Imajica Part 84

"I didn't invent it, I learned it," the mystif replied. "From my mother. And she learned it from her mother, or t her father, who knows? Now you can pa.s.s it on."

"And what am I?" he asked the mystif. "Your son or your daughter?"

Pie looked almost abashed. "You're my Maestro."

"Is that all? We're still masters and servants here? Don't say that."

"What should I say?"

"What you feel."

"Oh." The mystif smiled. "If I told you what I feel we'd be here all day."

The gleam of mischief in its eye was so endearing, and the memory so real, it was all Gentle could do to prevent himself crossing the room and embracing the s.p.a.ce where his friend had sat. But there was work to be done-his Father's business, as Jude had called it-and it was more pressing than indulging his memories. When Little Ease had been ousted from the house, then he'd return here and search for a profounder lesson: that of the workings of the Reconciliation. He needed that education quickly, and the echoes here were surely rife with exchanges on the subject.

"I'll be back," he said to the creature on the sill.

"I'll be waiting," it replied.

He glanced back towards it, and the sun, catching the window behind, momentarily ate into its silhouette, showing him not a whole figure but a fragment. His gut turned, as the image called another back to mind, with appalling force: the Erasure, in roiling chaos, and in the air above his head, the howling rags of his beloved, returned into the Second with some words of warning.

"Undone," it had said, as it fought the claim of the Erasure, "we are... undone."

Had he made some placating reply, s.n.a.t.c.hed from his lips by the storm? He didn't remember. But he heard again the mystif telling him to find Sartori, instructing him that his other knew something that he, Gentle, didn't. And then it had gone, been s.n.a.t.c.hed away into the First Dominion and silenced there.

His heart racing, Gentle shook this horror from his head and looked back towards the sill. It was empty now. But-Pie's exhortation to find Sartori was still in his head. Why had that been so important? he wondered. Even if the mystif had somehow discovered the truth of Gentle's origins in the First Dominion and had failed to communicate the fact, it must have known that Sartori was as much in ignorance of the secret as his brother. So what was the knowledge the mystif had believed Sartori possessed, that it had defied the limits of G.o.d's Kingdom to spur him into pursuit?

A shout from below had him give up the enigma. Jude was calling out to him. He headed down the stairs at speed, following her voice through the house and into the kitchen, which was large and chilly. Jude was standing close to the window, which had gone to ruin many years ago, giving access to the convolvulus from the garden behind, which having entered had rotted in a darkness its own abundance had thickened. The sun could only get pencil beams through this snare of foliage and wood, but they were sufficient to illuminate both the woman and the captive whose head she had pinned beneath her foot. It was Little Ease, his oversized mouth drawn down like a tragic mask, his eyes turned up towards Jude.

"Is this it?" she said.

"This is it."

Little Ease set up a round of thin mewling as Gentle approached, which it turned into words. "I didn't do a thing! You ask her, ask her please, ask her did I do a thing? No, I didn't. Just keeping out of harm's way, I was."

"Sartori's not very happy with you," Gentle said.

"Well, I didn't have a hope," it protested. "Not against the likes of you. Not against a Reconciler."

"So you know that much."

"I do now. 'We have to be whole,'" it quoted, catching Gentle's tone perfectly. " 'We have to be reconciled with everything we ever were-'"

"You were listening."

"I can't help it," the creature said. "I was born inquisitive. I didn't understand it, though," it hastened to add. "I'm not spying, I swear."

"Liar," Jude said. Then to Gentle, "How do we kill it?"

"We don't have to," he said. "Are you afraid, Little Ease?"

"What do you think?"

"Would you swear allegiance to me if you were allowed to live?"

"Where do I sign? Show me the place!"

"You'd let this this live?" Jude said. live?" Jude said.

"Yes."

"What for?" she demanded, grinding her heel upon it. "Look at it."

"Don't," Little Ease begged.

"Swear," said Gentle, going down on his haunches beside it.

"I swear! I swear!"

Gentle looked up at Jude. "Lift your foot," he said.

"You trust it?"

"I don't want death here," he said. "Even this. Let it go, Jude." She didn't move. "I said, let it go let it go."

Reluctance in every sinew, she raised her foot half an inch and Little Ease scrabbled free, instantly taking hold of Gentle's hand.

"I'm yours, Liberatore Liberatore," it said, touching its clammy brow to Gentle's palm, "My head's in your hands. By Hyo, by Heratea, by Hapexamendios, I commit my heart to you."

"Accepted," Gentle said, and stood up.

"What should I do now, Liberatore Liberatore?"

"There's a room at the top of the stairs. Wait for me there"

"For ever and ever."

"A few minutes will do."

It backed off to the door, bowing woozily, then took to its heels.

"How can you trust a thing like that?" Jude said.

"I don't. Not yet."

"But you're willing to try."

"You're d.a.m.ned if you can't forgive, Jude."

"You could forgive Sartori, could you?" she said.

"He's me, he's my brother, and he's my child," Gentle replied. "How could I not?"

With the house made safe, the rest of the company moved in. Monday, ever the scavenger, went off to scour the neighboring houses and streets in search of whatever he could find to offer some modic.u.m of comfort. He returned three times with bounty, the third time taking Clem off with him. They returned half an hour later with two mattresses and armfuls of bed linen, all too clean to have been found abandoned.

"I missed my vocation," Clem said, with Tay's mischief in his features. "Burglary's much more fun than banking."

At this juncture Monday requested permission to borrow Jude's car and drive back to the South Bank, there to collect the belongings he'd left behind in his haste to follow Gentle. She told him yes, but urged him to return as fast as possible. Though it was still bright on the street outside, they would need as many strong arms and wills as they could muster to defend the house when night fell. Clem had settled Celestine in what had been the dining room, laying the larger of the two mattresses on the floor and sitting with her until she slept. When he emerged Tay's feisty presence was mellowed, and the man who came to join Jude on the step was serene.

"Is she asleep?" Jude asked him.

"I don't know if it's sleep or a coma. Where's Gentle?"

"Upstairs, plotting."

"You've argued."

"That's nothing new. Everything else changes, but that remains the same."

He opened one of the bottles of beer sitting on the step and drank with gusto.

"You know, I catch myself every now and then wondering if this is all some hallucination. You've probably got a better grasp of it than I have-you've seen the Dominions; you know it's all real-but when I went off with Monday to get the mattresses, there were people just a few streets away, walking around in the sun as though it was just another day, and I thought, There's a woman back there who's been buried alive for two hundred years, and her son whose Father's a G.o.d I never heard of-"

"So he told you that."

"Oh, yes. And thinking about it, I wanted to just go home, lock the door, and pretend it wasn't happening."

"What stopped you?"

"Monday, mostly. He just takes everything in stride. And knowing Tay's inside me. Though that feels so natural it's like he was always there."

"Maybe he was," she said. "Is there any more beer?"

"Yep."

He handed over a bottle, and she struck it on the step the way he had. The top flew; the beer foamed.

"So what made you want to run?" she said, when she'd slaked her thirst.

"I don't know," Clem replied. "Fear of what's coming, I suppose. But that's stupid, isn't it? We're here at the beginning of something sublime, just the way Tay promised. Light coming into the world, from a place we never even dreamed existed. It's the Birth of the Unconquered Son, isn't it?"

"Oh, the sons are going to be fine," Jude said. "They usually are."

"But you're not so sure about the daughters?"

"No, I'm not," she said. "Hapexamendios killed the G.o.ddesses throughout the Imajica, Clem, or at least tried to. Now I find He's Gentle's Father. That doesn't make me feel too comfortable about doing His work."

"I can understand that."

"Part of me thinks..." She let her voice trail into the silence, the thought unfinished.

"What?" he asked. "Tell me."

"Part of me thinks we're fools to trust either of them, Hapexamendios or His Reconciler. If He was such a loving L G.o.d, why did He do so much harm? And don't tell me He moves in mysterious ways, because that's so much horse s.h.i.t and we both know it."

"Have you talked to Gentle about this?"

"I've tried, but he's got one thing on his mind-"

"Two," Clem said. "The Reconciliation's one. Pie'oh'pah's the other."

"Oh, yes, the glorious Pie'oh'pah."

"Did you know he married it?"

"Yes, he told me."

"It must have been quite a creature."

"I'm a little biased, I'm afraid," she said dryly. "It tried to kill me."

"Gentle said that wasn't Pie's nature."

"No?"

"He told me he ordered it to live its life as an a.s.sa.s.sin or a wh.o.r.e. It's all his fault, he said. He blames himself for everything."

"Does he blame himself or does he just take responsibility?" she said. "There's a difference."

"I don't know," Clem said, unwilling to be drawn on such niceties. "He's certainly lost without Pie."

She kept her counsel here, wanting to say that she too was lost, that she too pined, but not trusting even Clem with this admission.

"He told me Pie's spirit is still alive, like Tay's," Clem was saying. "And when this is all over-"

"He says a lot of things," Jude cut in, weary of hearing Gentle's wisdoms repeated. "And you don't believe him?"

"What do I know?" she said, flinty now. "I don't belong in this Gospel. I'm not his lover, and I won't be his disciple."

A sound behind them, and they turned to find Gentle standing in the hallway, the brightness bouncing up from the step like footlights. There was sweat on his face, and his shirt was stuck to his chest. Clem rose with guilty speed, his heel catching his bottle. It rolled down two steps, spilling frothy beer as it went, before Jude caught it.

"It's hot up there," Gentle said.

"And it's not getting any cooler," Clem observed.

"Can I have a word?"

Jude knew he wanted to speak out of her earshot, but Clem was either too guileless to realize this, which she doubted, or unwilling to play his game. He stayed on the step, obliging Gentle to come to the door.