Imajica

"You know better than that," he said, his voice dropping to a whisper.

"Tell me," she said, inviting his affections.

He glanced back over his shoulder, towards the legion. If he spoke to them she didn"t hear it. They simply retreated, cowed by his glance. When they were gone, he put his hands to her face, his little fingers just beneath the line of her jaw, his thumbs laid lightly at the corners of her mouth. Despite the heat that was still rising from the cooked asphalt, his skin was chilly.

"One way or another," he said, "we don"t have very long, so I"ll keep this simple. There"s no future for us now. Maybe there was yesterday, but tonight..."

"I thought you were going to build a New Yzordderrex."

"I was. I have the perfect model for it, here." His thumbs went from the corners of her mouth to the middle of her lips and stroked them. "A city made in your image, built in place of these miserable streets."

"But now?"

"We don"t have the time, love. My brother"s about his work up there, and when he"s finished-" he sighed, his voice dropping lower still "-when he"s finished-"

"What?" she said. There was something he wanted to share, but he was forbidding himself.

"I hear you went back to Yzordderrex," he said.

She wanted to press him to complete his earlier explanation, but she knew better than to push too hard, so she answered him, knowing his earlier doubts could surface again if she was patient. Yes, she said, she had indeed been to Yzordderrex, and she"d found the palace much changed. This sparked his interest.

"Who"s taken it over? Not Rosengarten? No. The Dearthers. That d.a.m.n priest Athanasius-"

"None of those."

"Who then?"

"G.o.ddesses."

The web of luminescence fluttered around his head, shaken by his distress.

"They were always there," she told him. "Or at least one was, a G.o.ddess called Uma Umagammagi. Have you ever heard of Her?"

"Legends-"

"She was in the Pivot."

"That"s impossible," he said. "The Pivot belongs to the Unbeheld. The whole of the Imajica belongs to the Unbeheld."

She"d never heard of a breath of subservience in him before, but she heard it now.

"Does He own us too?" she asked him.

"We may escape that," he said. "But it"ll be hard, love. He"s the Father of us all. He expects to be obeyed, even to the very end." Again an aching pause, but this time a request on its heels. "Will you embrace me?" he asked her.

She answered with her arms. His hands slid from her face and through her hair to clasp behind her.

"I used to think it was a G.o.dlike thing to build cities," he murmured. "And if I built one fine enough it would stand forever, and so would I. But everything pa.s.ses away sooner or later, doesn"t it?"

She heard in his words a despair that was the inverse of Gentle"s visionary zeal, as though in the time she"d known them they"d exchanged their lives. Gentle the faithless lover had become a dealer in heavens, while Sartori, the sometime maker of h.e.l.ls, was here holding out love as his last salvation.

"What is G.o.d"s work," she asked him quietly, "if it"s not the building of cities?"

"I don"t know," he said.

"Well... maybe it"s none of our business," she said, pretending a lover"s indifference to matters of moment. "We"ll: forget about the Unbeheld. We"ve got each other. We"ve got the child. We can be together for as long as we like."

There was enough truth in these sentiments, enough hope in her that this vision might come true, that using it for manipulative purpose sickened her. But having turned her: back on the house and all it contained, she could hear in her lover"s whispers echoes of the same doubts that had made her an outcast, and if she had to use the feelings between them as a way to finally solve the enigma, so be it. Her queasiness at her deceit wasn"t soothed by its effectiveness. When Sartori let out a tiny sob, as he did now, she wanted to confess her motives. But she fought the desire and let him suffer, hoping that he"d finally purge himself of all he knew, even though she suspected he"d never dared even shape shape these thoughts before, much less speak them. these thoughts before, much less speak them.

"There"ll be no child," he said, "no being together."

"Why not?" she said, still striving to keep her tone optimistic. "We can leave now, if you want. We can go anywhere and hide away."

"There are no hiding places left," he said.

"We"ll find one."

"No. There are none."

He drew away from her. She was glad of his tears. They were a veil between his gaze and her duplicity.

"I told the Reconciler I was my own destroyer," he said. "I said I saw my works, and I conspired against them. But then I asked myself, Whose eyes am I seeing with? And you know what the answer is? My Father"s eyes, Judith. My Father"s eyes..."

Of all the voices to return into Jude"s head as he spoke, it was Clara Leash"s she heard. Man the destroyer, willfully undoing the world. And what more perfect manhood was there than the G.o.d of the First Dominion?

"If I sec my works with these eyes and want to destroy them," Sartori murmured, "what does He see? What does He want?"

"Reconciliation," she said.

"Yes. But why? It"s not a beginning, Judith. It"s the end. When the Imajica"s whole, He"ll turn it into a wasteland."

She drew away from him. "How do you know?"

"I think I"ve always known."

"And you said nothing? All your talk about the future-"

"I didn"t dare admit it to myself. I didn"t want to believe I was anything but my own man. You understand that. I"ve seen you fight to see with your own eyes. I did the same. I couldn"t admit He had any part of me, until now."

"Why now?"

"Because I see you with my my eyes. I love you with eyes. I love you with my my heart. I love you, Judith, and that means I"m free of Him. I can admit... what... I... heart. I love you, Judith, and that means I"m free of Him. I can admit... what... I... know know."

He dissolved in grief, but his hands kept hold of her as he shook.

"There"s nowhere to hide, love," he said. "We"ve got a few minutes together, you and I; a few sweet moments. Then it"s over."

She heard everything he said, but her thoughts were as much with what was going on in the house behind her. Despite all she"d heard from Uma Umagammagi, despite the zeal of the Maestro, despite all the calamities that would come with her interference, the Reconciliation had to be halted.

"We can still stop Him," she said to Sartori.

"It"s too late," he replied. "Let Him have His victory. We can defy Him a better way. A purer way."

"How?"

"We can die together."

"That"s not defying Him. It"s defeat."

"I don"t want to live with His presence in me. I want to lie down with you and die. It won"t hurt, love."

He opened his jacket. There were two blades at his belt. They glittered by the light of the floating threads, but his eyes glittered more dangerously still. His tears had dried. He looked almost happy.

"It"s the only way," he said.

"I can"t."

"If you love me you will."

She drew her arm from his grasp. "I want to live," she said, backing away from him.

"Don"t desert me," he replied. There was warning in his voice as well as appeal. "Don"t leave me to my Father. Please Please. If you love me don"t leave me to my Father. Judith!"

He drew the knives out of his belt and came after her, offering the handle of one as he came, like a merchant selling suicide. She swiped at the proffered blade, and it went from his grasp. As it flew she turned, hoping to the G.o.ddess that Clem had left the door open. He had; and lit every can-die he could find, to judge by the spill of light onto the step. She picked up her pace, hearing Sartori"s voice behind her as she went. He only spoke her name, but the threat in it was unmistakable. She didn"t reply-her flight from him was answer enough-but when she reached the pavement she glanced back at him. He was picking up the dropped knife, and rising. Again he said: "Judith-"

But this time it was a warning of a different order. Off to her left a motion drew her glance. One of the gek-a-gek, the sharpener, was coming at her, its flat head now wide as a manhole and toothed to its gut.

Sartori yelled an order, but the thing was rogue and came on at her unchecked. She raced for the step, and as she did so heard a whoop from the door, Monday was there, naked but for his grimy underwear: in his hand, a homemade bludgeon, which he swung around his head like a man possessed. She ducked beneath its sweep as she made the step. Clem was behind him, ready to haul her in, but she turned to call Monday to retreat, in time to see the gek-a-gek mounting the step in pursuit. Her defender didn"t retreat, but brought the weapon down in a whistling arc, striking the gek-a-gek"s gaping head. The bludgeon shattered, but the blow sheared off one of the beast"s bulbous eyes. Though wounded, its ma.s.s was still sufficient to carry it forward, and one of its freshly honed claws found Monday"s back as he turned to dodge it. The boy shrieked and might have fallen beneath the Oviate"s attack if Clem hadn"t grabbed his arms and all but thrown him into the house.

The half-blinded beast was a yard from Jude"s feet, its head thrown back as it raged in pain. But it wasn"t the maw she was watching. It was Sartori. He was once again walking towards the house, a knife in each hand, and a gek-a-gek at each heel. His eyes were fixed on her. They shone with sorrow.

"In!" Clem yelled, and she relinquished both sight and step to pitch herself back over the threshold. Clem yelled, and she relinquished both sight and step to pitch herself back over the threshold.

The one-eyed Oviate came after her as she did so, but Clem was fast. The heavy door swung closed, and Hoi-Polloi was there to fling the bolts across, leaving the wounded beast and its still more wounded master out in the darkness.

On the floor above, Gentle heard nothing of this. He had finally pa.s.sed, via the circle"s good offices, through the In Ovo and into what Pie had called the Mansion of the Nexus, the Ana, where he and the other Maestros would undertake the penultimate phase of the working. The conventional life of the senses was redundant in this place, and for Gentle being here was like a dream in which he was knowing but unknown, potent but unfixed. He didn"t mourn the body he"d left in Gamut Street. If he never inhabited it again it would be no loss, he thought. He had a far finer condition here, like a figure in some exquisite equation that could neither be removed nor reduced but was all it had to be-no more, no less-to change the sum of things.

He knew the others were with him, and though he had no sight to see them with, his mind"s eye had never owned so vast a palette as it did now, nor had his invention ever been finer. There was no need for cribbing and forgery here. He had earned with his metempsychosis access to a visionary grasp he"d never dreamt of possessing, and his imagination brimmed with correlatives for the company he kept.

He invented Tick Raw dressed in the motley he"d first seen the man wear in Vanaeph, but fashioned now from the wonders of the Fourth. A suit of mountains, dusted in Jokalaylaurian snow; a shirt of Patashoqua, belted by its walls; a shimmering halo of green and gold, casting its light down on a face as busy as the highway. Scopique was a less gaudy sight, the gray dust of the Kwem billowing around him like a shredded coat, its particles etching the glories of the Third in its folds. The Cradle was there. So were the temples at L"Himby; so was the Lenten Way. There was even a glimpse of the railroad track, the smoke of its locomotive rising to add its murk to the storm.

Then Athanasius, dressed in a clout of dirty cloth and carrying in his bleeding hands a perfect representation of Yzordderrex, from the causeway to the desert, from the harbor to Ipse, The ocean ran from his wounded flank, and the crown of thorns he wore was blossoming, throwing petals of rainbow light down upon all he bore. Finally, there was Chicka Jackeen, here in lightning, the way he"d looked two hundred mid-summers before. He"d been weeping, then, and waxen with fright. But now the storm was his possession, not his scourge, and the arcs of fire that leapt between his fingers were a geometry, austere and beautiful, that solved the mystery of the First, and in unveiling it made perfection the new enigma.

Inventing them this way, Gentle wondered if they in turn were inventing him, or whether his painter"s hunger to see was an irrelevancy to them, and what they imagined, knowing he was with them, was a body subtler than any sight. It would be better that way, he supposed, and with time he"d learn to rise out of his literalisms, just as he"d shrug off the self that wore his name. He had no attachment to this Gentle Gentle left, nor to the tale that hung behind. It was tragedy, that self; any self. It was a marriage made with loss, and had he not wanted one last glimpse of Pie"oh"pah, he might have prayed that his reward for Reconciliation would be this state in perpetuity. left, nor to the tale that hung behind. It was tragedy, that self; any self. It was a marriage made with loss, and had he not wanted one last glimpse of Pie"oh"pah, he might have prayed that his reward for Reconciliation would be this state in perpetuity.

He knew that wasn"t plausible, of course. The Ana"s sanctuary existed for only a brief time, and while it did so it had more ec.u.menical business than nurturing a single soul. The Maestros had served their purpose in bringing the Dominions into this sacred s.p.a.ce, and would soon be redundant. They would return to their circles, leaving Dominion to meld with Dominion, and in so doing drive the In Ovo back like a malignant sea. What would happen then was a matter of conjecture. He doubted there"d be an instant of revelation-all the nations of the Fifth waking to their unfettered state in the same moment. It would most likely be slow, the work of years. Rumors at first, that bridges wreathed in fogs could be found by those eager enough to look. Then the rumors becoming certainties, and the bridges becoming causeways, and the fogs great clouds, until, in a generation or two, children were born who knew without being taught that the species had five Dominions to explore and would one day discover its own G.o.dhood in its wanderings. But the time it took to reach that blessed day was unimportant. The moment the first bridge, however small, was forged, the Imajica was whole; and at that moment every soul in the Dominion, from cradle to deathbed, would be healed in some tiny part and take their next breath lighter for the fact.

Jude waited in the hall long enough to be sure that Monday wasn"t dead; then she headed towards the stairs. The currents which had induced such discomforts were no longer circling in the system of the house: sure sign that some new phase of the working-possibly its last-was under way above. Clem joined her at the bottom of the stairs, armed with another two of Monday"s homemade bludgeons.

"How many of these creatures are there out there?" he demanded.

"Maybe half a dozen."

"You"ll have to watch the back door then," he said, thrusting one of the weapons at Jude.

"You use it," she said, "pressing past him. "Keep them out for as long as you can."

"Where are you going?"

"To stop Gentle."

"Stop him? In G.o.d"s name, why?"

"Because Dowd was right. If he completes the Reconciliation we"re dead."

He cast the bludgeons aside and took hold of her. "No, Judy," he said. "You know I can"t let you do that."

It wasn"t just Clem speaking, but Tay as well: two voices and a single utterance. It was more distressing than anything she"d heard or seen outside, to have this command issue from a face she loved. But she kept her calm.

"Let go of me," she said, reaching for the banister to haul herself up the stairs.

"He"s twisted your mind, Judy," the angels said. "You don"t know what you"re doing."

"I know d.a.m.n well," she said, and fought to wrest herself free.

But Clem"s arms, despite their blistering, were unyielding. She looked for some help from Monday, but he and Hoi-Polloi had their backs to the door, against which the gek-a-gek were beating their ma.s.sive limbs. Stout as the timbers were, they"d splinter soon. She had to get to Gentle before the beasts got in, or it was all over.

And then, above the din of a.s.sault, came a voice she"d only heard raised once before.

"Let her go."

Celestine had emerged from her bedroom, draped in a sheet. The candlelight shook all around her, but she was steady, her gaze mesmeric. The angels looked around at her, Clem"s hands still holding Jude fast.

"She wants to-"

"I know what she wants to do," Celestine said. "If you"re our guardians, guard us now. Let her go Let her go."

Jude felt doubt loosen the hold on her. She didn"t give the angels time to change their mind, but dragged herself free and started up the stairs again. Halfway up, she heard a shout and glanced down to see both Hoi-Polloi and Monday thrown forward as the door"s middle panel broke and a prodigious limb reached through to s.n.a.t.c.h at the air.

"Go on!" Celestine yelled up to her, and Jude returned to her ascent as the woman stepped onto the bottom stair to guard the way. Celestine yelled up to her, and Jude returned to her ascent as the woman stepped onto the bottom stair to guard the way.

Though there was far less light above than below, the details of the physical world became more insistent as she climbed. The flight beneath her bare feet was suddenly a wonderland of grains and knotholes, its geography entrancing. Nor was it simply her sight that filled to br.i.m.m.i.n.g. The banister beneath her hand was more alluring than silk; the scent of sap and the taste of dust begged to be sniffed and savored. Defying these distractions, she fixed her attention on the door ahead, holding her breath and removing her hand from the banister to minimize the sources of sensation. Even so, she was a.s.sailed. The creaks of the stairs were rich enough to be orchestrated. The shadows around the door had nuances to parade and called for her devotion. But she had a rod at her back: the commotion from below. It was getting louder all the time, and now-cutting through the shouts and roars-came the sound of Sartori"s voice.

"Where are you going, love?" he asked her. "You can"t leave me. I won"t let you. Look! Love? Look! Look! I"ve brought the knives." I"ve brought the knives."

She didn"t turn to see, but closed her eyes and stopped her ears with her hands, stumbling up the rest of the stairs blind and deaf. Only when her toes were no longer stubbed, and she knew she was at the top, did she dare the sight again. The seductions began again, instantly. Every nick in every nail of the door said: stop, and study me stop, and study me. The dust rising around her was a constellation she could have lost herself in forever. She pitched herself through it, with her gaze glued to the door handle, and clasped it so hard the discomfort canceled the beguilings long enough for her to turn it and throw the door open. Behind her Sartori was calling again, but this time his voice was slurred, as though he was distracted by profusion.

In front of her was his mirror image, naked at the center of the stones. He sat in the universal posture of the meditator: legs crossed, eyes closed, hands laid palms out in his lap to catch whatever blessings were bestowed. Though there was much in the room to call her attention-mantelpiece, window, boards, and rafters-their sum of enticements, vast as it was, could not compete with the glory of human nakedness, and this this nakedness, that she"d loved and lain beside, more than any other. Neither the blandishments of the walls-their stained plaster like a map of some unknown country-nor the persuasions of the crushed leaves at the sill could distract her now. Her senses were fixed on the Reconciler, and she crossed the room to him in a few short strides, calling his name as she went. nakedness, that she"d loved and lain beside, more than any other. Neither the blandishments of the walls-their stained plaster like a map of some unknown country-nor the persuasions of the crushed leaves at the sill could distract her now. Her senses were fixed on the Reconciler, and she crossed the room to him in a few short strides, calling his name as she went.