by Clive Barker
"I had my reasons," Gentle said softly. "But you were talking about this replacement—"
"Ah, yes. Athanasius."
"Athanasius?"
"He's now our man in Yzordderrex, representing the Second. Don't look so appalled. He knows the ceremony, and he's completely committed to it."
"There's not a sane bone in his body, Scopique. He thought I was Hapexamendios' agent."
"Well, of course, that's nonsense—"
"He tried to kill me with Madonnas. He's crazy!"
"We've all had our moments, Sartori."
"Don't call me that."
"Athanasius is one of the most holy men I've ever met."
"How can he believe in the Holy Mother one moment and claim he's Jesus the next?"
"He can believe in his own mother, can't he?"
"Are you seriously saying—"
"—that Athanasius is literally the resurrected Christos? No. If we have to have a Messiah among us, I vote for you." He sighed. — "Look, I realize you have difficulties with Athanasius, but I ask you, who else was I to find? There aren't that many Maestros left, Sartori.""I told you—"
"Yes, yes, you don't like the name. Well, forgive me, but for as long as I live you'll be the Maestro Sartori, and if you want to find somebody else to sit here instead of me, who'll call you something prettier, find him."
"Were you always this bloody-minded?" Gentle replied.
"No," said Scopique. "It's taken years of practice."
Gentle shook his head in despair. "Athanasius. It's a nightmare."
"Don't be so sure he hasn't got the spirit of Jesu in him, by the way," Scopique said. "Stranger things have been known."
"Any more of this," Gentle said, "and I'll be as crazy as he is. Athanasius! This is a disaster!"
Furious, he left Scopique at the blind and moved off through the dust, trailing imprecations as he went, the optimism with which he'd set out on his journey severely bruised. Rather than appear in front of Athanasius with his thoughts so chaotic, he found a spot on the Lenten Way to ponder. The situation was far from encouraging. Tick Raw was holding his position on the Mount as an outlaw, still in danger of arrest. Scopique was in doubt as to the efficacy of his place now that the Pivot had been removed. And now, of all people to join the Synod, Athanasius, a man without the wit to come out of the rain.
"Oh, God, Pie," Gentle murmured to himself. "I need you now."
The wind blew mournfully along the highway as he loitered, gusting towards the place of passage between the Third and Second Dominions, as if to usher him with it, on towards Yzordderrex. But he resisted its coaxing, taking time to examine the options available to him. There were, he decided, three. One, to abandon the Reconciliation right away, before the frailties he saw in the system were compounded and brought on another tragedy. Two, to find a Maestro who could replace Athanasius. Three, to trust Scopique's judgment and go into Yzordderrex to make his peace with the man. The first of these options was not to be seriously countenanced. This was his Father's business, and he had a sacred duty to perform it. The second, the finding of a replacement for Athanasius, was impractical in the time remaining. Which left the third. It was unpalatable, but it seemed to be unavoidable. He'd have to accept Athanasius into the Synod.
The decision made, he succumbed to the message of the gusts and at a thought went with them, along the straight road, through the gap between the Dominions, and across the delta into the city-god's entrails.
"Hoi-Polloi?"
Peccable's daughter had put down her bludgeon and was kneeling beside Jude with tears pouring from her crossed eyes.
"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry," she kept saying. "I didn't know. I didn't know."
Jude sat up. A team of bell ringers was tuning up between her temples, but she was otherwise unharmed. "What are you doing here?" she asked Hoi-Polloi. "I thought you'd gone with your father."
"I did," she explained, fighting the tears. "But I lost him at the causeway. There were so many people trying to find a way over. One minute he was beside me, and the next he'd vanished. I stayed there for hours, looking for him; then I thought he'd be bound to come back here, to the house, so I came back too—"
"But he wasn't here."
"No."
She started to sob again, and Jude put her arms around her, murmuring condolences.
"I'm sure he's still alive," Hoi-Polloi said. "He's just being sensible and staying under cover. It's not safe out there." She cast a nervous glance up towards the cellar roof. "If he doesn't come back after a few days, maybe you can take me to the Fifth, and he can follow."
"It's no safer there than it is here, believe me."
"What's happening to the world?" Hoi-Polloi wanted to know.
"It's changing," Jude said. "And we have to be ready for the changes, however strange they are."
"I just want things the way they were: Poppa, and the business, and everything in its place—"
"Tulips on the dining room table."
"Yes."
"It's not going to be that way for quite a while," Jude said. "In fact, I'm not sure it'll ever be that way again." She got to her feet.
"Where are you going?" Hoi-Polloi said. "You can't leave."
"I'm afraid I've got to. I came here to work. If you want to come with me, you're welcome, but you'll have to be responsible for yourself."
Hoi-Polloi sniffed hard. "I understand," she said.
"Will you come?"
"I don't want to be alone," she replied. "I'll come."
Jude had been prepared for the scenes of devastation awaiting them beyond the door of Peccable's house, but not for the sense of rapture that accompanied them. Though there were sounds of lamentation rising from somewhere nearby, and that grief was doubtless being echoed in innumerable houses across the city, there was another message on the balmy noonday air.
"What are you smiling at?" Hoi-Polloi asked her.
She hadn't been aware she was doing so, until the girl pointed it out.
"I suppose because it feels like a new day," she said, aware as she spoke that it was also very possibly the last. Perhaps this brightness in the city's air was its acknowledgement of that: the final remission of a sickened soul before decline and collapse.
She voiced none of this to Hoi-Polloi, of course. The girl was already terrified enough. She walked a step behind Jude as they climbed the street, her fretful murmurs punctuated by hiccups. Her distress would have been pro-founder still if she'd been able to sense the confusion in Jude, who had no clue, now that she was here, as to where to find the instruction she'd come in search of. The city was no longer a labyrinth of enchantments, if indeed it had ever been that. It was a virtual wasteland, its countless fires now guttering out but leaving a pall overhead. The comet's light pierced these grimy skirts in several places, however, and where its beams fell won color from the air, like fragments of stained glass shimmering in solution above the griefs below.
Having no better place to head for, Jude directed them towards the nearest of these spots, which was no more than half a mile away. Long before they'd reached the place, a faint drizzle was carried their way by the breeze, and the sound of running water announced the phenomenon's source. The street had cracked open, and either a burst water main or a spring was bubbling up from the tarmac. The sight had brought a number of spectators from the ruins, though very few were venturing close to the water, their fear not of the uncertain ground but of something far stranger. The water issuing from the crack was not running away down the hill but up it, leaping the steps that occasionally broke the slope with a salmon's zeal. The only witnesses unafraid of this mystery were the children, several of whom had wrested themselves from their parents' grip and were playing in the law-defying stream, some running in it, others sitting in the water to let it play over their legs. In the little shrieks they uttered, Jude was sure she heard a note of sexual pleasure.
"What is this?" Hoi-Polloi said, her tone more offended than astonished, as thoug
h the sight had been laid on as a personal affront to her.
"Why don't we follow it and find out?" Jude replied.
"Those children are going to drown," Hoi-Polloi observed, somewhat primly.
"In two inches of water? Don't be ridiculous."
With this, Jude set off, leaving Hoi-Polloi to follow if she so wished. She apparently did, because she once again fell into step behind Jude, her hiccups now abated, and they climbed in silence until, two hundred yards or more from where they'd first encountered the stream, a second appeared, this from another direction entirely and large enough to carry a light freight from the lower slopes. The bulk of the cargo was debris—items of clothing, a few drowned graveolents, some slices of burned bread—but among this trash were objects clearly set upon the stream to be carried wherever it was going: boat missives of carefully folded paper; small wreaths of woven grass, set with tiny flowers; a doll laid on a little flood in a shroud of ribbons.
Jude plucked one of the paper boats out of the water and unfolded it. The writing inside was smeared but legible.
Tishalulle, the letter read. My name is Cimarra Sakeo. 1 send this prayer for my mother and for my father, and for my brother, Boem, who is dead. I have seen you in dreams, Tishalulle, and know you are good. You are in my heart. Please be also in the hearts of my mother and father, and give them your comfort.
Jude passed the letter over to Hoi-Polloi, her gaze following the course of the married streams.
"Who's Tishalulle?" she asked.
Hoi-Polloi didn't reply. Jude glanced around at her, to find that the girl was staring up the hill.
"Tishalulli?" Jude said again.
"She's a Goddess," Hoi-Polloi replied, her voice lowered although there was nobody within earshot. She dropped the letter onto the ground as she spoke, but Jude stooped to pick it up.
"We should be careful of people's prayers," she said, refolding the boat and letting it return to its voyage.
"She'll never get it," Hoi-Polloi said. "She doesn't exist."
"Yet you refuse to say her name out loud."
"We're not supposed to name any of the Goddesses. Poppa taught us that. It's forbidden."
"There are others, then?"
"Oh, yes. There's the sisters of the Delta. And Poppa said there's even one called Jokalaylau, who lived in the mountains."
"Where does Tishalulle come from?"
"The Cradle of Chzercemit, I think. I'm not sure."
"The Cradle of what?"
"It's a lake in the Third Dominion."
This time, Jude knew she was smiling. "Rivers, snows, and lakes," she said, going down on her haunches beside the stream and putting her fingers into it. "They've come in the waters, Hoi-Polloi."
"Who have?"
The stream was cool and played against Jude's fingers, leaping up against her palm. "Don't be obtuse," she said. "The Goddesses. They're here."
"That's impossible. Even if they still existed—and Poppa told me they don't—why would they come here?"
Jude lifted a cupped handful of water to her lips and supped. It tasted sweet. "Perhaps somebody called them," she said. She looked at Hoi-Polloi, whose face was still registering her distaste at what Jude had just done.
"Somebody up there?" the girl said.
"Well, it takes a lot of effort to climb a hill," Jude said. "Especially for water. It's not heading up there because it likes the view. Somebody's pulling it. And if we go with it, sooner or later—"
"I don't think we should do that," Hoi-Polloi replied.
"It's not just the water that's being called," Jude said. "We are too. Can't you feel it?"
"No," the girl said bluntly. "I could turn around now and go back home."
"Is that what you want to do?"
Hoi-Polloi looked at the river running a yard from her foot. As luck would have it, the water was carrying some of its less lovely cargo past them: a flotilla of chicken heads and the partially incinerated carcass of a small dog.
"You drank that," Hoi-Polloi said.
"It tasted fine," Jude said, but looked away as the. dog went by.
The sight had confirmed Hoi-Polloi in her unease. "I think I will go home," she said. "I'm not ready to meet Goddesses, even if they are up there. I've sinned too much."
"That's absurd," said Jude. "This isn't about sin and forgiveness. That kind of nonsense is for the men. This is ..." she faltered, uncertain of the vocabulary, then said, "This is wiser than that."
"How do you know?" Hoi-Polloi replied. "Nobody really understands these things. Even Poppa. He used to tell me he knew how the comet was made, but he didn't. It's the same with you and these Goddesses."
"Why are you so afraid?"
"If I wasn't I'd be dead. And don't condescend to me. I know you think I'm ridiculous, but if you were a bit politer you'd hide it."
"I don't think you're ridiculous."
"Yes, you do."
"No, I just think you loved your Poppa a little too much. There's no crime in that. Believe me, I've made the same mistake myself, over and over again. You trust a man, and the next thing..." She sighed, shaking her head. "Never mind. Maybe you're right. Maybe you should go home. Who knows, perhaps he'll be waiting for you. What do I know?"
They turned their backs on each other without further word, and Jude headed on up the hill, wishing as she went that she'd found a more tactful way of stating her case.
She'd climbed fifty yards when she heard the soft pad of Hoi-Polloi's step behind her, then the girl's voice, its rebuking tone gone, saying, "Poppa's not going to come home, is he?"
Jude turned back, meeting Hoi-Polloi's cross-eyed gaze as best she could. "No," she said, "I don't think he is."
Hoi-Polloi looked at the cracked ground beneath her feet. "I think I've always known that," she said, "but I just haven't been able to admit it." Now she looked up again and, contrary to Jude's expectation, was dry-eyed. Indeed, she almost looked happy, as though she was lighter for this admission. "We're both alone now, aren't we?" she said.
"Yes, we are."
"So maybe we should go on together. For both our sakes."
"Thank you for thinking of me," Jude said. " "We women should stick together," Hoi-Polloi replied, and came to join Jude as she resumed the climb.
To Gentle's eye Yzordderrex looked like a fever dream of itself. A dark borealis hung above the palace, but the streets and squares were everywhere visited by wonders. Rivers sprang from the fractured pavements and danced up the mountainside, spitting their climb in gravity's face. A nimbus of color painted the air over each of the springing places, bright as a flock of parrots. It was a spectacle he knew Pie would have reveled in, and he made a mental note of every strangeness along the way, so that he could paint the scene in words when he was back at the mystifs side.
But it wasn't all wonders. These prisms and waters rose amid scenes of utter devastation, where keening widows sat, barely distinguishable from the blackened rubble of their houses. Only the Eurhetemec Kesparate, at the gates of which he presently stood, seemed to be untouched by the fire raisers. There was no sign of any inhabitant, however, and Gentle wandered for several minutes, silently honing a fresh set of insults for Scopique, when he caught sight of the man he'd come to find. Athanasius was standing in front of one of the trees that lined the boulevards of the Kesparate, staring up at it admiringly. Though the foliage was still in place, the arrangement of branches it grew upon was visible, and Gentle didn't have to be an aspirant Christos to see how readily a body might be nailed to them. He called Athanasius' name several times as he approached, but the man seemed lost in reverie and didn't look around, even when Gentle was at his shoulder. He did, however, reply.
"You came not a moment too soon," he said.
"Auto-crucifixion," Gentle replied. "Now that would be a miracle."
Athanasius turned to him. His face was sallow and his forehead bloody. He looked at the scabs on Gentle's brow and shook his head.
"Two of a kind," he s
aid. Then he raised his hands. The palms bore unmistakable marks. "Have you got these too?"
"No. And these"—Gentle pointed to his forehead— "aren't what you think. Why do you do this to yourself?"
"I didn't do it," Athanasius replied. "I woke up with these wounds. Believe me, I don't welcome them."
Gentle's face registered his skepticism, and Athanasius responded with vim.
"I've never wanted any of this," he said. "Not the stigmata. Not the dreams."
"So why were you looking at the tree?"
"I'm hungry," came the reply, "and I was wondering if I had the strength to climb."
The gaze directed Gentle's attention back to the tree. Amid the foliage on the higher branches were clusters of comet-ripened fruit, like zebra tangerines.
"I can't help you, I'm afraid," Gentle said. "I don't have enough substance to catch hold of them. Can't you shake them down?"
"I tried. Never mind. We've got more important business than my belly."
"Finding you bandages, for one," Gentle said, his suspicions chastened out of him by this misunderstanding, at least for the moment. "I don't want you Weeding to death before we begin the Reconciliation."
"You mean these?" he said, looking at his hands. "No, it stops and starts whenever it wants. I'm used to it."
"Well, then, we should at least find you something to eat. Have you tried any of the houses?"
"I'm not a thief."
"I don't think anybody's coming back, Athanasius. Let's find you some sustenance before you pass out."
They went to the nearest house, and after a little encouragement from Gentle, who was surprised to find such moral nicety in his companion, Athanasius kicked open the door. The house had either been looted or vacated in haste, but the kitchen had been left untouched and was well stocked. There Athanasius daintily prepared himself a sandwich with his wounded hands, bloodying the bread as he did so.
"I've such a hunger on me," he said. "I suppose you've been fasting, have you?"
"No. Was I supposed to?"
