Imajica Part 91

"Has anything come out out of the Erasure while you've been waiting?" of the Erasure while you've been waiting?"

"No, not come out. In fact, yours is the first voice I've heard since Athanasius left."

"He's part of the Synod now," Gentle said. "Scopique induced him to join us, to represent the Second."

"What happened to the Eurhetemec? Not murdered?"

"He died of old age."

"Will Athanasius be equal to the task?" Jackeen asked; then, thinking his question overstepped the bounds of protocol, he said, "I'm sorry. I've no right to question your judgment in this."

"You've every right," Gentle said. "We've got to have complete faith in each other."

"If you trust Athanasius, then so do I," Jackeen said simply.

"So we're ready."

"There is one thing I'd like to report, if I may."

"What's that?"

"I said nothing's come out of the Erasure, and that's true-"

"But something went in?"

"Yes. Last night, I was sleeping under the table here-" he pointed to his bed of blankets and stone "-and I woke chilled to the marrow. I wasn't sure whether I was dreaming at first, so I was slow to get up. But when I did I saw these figures coming out of the fog. Dozens of them."

"Who were they?"

"Nullianacs," Jackeen said. "Are you familiar with them?"

"Certainly."

"I counted fifty at least, just within sight of me."

"Did they threaten you?"

"I don't think they even saw me. They had their eyes on their destination-"

"The First?"

"That's right. But before they crossed over, they shed their clothes, and made some fires, and burned every last thing they wore or brought with them."

"All of them did this?"

"Every one that I saw. It was extraordinary."

"Can you show me the fires?"

"Easily," Jackeen said, and led Gentle away from the table, talking as he went. "I'd never seen a Nullianac before, but of course I've heard the stories."

"They're brutes," Gentle said. "I killed one in Vanaeph, a few months ago, and then I met one of its brothers in Yzordderrex, and it murdered a child I knew."

"They like innocence, I've heard. It's meat and drink to them. And they're all related to each other, though n.o.body's ever seen the female of the species. In fact, some say there isn't one."

"You seem to know a lot about them."

"Well, I read a good deal," Jackeen said, glancing at Gentle. "But you know what they say: Study nothing except in the knowledge-"

"-that you already knew it."

"That's right."

Gentle looked at the man with fresh interest, hearing the old saw from his lips. Was it so commonplace a dictum that every student had it by heart, or did Chicka Jackeen know the significance of what he was saying? Gentle stopped walking, and Jackeen stopped beside him, offering a smile that verged on the mischievous. Now it was Gentle who did the studying, his text the other man's face: and, reading, saw the dictum proved.

"My G.o.d," he said. "Lucius?"

"Yes, Maestro. It's me."

"Lucius! Lucius!"

The years had taken their toll, of course, though not insufferably. While the face in front of him was no longer that of the eager acolyte he had sent from Gamut Street, it was not marked by more than a tenth of the two centuries in between.

"This is extraordinary," Gentle said.

"I thought maybe you knew who I was, and you were playing a game with me."

"How could I know?"

"Am I really so different?" the other said, clearly a little deflated. "It took me twenty-three years to master the feit of holding, but I thought I'd caught the last of my youth before it went entirely. A little vanity. Forgive me."

"When did you come here?"

"It seems like a lifetime, so it probably is. I wandered back and forth through the Dominions first, studying with one evocator after another, but I was never content with any of them. I had you to judge them by, you see. So I was always dissatisfied."

"I was a lousy teacher," Gentle said.

"Not at all. You taught me the fundamentals, and I've lived by them and prospered. Maybe not in the world's eyes, but in mine."

"The only lesson I gave you was on the stairs. Remember, that last night?"

"Of course I remember. The laws of study, workings, and fear. Wonderful."

"But they weren't mine, Lucius. The mystif taught them to me. I just pa.s.sed them along."

"Isn't that what most teachers do?"

"I think the great ones refine wisdom, they don't simply repeat it. I refined nothing. I thought every word I uttered was perfect, because it was falling from my lips."

"So my idol has feet of clay?"

"I'm afraid so."

"You think I didn't know that? I saw what happened at the Retreat. I saw you fail, and it's because of that I've waited here."

"I don't follow."

"I knew you wouldn't accept failure. You'd wait, and you'd plan, and someday, even if it took a thousand years, you'd come back to try again."

"One of these days I'll tell you how it really happened, and you won't be so impressed."

"However it went, you're here," Lucius said. "And I have my dream at last."

"Which is what?"

"To work with you. To join you in the Ana, Maestro to Maestro." He grinned. "G.o.d is in His Heaven today," he said. "If I'm ever happier than this, it'll kill me. Ah! There, Maestro!" He stopped and pointed to the ground a few yards from them. "That's one of the Nullianacs' fires."

The place was blasted, but there were some remains of the Nullianacs' robes among the ashes. Gentle approached.

"I don't have the wherewithal to sort through them, Lucius. Will you do it for me?"

Lucius obliged, stooping to turn over the cinders and pluck out what remained of the clothes. There were fragments of suits, robes, and coats in a variety of styles, one finely embroidered, after the fas.h.i.+on of Patashoqua, another barely more than sackcloth, a third with medals attached, as if its owner had been a soldier.

"They must have come from all over the Imajica," Gentle said.

"Summoned," Lucius replied.

"That seems like a reasonable a.s.sumption."

"But why?"

Gentle mused a moment. "I think the Unbeheld has taken them into His furnace, Lucius. He's burned them away."

"So He's wiping the Dominions clean?"

"Yes, He is. And the Nullianacs knew it. They threw off their clothes like penitents, because they knew that they were going to their judgment."

"You see," Lucius said, "you are are wise." wise."

"When I'm gone, will you burn even these last pieces?"

"Of course."

"It's His will that we cleanse this place."

"I'll start right away."

"And I'll go back to the Fifth and finish my preparations."

"Is the Retreat still standing?"

"Yes. But that's not where I'll be. I've returned to Gamut Street."

"That was a fine house."

"It's still fine in its way. I saw you there on the stairs only a few nights ago."

"A spirit there and flesh here? What could be more perfect?"

"Being flesh and spirit in the whole of Creation," Gentle said.

"Yes, That would be finer still."

"And it'll happen. It's all One, Lucius."

"I hadn't forgotten that lesson."

"Good."

"But if I may ask-"

"Yes?"

"Would you call me Chicka Jackeen from now on? I've lost the bloom of youth, so I may as well lose the name."

"Maestro Jackeen it is."

"Thank you."

"I'll see you in a few hours," Gentle said, and with that put his thoughts to his return.

This time there were no diversions or loiterings, for sentiment's sake or any other. He went at the speed of his intention back through Yzordderrex and along the Lenten Way, over the Cradle and the benighted heights of the Jokalaylau, pa.s.sing across the Mount of Upper Bayak and Patashoqua (within whose gates he had yet to step), finally returning into the Fifth, to the room he'd left in Gamut Street.

Day was at the window and Clem was at the door, patiently awaiting the return of his Maestro. As soon as he saw a flicker of animation in Gentle's face he began to speak, his message too urgent to be delayed a second longer than it had to be.

"Monday's back," he said.

Gentle stretched and yawned. His nape and lumbar regions ached, and his bladder was ready to burst, but at least he hadn't returned to discover his bowels had given out, as Tick Raw had predicted.

"Good," he said. He got to his feet and hobbled to the mantelpiece, clinging to it as he kicked some life back into his deadened legs. "Did he get all the stones?"

"Yes, he did. But I'm afraid Jude didn't come back with him."

"Where the h.e.l.l is she?"

"He won't tell me. He's got a message from her, he says, but he won't trust it to anyone but you. Do you want to speak to him? He's downstairs, eating breakfast."

"Yes, send him up, will you? And if you can, find me something to eat. Anything but sausages."