“No further,” he told Huzzah, then raced towards the open door.
Three guards, two of them Oethacs, were approaching from the opposite direction, but only one of the two had his eyes on Gentle. The man shouted an order which Gentle didn’t catch over N’ashap’s cacophony, but Gentle raised his arms, open-palmed, fearful that the man would be trigger-happy, and at the same time slowed his run to a walk. He was within ten paces of the door, but the guards were there ahead of him. There was a brief exchange with N’ashap, during which Gentle had time to halve the distance between himself and the door, but a second order—this time plainly a demand that he stand still, backed up by the guard’s training his weapon at Gentle’s heart—brought him to a halt.
He’d no sooner done so than N’ashap emerged from the cell, with one hand in Pie’s ringlets and the other holding his sword, a gleaming sweep of steel, to the mystif’s belly. The scars on N’ashap’s swollen head were inflamed by the drink in his system; the rest of his skin was dead white, almost waxen. He reeled as he stood in the doorway, all the more dangerous for his lack of equilibrium. The mystif had proved in New York it could survive traumas that would have laid any human dead in the gutter. But N’ashap’s blade was ready to gut it like a fish, and there’d be no surviving that. The commander’s tiny eyes fixed as best they could on Gentle.
“Your mystif’s very faithful all of a sudden,” he said, panting. “Why’s that? First it comes looking for me, then it won’t let me near it. Maybe it needs your permission, is that it? So give it.” He pushed the blade against Pie’s belly. “Go on. Tell it to be friendly, or it’s dead.”
Gentle lowered his hands a little, very slowly, as if in an attempt to appeal to Pie. “I don’t think we have much choice,” he said, his eyes going between the mystif’s impassive face and the sword poised at its belly, putting the time it would take for a pneuma to blow N’ashap’s head off against the speed of the captain’s blade.
N’ashap was not the only player in the scene, of course. There were three guards already here, all armed, and doubtless more on their way.
“You’d better do what he wants,” Gentle said, drawing a deep breath as he finished speaking.
N’ashap saw him do so, and saw too his hand going to his mouth. Even drunk, he sensed his danger and loosed a shout to the men in the passageway behind him, stepping out of their line of fire, and Gentle’s, as he did so.
Denied one target, Gentle unleashed his breath against the other. The pneuma flew at the guards as their trigger fingers tightened, striking the nearest with such violence his chest erupted. The force of the blow threw the body back against the other two. One went down immediately, his weapon flying from his hand. The other was momentarily blinded by blood and a shrapnel of innards but was quick to regain his balance, and would have blown Gentle’s head off had his target not been on the move, flinging himself towards the corpse. The guard fired once wildly, but before he could fire again Gentle had snatched up the dropped weapon and answered the fire with his own. The guard had enough Oethac blood to be indifferent to the bullets that came his way, till one found his spattered eye and blew it out. He shrieked and fell back, dropping his gun to clamp both hands to the wound.
Ignoring the third man, still moaning on the floor, Gentle went to the cell door. Inside, Captain N’ashap stood face to face with Pie ‘oh’ pah. The mystif’s hand was on the blade. Blood ran from the sliced palm, but the commander was making no attempt to do further damage. He was staring at Pie’s face, his own expression perplexed.
Gentle halted, knowing any intervention on his part would snap N’ashap out of his distracted state. Whoever he was seeing in Pie’s place—the whore who resembled his mother, perhaps; another echo of Tishalullé, in this place of lost mamas?—it was sufficient to keep the blade from removing the mystif’s fingers.
Tears began to well in N’ashap’s eyes. The mystif didn’t move, nor did its gaze flicker from the captain’s face for an instant. It seemed to be winning the battle between N’ashap’s desire and his murderous intention. His hand unknotted from around the sword. The mystif opened its own fingers, and the weight of the sword carried it out of the captain’s grip to the ground. The noise it made striking the stone was too loud to go unheard by N’ashap, however entranced he was, and he shook his head violently, his gaze going instantly from Pie’s face to the weapon that had fallen between them.
The mystif was quick: at the door in two strides. Gentle drew breath, but as his hand went to his mouth he heard a shriek from Huzzah. He glanced down the corridor towards the child, who was retreating before two more guards, both Oethacs, one snatching at her as she fled, the other with his sights on Gentle. Pie seized his arm and dragged him back from the door as N’ashap, still rising as he came, ran at them with his sword. The time to dispatch him with a pneuma had passed. All Gentle had space to do was seize the door handle and slam the cell closed. The key was in the lock, and he turned it as N’ashap’s bulk slammed against the other side.
Huzzah was running now, her pursuer between the second guard and his target. Tossing the gun to Pie, Gentle went to snatch Huzzah up before the Oethac took her. She was in his arms with a stride to spare, and he flung them both aside to give Pie a clear line of fire. The pursuing Oethac realized his jeopardy and went for his own weapon. Gentle looked around at Pie.
“Kill the fuckers!” he yelled, but the mystif was staring at the gun in its hand as though it had found shite there.
“Pie! For Christ’s sake! Kill them!”
Now the mystif raised the gun, but still it seemed incapable of pulling the trigger.
“Do it!” Gentle yelled.
The mystif shook its head, however, and would have lost them all their lives had two clean shots not struck the back of the guards’ necks, dropping them both to the ground.
“Papa!” Huzzah said.
It was indeed the sergeant, with Scopique in tow, who emerged through the smoke. His eyes weren’t on his daughter, whom he’d just saved from death. They were on the soldiers he’d dispatched to do so. He looked traumatized by the deed. Even when Huzzah went to him, sobbing with relief and fear, he barely noticed her. It wasn’t until Gentle shook him from his daze of guilt, saying they should get going while they had half a chance, that he spoke.
“They were my men,” he said.
“And this is your daughter,” Gentle replied. “You made the right choice.”
N’ashap was still battering at the cell door, yelling for help. It could only be moments before he got it.
“What’s the quickest way out?” Gentle asked Scopique.
“I want to let the others out first,” Scopique replied. “Father Athanasius, Izaak, Squalling—”
“There’s no time,” Gentle said. “Tell him, Pie! We have to go now or not at all. Pie? Are you with us?”
“Yes. . . .”
“Then stop dreaming and let’s get going.”
Still protesting that they couldn’t leave the rest under lock and key, Scopique led the quintet up by a back way into the night air. They came out not onto the parapet but onto bare rock.
“Which way now?” Gentle asked.
There was already a proliferation of shouts from below. N’ashap had doubtless been liberated and would be ordering a full alert.
“We have to head for the nearest landfall.”
“That’s the peninsula,” Scopique said, redirecting Gentle’s gaze across the Cradle towards an arm of low-lying land that was barely discernible in the murk of the night.
That murk was their best ally now. If they moved fast enough it would cloak them before their pursuers even knew which direction they’d headed in. There was a beetling pathway down the island’s face to the shore, and Gentle led the way, aware that every one of the four who were following was a liability: Huzzah a child, her father still racked by guilt, Scopique casting backwards glances, and Pie still dazed by the bloodshed. This last was odd in a creature he’d first encountered in
the guise of assassin, but then this journey had changed them both.
As they reached the shore, Scopique said, “I’m sorry. I can’t go. You all head on. I’m going to try and get back in and let the others out.”
Gentle didn’t attempt to persuade him otherwise. “If that’s what you want to do, good luck,” he said. “We have to go.”
“Of course you do! Pie, I’m sorry, my friend, but I couldn’t live with myself if I turned my back on the others. We’ve suffered too long together.” He took the mystif’s hand. “Before you say it, I’ll stay alive. I know my duty, and I’ll be ready when the time comes.”
“I know you will,” the mystif replied, drawing the handshake into an embrace.
“It will be soon,” Scopique said.
“Sooner than I’d wish,” Pie replied; then, leaving Scopique to head back up the cliff face, the mystif joined Gentle, Huzzah, and Aping, who were already ten yards from the shore.
The exchange between Pie and Scopique—with its intimation of a shared agenda hitherto kept secret—had not gone unnoted by Gentle; nor would it go unquestioned. But this was not the time. They had at least half a dozen miles to travel before they reached the peninsula, and there was already a swell of noise from behind them, signaling pursuit. Torch beams raked the shore as the first of N’ashap’s troops emerged to give chase, and from within the walls of the asylum rose the din of the prisoners, finally giving voice to their rage. That, like the murk, might confound the hounds, but not for long.
The torches had found Scopique, and the beams now scanned the shore he’d been ascending from, each sweep wider than the one that preceded it. Aping was carrying Huzzah, which speeded their progress somewhat, and Gentle was just beginning to think that they might stand a chance of survival when one of the torches caught them. It was weak at such a distance, but strong enough that its light picked them out. Gunfire followed immediately. They were difficult targets, however, and the bullets went well wide.
“They’ll catch us now,” Aping gasped. “We should surrender.” He set his daughter down and threw his gun to the ground, turning to spit his accusations in Gentle’s face. “Why did I ever listen to you? I was crazy.”
“If we stay here they’ll shoot us on the spot,” Gentle replied. “Huzzah as well. Do you want that?”
“They won’t shoot us,” he said, taking hold of Huzzah with one hand and raising the other to catch the beams. “Don’t shoot!” he yelled. “Don’t shoot! Captain? Captain! Sir! We surrender!”
“Fuck this,” Gentle said, and reached to haul Huzzah from her father’s grip.
She went into Gentle’s arms readily, but Aping wasn’t about to relinquish her so easily. He turned to snatch her back, and as he did so a bullet struck the ice at their feet. He let Huzzah go and turned to attempt a second appeal. Two shots cut him short, the first striking his leg, the second his chest. Huzzah let out a shriek and wrenched herself from Gentle’s hold, dropping to the ground at her father’s head.
The seconds they’d lost in Aping’s surrender and death were the difference between the slimmest hope of escape and none. Any one of the twenty or so troops advancing upon them now could pick them off at this distance. Even N’ashap, who was leading the group, his walk still unsteady, could scarcely have failed to bring them down.
“What now?” said Pie.
“We have to stand our ground,” Gentle replied. “We’ve got no choice.”
That very ground, however, was no steadier than N’ashap’s walk. Though this Dominion’s suns were in another hemisphere and there was only midnight from horizon to horizon, a tremor was moving through the frozen sea that both Pie and Gentle recognized from almost fatal experience. Huzzah felt it too. She raised her head, her sobs quieting.
“The Lady,” she murmured.
“What about her?” said Gentle.
“She’s near us.”
Gentle put out his hand, and Huzzah took it. As she got up she scanned the ground. So did he. His heart had started to pound furiously, as the memories of the Cradle’s liquification flooded back.
“Can you stop her?” he murmured to Huzzah.
“She’s not come for us,” the girl said, and her gaze went from the still solid ground beneath their feet to the group that N’ashap was still leading in their direction.
“Oh, Goddess . . .” Gentle said.
A cry of alarm was rising from the middle of the approaching pack. One of the torch beams went wild, then another, and another, as one by one the soldiers realized their jeopardy. N’ashap let out a shout himself: a demand for order among his troops that went unobeyed. It was difficult to see precisely what was going on, but Gentle could imagine it well enough. The ground was softening, and the Cradle’s silver waters were bubbling up around their feet. One of the men fired into the air as the sea’s shell broke beneath him; another two or three started back towards the island, only to find their panic excited a quicker dissolution. They went down as if snatched by sharks, silver spume fountaining where they’d stood. N’ashap was still attempting to preserve some measure of command, but it was a lost cause. Realizing this, he began to fire towards the trio, but with the ground rocking beneath him, and the beams no longer trained on his targets, he was virtually shooting blind.
“We should get out of here,” Gentle said, but Huzzah had better advice.
“She won’t hurt us if we’re not afraid,” she said.
Gentle was half tempted to reply that he was indeed afraid, but he kept his silence and his place, despite the fact that the evidence of his eyes suggested the Goddess had no patience with dividing the bad from the misguided or the unrepentant from the prayerful. All but four of their pursuers—N’ashap numbered among them—had already been claimed by the sea, some gone beneath the tide entirely, others still struggling to reach some solid place. Gentle saw one man scrambling up out of the water, only to have the ground he was crawling upon liquify beneath him with such speed the Cradle had closed over him before he had time to scream. Another went down shouting at the water that was bubbling up around him, the last sight of him his gun, held high and still firing.
All the torch carriers had succumbed now, and the only illumination was from the cliff top, where soldiers who’d had the luck to be left behind were training their beams on the massacre, throwing into silhouette the figures of N’ashap and the other three survivors, one of whom was making an attempt to race towards the solid ground where Gentle, Pie, and Huzzah stood. His panic undid him. He’d only run five strides when silvery foam bubbled up in front of him. He turned to retrace his steps, but the route had already gone to seething silver. In desperation he flung away his weapons and attempted to leap to safety, but fell short and went from sight in an instant.
One of the remaining trio, an Oethac, had fallen to his knees to pray, which merely brought him closer to his executioner, who drew him down in the throes of his imprecation, giving him time only to snatch at his comrade’s leg and pull him down at the same time. The place where they’d vanished did not cease to seethe but redoubled its fury now. N’ashap, the last alive, turned to face it, and as he did so the sea rose up like a fountain, until it was half his height again.
“Lady,” Huzzah said.
It was. Carved in water, a breasted body, and a face dancing with glints and glimmers: the Goddess, or her image, made of her native stuff, then gone the same instant as it broke and dropped upon N’ashap. He was borne down so quickly, and the Cradle left rocking so placidly the instant after, it was as though his mother had never made him.
Slowly, Huzzah turned to Gentle. Though her father was dead at her feet, she was smiling in the gloom, the first open smile Gentle had seen on her face.
“The Cradle Lady came,” she said.
They waited awhile, but there were no further visitations. What the Goddess had done—whether it was to save the child, as Huzzah would always believe, or because circumstance had put within her reach the forces that had tainted Her Cradle with th
eir cruelty—She had done with an economy She wasn’t about to spoil with gloating or sentiment. She closed the sea with the same efficiency She’d employed to open it, leaving the place unmarked.
There was no further attempt at pursuit from the guards left on the cliff, though they kept their places, torches piercing the murk.
“We’ve got a lot of sea to cross before dawn,” Pie said. “We don’t want the suns coming up before we reach the peninsula.”
Huzzah took Gentle’s hand. “Did Papa ever tell you where we’re going in Yzordderrex?”
“No,” he said. “But we’ll find the house.”
She didn’t look back at her father’s body, but fixed her eyes on the gray bulk of the distant headland and went without complaint, sometimes smiling to herself, as she remembered that the night had brought her a glimpse of a parent that would never again desert her.
Twenty-nine
I
THE TERRITORY THAT LAY between the shores of the Cradle and the limits of the Third Dominion had been, until the Autarch’s intervention, the site of a natural wonder universally held to mark the center of the Imajica: a column of perfectly hewn and polished rock to which as many names and powers had been ascribed as there were shamans, poets, and storytellers to be moved by it. There was no community within the Reconciled Dominions that had not enshrined it in their mythology and found an epithet to mark it as their own. But its truest name was also perhaps its plainest: the Pivot. Controversy had raged for centuries about whether the Unbeheld had set it down in the smoky wastes of the Kwem to mark the midpoint between the perimeters of the Imajica, or whether a forest of such columns had once stood in the area, and some later hand (moved, perhaps, by Hapexamendios’ wisdom) had leveled all but this one.