen from the dressing table, sprinkled some fragrant oil upon it, and began to roughly clean her face.

"I"ll go to Him naked," she said, smiling in antic.i.p.ation of that pleasure. "He"ll prefer me that way."

This mystery lover intrigued Jude more and more. Hearing her own voice musky with talk of nakedness, she was tantalized. Would it not be a fine thing to see the consummation? The idea of watching herself couple with some Yzordderrexian Maestro had not been among the wonderments she"d antic.i.p.ated discovering in this city, but the notion carried an erotic frisson frisson she could not deny herself. She studied the reflection of her reflection. Though there were a few cosmetic differences, the essentials were hers, to the last nick and mole. This was no approximation of her face, but the thing exactly, which fact strangely excited her. She had to find a way to speak with this woman tonight. Even if their twinning was simply a freak of nature, they would surely be able to illuminate each other"s lives with an exchange of histories. All she needed was a clue from her doppelganger as to where in the city she intended to go looking for her Maestro lover. she could not deny herself. She studied the reflection of her reflection. Though there were a few cosmetic differences, the essentials were hers, to the last nick and mole. This was no approximation of her face, but the thing exactly, which fact strangely excited her. She had to find a way to speak with this woman tonight. Even if their twinning was simply a freak of nature, they would surely be able to illuminate each other"s lives with an exchange of histories. All she needed was a clue from her doppelganger as to where in the city she intended to go looking for her Maestro lover.

With her face cleansed, Quaisoir got up from in front of the mirror and went back into the bedroom. Concupiscentia was sitting by the window. Quaisoir waited until she was within inches of her servant before she spoke, and even then her words were barely audible.

"We"ll need a knife," she said.

The creature shook her head. "They tookat em all," she said. "You seem how ey lookat and lookat."

"Then we must make one," Quaisoir replied. "Seidux will try to oppose our leaving."

"You wishat to kill em?"

"Yes, I do."

This talk chilled Jude. Though Seidux had retreated before Quaisoir when she"d threatened to cry rape, Jude doubted that he"d be so pa.s.sive if challenged physically. Indeed, what more perfect excuse would he need to regain his dominance than her coming at him with a knife? If she"d had the means, she would have been Clara"s mouthpiece now and echoed her sentiments on man the desolator, in the hope of keeping Quaisoir from harm. It would be an unbearable irony to lose this woman now, having found her way (surely not by accident, though at present it seemed so) across half the Imajica into her very chamber.

"I cet shapas te knife," Concupiscentia was saying.

"Then do it," Quaisoir replied, leaning still closer to her fellow conspirator.

Jude missed the next exchange, because somebody called her name. Startled, she looked around the room, but before she"d half scanned it she recognized the voice. It was Hoi-Polloi, and she was rousing the sleeper after the storm.

"Papa"s here!" Jude heard her say. "Wake up, Papa"s here!"

There was no time to bid farewell to the scene. It was there in front of her one moment, and replaced the next with the face of Peccable"s daughter, leaning to shake her awake.

"Papa-" she said again.

"Yes, all right," Jude said brusquely, hoping the girl would leave without further exchanges coming between her and the sights sleep had brought. She knew she had scant moments to drag the dream into wakefulness with her, or it would subside and the details become hazy the deeper it sank.

She was in luck. Hoi-Polloi hurried back down to her father"s side, leaving Jude to recite aloud all she"d seen and heard. Quaisoir and her servant Concupiscentia; Seidux and the plot against him. And the lover, of course. She shouldn"t forget the lover, who was presumably somewhere in the city even now, pining for his mistress who was locked up in her gilded prison. With these facts fixed in her head, she ventured first to the bathroom, then down to meet Peccable.

Well dressed and better fed, Peccable had a face upon which his present ire sat badly. He looked slightly absurd in his fury, his features too round and his mouth too small for the rhetoric they were producing. Introductions were made, but there was no time for pleasantries. Peccable"s fury needed venting, and he seemed not to care much who his audience was, as long as they sympathized. He had reason for fury. His warehouse near the harbor had been burned to the ground, and he himself had only narrowly escaped death at the hands of a mob that had already taken over three of the Kesparates and declared them independent city-states, thereby issuing a challenge to the Autarch. So far, he said, the palace had done little. Small contingents of troops had been dispatched to the Caramess, to the Oke T"Noon, and the seven Kesparates on the other side of the hill, to suppress any sign of uprisings there. But no offensive had been launched against the insurgents who had taken the harbor.

"They"re nothing more than rabble," the merchant said. "They"ve no care for property or person. Indiscriminate destruction, that"s all they"re good for! I"m no great lover of the Autarch, but he"s got to be the voice of decent people like me in times like this! I should have sold my business a year ago. I talked with Oscar about it. We planned to move away from this wretched city. But I hung on and hung on, because I believe in people. That"s my mistake," he said, throwing his eyes up to the ceiling like a man martyred by his own decency. "I have too much faith." He looked at Hoi-Polloi. "Don"t I?"

"You do, Papa, you do."

"Well, not any more. You go and pack our belongings, sweet. We"re getting out tonight."

"What about the house?" Dowd said. "And all the collectibles downstairs?"

Peccable cast a glance at Hoi-Polloi. "Why don"t you start packing now?" he said, clearly uncomfortable with the idea of debating his black market activities in front of his daughter.

He cast a similar glance at Jude, but she pretended not to comprehend its significance and remained seated. He began to talk anyway.

"When we leave this house we leave it forever," he said. "There"ll be nothing left to come back to, I"m convinced of that." The outraged bourgeois of minutes before, appealing for civil stability, was now replaced by an apocalyptic. "It was bound to happen sooner or later. They couldn"t control the cults in perpetuity."

"They?" said Jude. "The Autarch. And Quaisoir."

The sound of the name was like a blow to her heart. "Quaisoir?" she said.

"His wife. The consort. Our lady of Yzordderrex: Ma"am Quaisoir. She"s been his undoing, if you ask me. He always kept himself hidden away, which was wise; n.o.body thought about him much as long as trade was good and the streets were lit. The taxes, of course: the taxes have been a burden upon us all, especially family men like myself, but let me tell you we"re better off here than they are in Patashoqua or Iahmandhas. No, I don"t think he"s done badly by us. The stories you hear about the state of things when he first took over: Chaos! Half the Kesparates at war with the other half. He brought stability. People prospered. No, it"s not his policies, it"s her her: she"s his undoing. Things were fine until she started to interfere. I suppose she thinks she"s doing us a favor, deigning to appear in public."

"Have you... seen her then?" Jude asked.

"Not personally, no. She stays out of sight, even when she attends executions. Though I heard that she showed herself today, out in the open. Somebody said they"d actually seen her face. Ugly, they said. Brutish. I"m not surprised. All these executions were her idea. She enjoys them, apparently. Well, people don"t like that. Taxes, yes. An occasional purge, some political trials-well, yes, those too; we can accept those. But you can"t make the law into a public spectacle. That"s a mockery, and we"ve never mocked the law in Yzordderrex."

He went on in much the same vein, but Jude wasn"t listening. She was attempting to conceal the heady mixture of feelings that was coursing through her. Quaisoir, the woman with her face, was not some minor player in the life of Yzordderrex but one of its two potentates; by extension, therefore, one of the great rulers of the Imajica. Could she now doubt that there was purpose in her coming to this city? She had a face which owned power. A face that went in secret from the world, but that behind its veils had made the Autarch of Yzordderrex pliant. The question was: What did that mean? After so unremarkable a life on earth, had she been called into this Dominion to taste a little of the power that her other took for granted? Or was she here as a diversion, called to suffer in place of Quaisoir for the crimes she"d supposedly committed? And if so, who was the summoner? Clearly it had to be a Maestro with ready access to the Fifth Dominion and agents there to conspire with. Was G.o.dolphin some part of this plot? Or Dowd, perhaps? That seemed more likely. And what about Quaisoir? Was she in ignorance of the plans being laid on her behalf or a fellow plotter?

Tonight would tell, Jude promised herself. Tonight she"d find some way to intercept Quaisoir as she went to meet her angel-dispatching lover, and before another day had gone by Jude would know whether she"d been brought from the Fifth to be a sister or a scapegoat.

33

Gentle did as he"d promised Pie, and stayed with Huzzah at the cafe where they"d breakfasted until the comet"s arc took it behind the mountain and the light of day gave way to twilight. Doing so tried not only his patience but his nerve, because as the afternoon wore on the unrest from the lower Kesparates spread up through the streets, and it became increasingly apparent that the establishment would stand in the middle of a battlefield by evening. Party by party, the customers vacated their tables as the sound of rioting and gunfire crept closer. A slow rain of s.m.u.ts began to fall, spiraling from a sky which was intermittently darkened now by smoke rising from the burning Kesparates.

As the first wounded began to be carried up the street, indicating that the field of action was now very near, the owners of several nearby shops gathered in the cafe for a short council, debating, presumably, the best way to defend their property. It ended in accusation, the insults an education to both Gentle and Huzzah. Two of the owners returned with weapons a few minutes later, at which point the manager, who introduced himself as Bunyan Blew, asked Gentle if he and his daughter didn"t have a home to go to. Gentle replied that they had promised to meet somebody here earlier in the day, and they would be most obliged if they could remain until their friend arrived.

"I remember you," Blew replied. "You came in this morning, didn"t you, with a woman?"

"That"s who we"re waiting for."

"She put me in mind of somebody I used to know," Blew said. "I hope she"s safe out there."

"So do we," Gentle replied.

"You"d better stay then. But you"ll have to lend me a hand barricading the place."

Bunyan explained that he"d known this was going to happen sooner or later and was prepared for the eventuality. There were timbers to nail over the windows, and a supply of small arms should the mob try to loot his shelves.

In fact, his precautions proved unnecessary. The street became a conduit for ferrying the wounded army from the combat zone, which was moving up the hill one street east of the cafe. There were two nerve-racking hours, however, when the din of shouting and gunfire was coming from all compa.s.s points, and the bottles on Slew"s shelves tinkled every time the ground shook, which was often. One of the shopkeepers who"d left in high dudgeon earlier came beating at the door during this siege, and stumbled over the threshold with blood streaming from his head and tales of destruction from his mouth. The army had called up heavy artillery in the last hour, he reported, and it had practically leveled the harbor and rendered the causeway impa.s.sable, thereby effectively sealing the city. This was all part of the Autarch"s plan, he said. Why else were whole neighborhoods being allowed to burn unchecked? The Autarch was leaving the city to consume its own citizens, knowing the conflagration would not be able to break the palace walls.

"He"s going to let the mob destroy the city," the man went on, "and he doesn"t care what happens to us in the meantime. Selfish b.a.s.t.a.r.d! We"re all going to burn, and he"s not going to lift a finger to help us!"

This scenario certainly fitted the facts. When, at Gentle"s suggestion, they went up onto the roof to get a better view of the situation, it seemed to be exactly as described. The ocean was obliterated by a wall of smoke climbing from the embers of the harbor; further flame-shot columns rose from two dozen neighborhoods, near and far; and through the dirty heat coming off the Oke T"Noon"s pyre the causeway was just visible, its rubble damming the delta. Clogged by smoke, the comet shed a diminished light on the city, and even that was fading as the long twilight deepened.

"It"s time to leave," Gentle told Huzzah.

"Where are we going to go?"

"Back to find Pie"oh"pah," he replied. "While we still can."

It had been apparent from the roof that there was no safe route back to the mystifs Kesparate. The various factions warring in the streets were moving unpredictably. A street that was empty one moment might be thronged the next, and rubble the moment after that. They would have to go on instinct and a prayer, taking as direct a path back to where they"d left Pie"oh"pah as circ.u.mstance allowed. Dusk in this Dominion usually lasted the length of an English midwinter day-five or six hours-the tail of the comet keeping traces of light in the sky long after its fiery head had dropped beneath the horizon. But the smoke thickened as Gentle and Huzzah traveled, eclipsing the languid light and plunging the city into a filthy gloom. There were still the fires to compensate, of course, but between the conflagration, in streets where the lamps hadn"t been lit and the citizens had shuttered their windows and blocked their keyholes to keep any sign of occupation from showing, the darkness was almost impenetrable. In such thoroughfares Gentle hoisted Huzzah onto his shoulders, from which vantage point she was able to s.n.a.t.c.h sights to steer him by.

It was slow going, however, halting at each intersection to calculate the least dangerous route to follow, and taking refuge at the approach of both governmental and revolutionary troops. But for every soldier in this war there were half a dozen bystanders, people daring the tide of battle like beachcombers, retreating before each wave, only to return to their watching places when it receded: a sometimes lethal game. A similar dance was demanded of Gentle and Huzzah. Driven off course again and again, they were obliged to trust to instinct as to their direction, and inevitably instinct finally deserted them.

In an uncommon hush between clamors and bombardments, Gentle said: "Angel? I don"t know where we are any more."

A comprehensive fusillade had brought down most of the Kesparate around them, and there were precious few places of refuge amid the rubble, but Huzzah insisted they find one: a call of nature that could be delayed no longer. Gentle set her down, and she headed off for the dubious cover of a semi-demolished house some yards up the street. He stood guard at the door, calling inside to her and telling her not to venture too far. He"d no sooner offered this warning than the appearance of a small band of armed men drove him back into the shadows of the doorway. But for their weapons, which had presumably been plucked from dead men, they looked ill suited to the role of revolutionaries. The eldest, a barrel of a man in late middle age, still wore the hat and tie he"d most likely gone to work in that morning, while two of his accomplices were barely older than Huzzah. Of the two remaining members, one was an Oethac woman, the other of the tribe to which the executioner in Vanaeph had belonged: a Nullianac, its head like hands joined in prayer.

Gentle glanced back into the darkness, hoping to hush Huzzah before she emerged, but there was no sign of her. He left the step and headed into the ruins. The floor was sticky underfoot, though he couldn"t see with what. He did see Huzzah, however, or her silhouette, as she rose from relieving herself. She saw him too and made a little noise of protest, which he hushed as loudly as he dared. A fresh bombardment close by brought shock waves and bursts of light, by which he glimpsed their refuge: a domestic interior, with a table set for the evening meal, and its cook dead beneath it, her blood the stickiness under his heel.

Beckoning Huzzah to him and holding her tight, he ventured back towards the door as a second bombardment began. It drove the looters to the step for cover, and the Oethac caught sight of Gentle before he could retreat into shadow. She let out a shout, and one of the youths fired into the darkness where Gentle and Huzzah had stood, the bullets spattering plaster and wood splinters in all directions. Backing away from the door through which their attackers were bound to come, Gentle ushered Huzzah into the darkest corner and drew a breath. He barely had time to do so before the trigger-happy youth was at the doorway, firing indiscriminately. Gentle unleashed a pneuma from the darkness, and it flew towards the door. He"d underestimated his strength. The gunman was obliterated in an instant, but the pneuma took the door frame and much of the wall to either side of it at the same time.

Before the dust could clear and the survivors come after them, he went to find Huzzah, but the wall against which she"d been crouching was cracked and curling like a stone wave. He yelled her name as it broke. Her shriek answered him, off to his left. The Nullianac had s.n.a.t.c.hed her up, and for a terrifying instant Gentle thought it intended to annihilate her, but instead it drew her to it like a doll and disappeared into the dust clouds.

He started in pursuit without a backward glance, an error that brought him to his knees before he"d covered two yards of ground, as the Oethac woman delivered a stabbing blow to the small of his back. The wound wasn"t deep, but the shock drove his breath from him as he fell, and her second blow would have taken out the back of his skull had he not rolled out of its way. The small pick she was wielding, wet with his blood, buried itself in the ground, and before she could pull it free he hauled himself to his feet and started after Huzzah and her abductor. The second youth was moving after the Nullianac, squealing with drugged or drunken glee, and Gentle followed the sound when he lost the sight, the chase taking him out of the wasteland and into a Kesparate that had been left relatively untouched by the conflict.

There was good reason. The trade here was in s.e.xual favors, and business was booming. Though the streets were narrower than in any other district Gentle had pa.s.sed through, there was plenty of light spilling from the doorways and windows, the lamps and candles arranged to best illuminate the wares lolling on step and sill. Even a pa.s.sing glance confirmed that there were anatomies and gratifications on offer here that beggared the most dissolute backwaters of Bangkok or Tangiers. Nor was there any paucity of customers. The imminence of death seemed to have whipped up the consensual libido. Even if the flesh pushers and pill pimps who offered their highs as Gentle pa.s.sed never made it to morning, they"d die rich. Needless to say, the sight of a Nullianac carrying a protesting child barely warranted a look in a street sacred to depravity, and Gentle"s calls for the abductor to be stopped went ignored.

The crowd thickened the farther down the street he ventured, and he finally lost both sight and sound of those he was pursuing. There were alleyways off the main thoroughfare (its name-Lickerish Street-daubed on one of the bordello walls), and the darkness of any of them might be concealing the Nullianac. He started to yell Huzzah"s name, but in the come-ons and hagglings two shouted syllables were drowned out. He was about to run on when he glimpsed a man backing out of one of the alleyways with distress on his face. He pushed his way through to the man and took hold of his arm, but he shrugged it off and fled before Gentle could ask what he"d seen. Rather than call Huzzah"s name again, Gentle saved his breath and headed down the alley.

There was a fire of mattresses burning twenty yards down it, tended by a masked woman. Insects had nested in the ticking and were being driven out by the flames, some attempting to fly on burning wings, only to be swatted by the fire maker. Ducking her wild swings, Gentle asked after the Nullianac, and the woman directed him on down the alley with a nod. The ground was seething with refugees from the mattresses, and he broke a hundred sh.e.l.ls with every step until he was well clear of the fumigator"s fire. Lickerish Street was now too far behind him to shed any light on the scene, but the bombardment which the crowd behind him had been so indifferent to still continued all around, and explosions farther up the city"s slopes briefly but garishly lit the alleyway. It was narrow and filthy, the buildings blinded by brick or boarded up, the road between scarcely more than a gutter, choked with trash and decaying vegetable matter. Its stench was sickening, but he breathed it deeply, hoping the pneuma born of and on that foetid air would be all the more potent for its foulness. The theft of Huzzah had already earned her abductors their deaths, but if they had done the least hurt to her he swore to himself he"d return that hurt a hundredfold before he executed them.

The alleyway twisted and turned, narrowing to a man"s width in some places, but the sense that he was closing on them was confirmed when he heard the youth whooping a little way ahead. He slowed his pace a little, advancing through shin-deep refuse, until he came in sight of a light. The alleyway ended a few yards from where he stood, and there, squatting with its back to the wall, was the Nullianac. The light source was neither lamp nor fire but the creature"s head, between the sides of which arcs of energy pa.s.sed back and forth.

By their flickers, Gentle saw his angel, lying on the ground in front of her captor. She was quite still, her body limp, her eyes closed, for which fact Gentle was grateful, given the Nullianac"s present labors. It had stripped the lower half of her body, and its long, pale hands were busy upon her. The whooper was standing a little way off from the scene. He was unzipped, his gun in one hand, his half-hard member in the other. Every now and then he aimed the gun at the child"s head, and another whoop came from his lips.

Nothing would have given Gentle more satisfaction at that moment than unleashing a pneuma against them both from where he stood, but he still wielded the power ineptly and feared that he"d do Huzzah some accidental harm, so he crept a little closer, another explosion on the hill throwing its brutal light down on the scene. By it he caught a glimpse of the Nullianac"s work, and then, more stomach-turning still, heard Huzzah gasp. The light withered as she did so, leaving the Nullianac"s head to shed its flickering gleam on her pain. The whooper was silent now, his eyes fixed on the violation. Looking up, the Nullianac uttered a few syllables shaped out of the chamber between its skulls, and reluctantly the youth obeyed its order, retreating from the scene a little way. Some crisis was near. The arcs in the Nullianac"s head were flaring with fresh urgency, its fingers working as if to expose Huzzah to their discharge. Gentle drew breath, realizing he would have to risk hurting Huzzah if he was to prevent the certainty of worse harm. The whooper heard his intake and turned to peer into the darkness. As he did so another lethal brightness dropped around them from on high. By it, Gentle stood revealed.

The youth fired on the instant, but either his inept.i.tude or his arousal spoiled his aim. The shots went wide. Gentle didn"t give him a second chance. Reserving his pneuma for the Nullianac, he threw himself at the youth, striking the weapon from his hand and kicking the legs from under him. The whooper went down within inches of his gun, but before he could reclaim it Gentle drove his foot down on the outstretched fingers, bringing a very different kind of whoop from the kid"s throat.

Now he turned back on the Nullianac, in time to see it raising its fireful head, the arcs cracking like slapsticks. Gentle"s fist went to his mouth, and he was discharging the pneuma when the whooper seized hold of his leg. The death warrant went from Gentle"s hand, but it struck the Nullianac"s flank rather than its head, wounding but not dispatching it. The kid hauled on Gentle"s leg again, and this time he toppled, falling into the muck where he"d put the whooper seconds before, his punctured back striking the ground hard. The pain blinded him, and when sight returned the youth was up, and rummaging among the a.r.s.enal at his belt. Gentle glanced towards the Nullianac. It had dropped against the wall, its head thrown back and spitting darts of fire. Their light was little, but enough for Gentle to catch the gleam of the dropped gun at his side. He reached for it as the delinquent"s hand fumbled with another weapon, and he had it leveled before the youth could get his cracked finger on the trigger. He pointed not at the youth"s head or heart, but at his groin. A littler target, but one which made the kid drop his gun instantly.

"Don"t do that, sirrah!" he said.

"The belt..." Gentle said, getting to his feet as the youth unbuckled and unburdened himself of his filched a.r.s.enal.

By another blaze from above he saw the boy now full of tics and jitters, pitiful and powerless. There would be no honor in shooting him down, whatever crimes he"d been responsible for.

"Go home," he said. "If I see your face ever again-"

"You won"t, sirrah!" the boy said. "I swear! I swear you won"t!"

He didn"t give Gentle time to change his mind, but fled as the light that had revealed his frailty faded. Gentle turned the gun and his gaze upon the Nullianac. It had raised itself from the ground and slid up the wall into a standing position, its fingers, their tips red with its deed, pressed to the place where the pneuma had struck it. Gentle hoped it was suffering, but he had no way of knowing until it spoke. When it did, when the words came from its wretched head, they were faltering and barely comprehensible.

"Which is it to be...?" it said. "You or her? I will kill one of you before I pa.s.s. Which is it to be?"

"I"ll kill you first," Gentle said, the gun pointed at the Nullianac"s head.

"You could," it said. "I know. You murdered a brother of mine outside Patashoqua."

"Your brother, huh?"

"We"re rare, and know each other"s lives," it said.

"So don"t get any rarer," Gentle advised, taking a step towards Huzzah as he spoke, but keeping his eyes fixed on her violator.

"She"s alive," it said. "I wouldn"t kill a thing so young.

Not quickly. Young deserves slow."

Gentle risked a glance away from the creature. Huzzah"s eyes were indeed wide open and fixed upon him in her terror.

"It"s all right, angel," he said, "nothing"s going to happen to you. Can you move?"

He glanced back at the Nullianac as he spoke, wishing he had some way of interpreting the motions of its little fires. Was it more grievously wounded than he"d thought, and preserving its energies for healing? Or was it biding its time, waiting for its moment to strike?

Huzzah was pulling herself up into a sitting position, the motion bringing little whimpers of pain from her. Gentle longed to cradle and soothe her, but all he"d dared do was drop to his haunches, his eyes fixed on her violator, and reach for the clothes she"d had torn from her.

"Can you walk, angel?"