Imajica Part 107

"I think she sees her father," Jude said, lifting the child back into the crook of her arm and standing up.

Gentle also stood, watching Jude carry Huzzah to a litter of playthings on the ground. The child pointed and gurgled.

"Do you miss him?" he said.

"I did in the Fifth," Jude replied, her back still turned while she picked up Huzzah's chosen toy. "But I don't here. Not since Huzzah. I never felt quite real till she appeared. I was a figment of the other Judith." She stood up again, turning to Gentle. "You know I still can't really remember all those missing years? I get s.n.a.t.c.hes of them once in a while, but nothing solid. I suppose I was living in a dream. But she's woken me, Gentle." Jude kissed the baby's cheek. "She's made me real. I was only a copy until her. We both were. He knew it and I knew it. But we made something new." She sighed. "I don't miss him," she said. "But I wish he could have seen her. Just once. Just so he could have known what it was to be real too."

She started to cross back to the chair, but the child reached out for Gentle again, letting out a little cry to emphasize her wishes.

"My, my," Jude said. "You are are popular." popular."

She sat down again and put the toy she'd picked up in front of Huzzah. It was a small blue stone.

"Here, darling," she cooed. "Look. What's this? What's this?"

Gurgling with pleasure, the child claimed the plaything from her mother's finger with a dexterity far beyond her tender age. The gurgles became chuckles, as she laid it to her lips, as if to kiss it.

"She likes to laugh," Gentle said.

"She does, thank G.o.d. Oh, now listen to me. Still thanking G.o.d."

"Old habits..."

"That one'll die," Jude said firmly.

The child was putting the toy to her mouth.

"No, sweetie, don't do that," Jude said. Then, to Gentle: "Do you think the Erasure'll decay eventually? I have a friend here called Lotti; she says it will. It'll decay, and then we'll have to live with the stench from the First every time the wind comes that way."

"Maybe a wall could be built."

"By whom? n.o.body wants to go near the place."

"Not even the G.o.ddesses?"

"They've got their work here. And in the Fifth, They want to free the waters there too."

"That should be quite a sight."

"Yes, it should. Maybe I'll go back for that."

Huzzah's laughter had subsided during this exchange, and she was once again studying Gentle, reaching up towards him from her mother's lap. This time her tiny hand was not open but clutching the blue stone.

"I think she wants you to have it," Jude said.

He smiled at the child and said, "Thank you. But you should keep it."

Her gaze became more intent at this, and he was certain she understood every word he was saying. Her hand still proffered its gift, determined he should take it.

"Go on," Jude said.

As much at the behest of the eyes as at Jude's words, Gentle reached down and gingerly took the stone from Huzzah's hand. There was some considerable strength in her. The stone was heavy: heavy and cool.

"Now our peace is really made," Jude said.

"I didn't know we'd been at war," Gentle replied.

"That's the worst kind, isn't it?" Jude said. "But it's over now. It's over forever."

There was a subtle modulation in the plush of the water-curtained arch behind her, and she glanced around. Her expression had been grave, but when she looked back at Gentle she had a smile on her face.

"I have to go," she said as she stood.

The child was chuckling and clutching the air.

"Will I see you again?" Gentle said.

Jude shook her head slowly, looking at him almost indulgently.

"What for?" she murmured. "We've said all we have to say. We've forgiven each other. It's finished."

"Will I be allowed to stay in the city?"

"Of course," she said with a little laugh. "But why would you want to?"

"Because I've come to the end of the pilgrimage."

"Have you?" she said, turning from him to pad towards the arch. "I thought you had one Dominion left."

"I've seen it. I know what's there."

There was a pause. Then Jude said, "Did Celestine ever tell you her story? She did, didn't she?"

"The one about Nisi Nirvana?"

"Yes. She told it to me too, the night before the Reconciliation. Did you understand it?"

"Not really."

"Ah."

"Why?"

"It's just that I didn't either, and I thought maybe..." She shrugged. "I don't know what I thought."

She was at the archway now, and the child was peering over her shoulder at somebody who'd appeared behind the veil of water. The visitor was not, Gentle thought, quite human.

"Hoi-Polloi mentioned our other guests, did she?" Jude said, seeing his astonishment. "They came up out of the ocean, to woo us." She smiled. "Beautiful, some of them. There's going to be such children..."

The smile faltered, just a little.

"Don't be sad, Gentle," she said. "We had our time."

Then she turned from him and took the child through the curtain. He heard Huzzah laugh to see the face that awaited them on the other side, and saw its owner put his silvery arms around mother and child. Then the light in his eyes brightened, running in the curtain, and when it dimmed the family had gone.

Gentle waited in the empty chamber for several minutes, knowing Jude wasn't going to come back, not even certain that he wanted her to but unable to depart until he had fixed in his memory all that had pa.s.sed between them. Only then did he return to the door and step out into the evening air. There was a different kind of enchantment in the wild wood now. Soft blue mists drooped from the canopy and crept up from the pools. The mellifluous songs of dusk birds had replaced those of noon, and the busy drone of pollinators had given way to breath-wing moths.

He looked for Monday but failed to find him, and although there was n.o.body to prevent his loitering in this idyll, he felt ill at ease. This was not his place now. By day it was too full of life, and by night, he guessed, too full of love. It was a new experience for him to feel so utterly immaterial. Even on the road, hanging back from the fires while nonsense tales were told, he'd always known that if he'd simply opened his mouth and identified himself he would have been feted, encircled, adored. Not so here. Here he was nothing: nothing and n.o.body. There were new growths, new mysteries, new marriages.

Perhaps his feet understood that better than his head, because before he'd properly confessed his redundancy to himself they were already carrying him away, out under the water-clad arches and down the slope of the city. He didn't head towards the delta but towards the desert, and though he'd not seen the purpose in this journey when Jude had hinted at it, he didn't now deny his feet their pa.s.sage.

When he'd last emerged from the gate that led out into the desert he'd been carrying Pie, and there'd been a throng of refugees around them. Now he was alone, and though he had no other weight to carry besides his own, he knew the trek ahead of him would exhaust what little sum of will was left to him. He wasn't much concerned at this. If he perished on the way, it scarcely mattered. Whatever Jude had said, his pilgrimage was at an end.

As he reached the crossroads where he'd encountered Floccus Dado, he heard a shout behind him and turned to see a bare-chested Monday galloping towards him through the dwindling light, mounted on a mule, or a striped variation thereof.

"What were you doing, going without me?" he demanded when he reached Gentle's side.

"I looked for you, but you weren't around. I thought you'd gone off to start a family with Hoi-Polloi."

"Nah!" said Monday. "She's got funny ideas, that girl. She said she wanted to introduce me to some fish. I said I wasn't too keen on fish, 'cause the bones get stuck in your throat. Well, that's right, innit? People choke on fish, regular. Anyhow, she looks at me like I just farted and says maybe I should go with you after all. An' I said, I didn't even know you was leaving. So she finds me this ugly little f.u.c.k-" he slapped the hybrid's flank "-and points me in this direction." He glanced back at the city. "I think we're well out of there," he said, dropping his voice. "There was too much water, if you ask me. D'you see it at the gate? A great f.u.c.kin' fountain."

"No, I didn't. That must be recent."

"See? The whole place is going to drown. Let's get the f.u.c.k out of here. Hop on."

"What's the beast called?"

"Tolland," Monday said with a grin. "Which way are we headed?"

Gentle pointed towards the horizon.

"I don't see nothin'."

"Then that must be the right direction."

Ever the pragmatist, Monday hadn't left the city without supplies. He'd made a sack of his s.h.i.+rt and filled it to bursting with succulent fruits, and it was these that sustained them as they traveled. They didn't halt when night came, but kept up their steady pace, taking turns to walk beside the beast so as not to exhaust it and giving it at least as much of the fruit as they ate themselves, plus the piths, cores, and skins of their own portions.

Monday slept much of the time that he rode, but Gentle, despite his fatigue, remained wide awake, too vexed by the problem of how he was going to set this wasteland down in his book of maps to indulge himself in slumber. The stone Huzzah had given him was constantly in his hand, coaxing so much sweat from his pores that several times a little pool gathered in the cup of his palm. Discovering this, he would put the stone away, only to find a few minutes later that he'd taken it out of his pocket without even realizing that he'd done so, and his fingers were once again making play with it.

Now and then he'd cast a backward glance towards Yzordderrex, and it made quite a sight, the benighted flanks of the city glittering in countless places, as though the waters in its streets had become perfect mirrors for the stars. Nor was Yzordderrex the only source of such splendor. The land between the gates of the city and the track that they were following also gleamed here and there, catching its own fragments of the sky's display.

But all such enchantments were gone by the first sign of dawn. The city had long since disappeared into the distance behind them, and the thunderheads in front were lowering. Gentle recognized the baleful color of this sky from the glimpse he and Tick Raw had s.n.a.t.c.hed of the First, Though the Erasure still sealed Hapexamendios' pestilence from the Second, its taint was too persuasive to be obliterated, and the bruisy heavens loomed vaster as they traveled, lying along the entire horizon and climbing to their zenith.

There was some good news, however: they weren't alone. As the wretched remains of the Dearthers' tents appeared on the horizon, so too did a congregation of G.o.d spotters, thirty or so, watching the Erasure. One of them saw Gentle and Monday approaching, and word of their arrival pa.s.sed through the small crowd until it reached one who instantly pelted in the travelers' direction.

"Maestro! Maestro!" he yelled as he came.

It was Chicka Jackeen, of course, and he was in a fair ecstasy to see Gentle, though after the initial flood of greetings the talk became grim.

"What did we do wrong, Maestro?" he wanted to know. "This isn't the way it was meant to be, is it?"

Gentle did his weary best to explain, astonis.h.i.+ng and appalling Chicka Jackeen by turns.

"So Hapexamendios is dead?"

"Yes, he is. And everything in the First is His body. And it's rotting to high heaven."

"What happens when the Erasure decays?"

"Who knows? I'm afraid there's enough rot to stink out the Dominion."

"So what's your plan?" Chicka Jackeen wanted to know.

"I don't have one."

The other looked confounded at this. "But you came all the way here," he said. "You must have had some notion or other."

"I'm sorry to disappoint you," Gentle replied, "but the truth is, this was the only place left for me to go." He stared at the Erasure. "Hapexamendios was my Father, Lucius. Perhaps in my heart of hearts I believe I should be in the First with Him."

"If you don't mind me saying so, boss-" Monday broke in.

"Yes?"

"That's a b.l.o.o.d.y stupid idea."

"If you're going to go in, so am I," Chicka Jackeen said. "I want to see for myself. A dead G.o.d's something to tell your children about, eh?"

"Children?"

"Well," said Jackeen, "it's either that or write my memoirs, and I haven't got the patience for that."

"You?" Gentle said. "You waited two hundred years for me, and you say you haven't got patience?"

"Not any more," came the reply. "I want a life, Maestro."

"I don't blame you."

"But not before I've seen the First."

They'd reached the Erasure by now, and while Chicka Jackeen went among his colleagues to tell them what he and the Reconciler were going to do, Monday once again piped up with his opinion on the venture.

"Don't do it, boss," he said. "You've got nothing to prove. I know you were p.i.s.sed off that they didn't throw a party in Yzordderrex, but f.u.c.k 'em, I say-or, rather, don't. Let 'em have their fish."

Gentle laid his hands on Monday's shoulders. "Don't worry," he said. "This isn't a suicide mission."

"So what's the big hurry? You're dead beat, boss. Have a sleep. Eat something. Get strong. There's all of tomorrow not touched yet."

"I'm fine," Gentle said. "I've got my talisman."