Imajica

  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.

  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 passed, 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 midsummers 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 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 ecumenical business than nurturing a single soul. The Maestros had served their purpose in bringing the Dominions into this sacred space, 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 Godhood 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 God’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 damn 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 massive 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 assault, 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.”

  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 snatch 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.

  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 brimming. 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 h
er 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 assailed. 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! 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. 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 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.

  He didn’t move. Wherever his mind wandered, it was too far from this place—or rather, this place was too small a part of his arena—for him to be claimed by any voices here, however desperate. She halted at the edge of the circle. Though there was nothing to suggest that what lay inside was in flux, she’d seen the harm done to both Dowd and his voider when the bounds had been injudiciously breached. From down below she heard Celestine raise a cry of warning. There was no time for equivocation. What the circle would do it would do, and she’d have to take the consequences.

  Steeling herself, she stepped over the perimeter. Instantly, the myriad discomforts that attended passage afflicted her—itches, pangs, and spasms—and for a moment she thought the circle intended to dispatch her across the In Ovo. But the work it was about had overruled such functions, and the pains simply mounted and mounted, driving her to her knees in front of Gentle. Tears spilled from her knitted lids, and the ripest curses from her lips. The circle hadn’t killed her, but another minute of its persecutions and it might. She had to be quick.

  She forced open her streaming eyes and set her gaze on Gentle. Shouts hadn’t roused him, nor had curses, so she didn’t waste her breath with more. Instead she seized his shoulders and began to shake him. His muscles were lax, and he lolled in her grasp, but either her touch or the fact of her trespass in this charmed circle won a response. He gasped as though he’d been drawn up from some airless deep.

  Now she began to talk.

  “Gentle? Gentle! Open your eyes! Gentle. I said, Open your fucking eyes!”

  She was causing him pain, she knew. The tempo and volume of his gasps increased, and his face, which had been beatifically placid, was knotted with frowns and grimaces. She liked the sight. He’d been so smug in his messianic mode. Now there had to be an end to that complacency, and if it hurt a little it was his own damn fault for being too much his Father’s child.

  “Can you hear me?” she yelled at him. “You’ve got to stop the working. Gentle! You’ve got to stop it!”

  His eyes started to flicker open.

  “Good! Good!” she said, talking at his face like a schoolmarm trying to coax a delinquent pupil.

  “You can do it! You can open your eyes. Go on! Do it! If you won’t, I’ll do it for you, I’m warning you!”

  She was as good as her word, lifting her right hand to his left eye and thumbing back the lid. His eyeball was rolled back into its socket. Wherever he was, it was still a long way off, and she wasn’t sure her body had the strength to resist its harrowment while she coaxed him home.

  Then, from the landing behind her, Sartori’s voice.

  “It’s too late, love,” he said. “Can’t you feel it? It’s too late.”

  She didn’t need to look back at him. She could picture him well enough, with the knives in his hands and elegy on his face. Nor did she reply. She needed every last ounce of will and wit to stir the man in front of her.

  And then inspiration! Her hand went from his face to his groin, from his eyelid to his testicles. Surely there was enough of the old Gentle left in the Reconciler to value his manhood. The flesh of his scrotum was loose in the warmth of the room. His balls were heavy in her hand, heavy and vulnerable. She held them hard.

  “Open your eyes,” she said, “or so help me I’m going to hurt you.”

  He remained impassive. She tightened her grip.

  “Wake up,” she said.

  Still nothing. She squeezed harder, then twisted.

  “Wake up!”

  His breath quickened. She twisted again, and his eyes suddenly opened, his gasps becoming a yell which didn’t stop until there was no breath left in his lungs to loose it on. As he inhaled his arms rose to take hold of Jude at the neck. She lost her grip on his balls, but it didn’t matter. He was awake and raging. He started to rise and, as he did so, pitched her out of the circle. She landed clumsily, but began harassing him before she’d even raised her head.

  “You’ve got to stop the working!”

  “Crazy . . . woman . . .” he growled.

  “I mean it! You’ve got to stop the working! It’s all a plot!” She hauled herself up. “Dowd was right, Gentle! It’s got to be stopped.”

  “You’re not going to spoil it now,” he said. “You’re too late.”

  “Find a way!” she said. “There’s got to be a way!”

  “If you come near me again I’ll kill you,” he warned. He scanned the circle, to be certain it was still intact. It was. “Where’s Clem?” he yelled. “Clem?”

  Only now did he look beyond Judith to the door, and beyond the door to the shadowy figure on the landing. His frown deepened into a scowl of revulsion, and she knew any hope of persuading him was lost. He saw conspiracy here.

  “There, love,” said Sartori. “Didn’t I tell you it was too late?”

  The two gek-a-gek fawned at his feet. The knives gleamed in his fists. This time he didn’t offer the handle of either one. He’d come to take her life if she refused to take her own.

  “Dearest one,” he said, “it’s over.”

  He took a step and crossed the threshold.

  “We can do it here,” he said, looking down at her, “where we were made. What better place?”

  She didn’t need to look back at Gentle to know he was hearing this. Was there some sliver of hope in that fact? Some persuasion that might drop from Sartori’s lips and move Gentle where hers had failed?

  “I’m going to have to do it for us both, love,” he said. “You’re too weak. You can’t see clearly.”

  “I don’t . . . want . . . to die,” she said.

  “You don’t have any choice,” he said. “It’s either by the Father or the Son. That’s all. Father or Son.”

  Behind her, she heard Gentle murmur two syllables.

  “Oh, Pie.”

  Then Sartori took a second step, out of the shadow into the candlelight. When he did, the obsessive scrutiny of the room fixed him in every wretched morsel. His eyes were wet with despair, his lips so dry they w
ere dusty. His skull gleamed through his pallid skin, and his teeth, in their array, made a fatal smile. He was Death, in every detail. And if she recognized that fact—she who loved him—then so, surely, did Gentle.

  He took a third step toward her and raised the knives above his head. She didn’t look away, but turned her face up towards him, daring him to spoil with his blades what he’d caressed with his fingers only minutes before.

  “I would have died for you,” he murmured. The blades were at the top of their gleaming arc, ready to fall. “Why wouldn’t you die for me?”

  He didn’t wait for an answer, even if she’d had one to give, but let the knives descend. As they came for her eyes she looked away, but before they caught her cheek and neck the Reconciler howled behind her, and the whole room shook. She was thrown from her knees, Sartori’s blades missing her by inches. The candles on the mantelpiece guttered and went out, but there were other lights to take their place. The stones of the circle were flickering like tiny bonfires flattened by a high wind, flecks of their brightness racing from them to strike the walls. At the circle’s edge stood Gentle. In his hand, the reason for this turmoil. He’d picked up one of the stones, arming himself and breaking the circle in the same moment. He clearly knew the gravity of his deed. There was grief on his face, so profound it seemed to have incapacitated him. Having raised the stone he was now motionless, as if his will to undo the working had already lost momentum.

  She got to her feet, though the room was shaking more violently than ever. The boards felt solid enough beneath her, but they’d darkened to near invisibility. She could see only the nails that kept them in place; the rest, despite the light from the stones, was pitch black, and as she started towards the circle she seemed to be treading a void.