The Reconciliation

by Clive Barker

  “Well, one of us has,” came the reply.

  “I guessed as much,” Clem said. “Tay went after him. And the revenants too.”

  “When was this?”

  “Christmas Day.”

  Jackeen's teeth were chattering, and Clem ushered him through to the fire, which he had been fueling with sticks of furniture. He threw on a couple of chair legs and invited Jackeen to sit by the blaze to thaw out. The man thanked him and did so. Monday, however, was made of sterner stuff. Availing himself of the whisky that sat beside the hearth, he put several mouthfuls into his system, then set about clearing the room, explaining as he dragged the table into the corner that they needed some working space. With the floor cleared, he opened his jacket and pulled Gentle's gazetteer from beneath his arm, dropping it in front of Clem.

  “What's this?”

  “It's a map of the Imajica,” Monday said.

  “Gentle's work?”

  “Yep.”

  Monday went down on his haunches and flipped the album open, taking out the loose leaves and handing the cover back up to Clem.

  “He wrote a message in it,” Monday said.

  While Clem read the few words Gentle had scribbled on the cover, Monday began to arrange the sheets side by side on the floor, carefully aligning them so that the maps became an unbroken flow. As he worked, he talked, his enthusiasm as unalloyed as ever.

  “You know what he wants us to do, don't you? He wants us to draw this map on every fuekin' wall we can find! On the pavements! On our foreheads! Anywhere and everywhere.”

  “That's quite a task,” said Clem.

  “I'm here to help you,” Chicka Jackeen said. “In whatever capacity I can.”

  He got up from the fire and came to stand beside Clem, where he could admire the pattern that was emerging on the floor in front of them.

  “That's not the only thing you've come to do, is it?” Monday said. “Be honest.”

  “Well, no,” said Jackeen. “I'd also like to find myself a wife. But that will have to wait.”

  “Damn right!” said Monday. “This is our business now.”

  He stood up and stepped out of the circle which the pages of Gentle's album had formed. Here was the Imajica, or rather the tiny part of it which the Reconciler had seen: Patashoqua and Vanaeph; Beatrix and the mountains of the Jokalaylau; Maike, the Cradle, L'Himby, and the Kwem; the Lenten Way, the delta, and Yzordderrex. And then the crossroads outside the city, and the desert beyond, with a single track leading to the borders of the Second Dominion. On the other side of that border, the pages were practically empty. The wanderer had sketched the peninsula he'd sat on, but beyond it he'd simply written: 'This is a new world.

  “And this,” said Jackeen, stooping to indicate the cross at the end of the promontory, “is where the Maestro's pilgrimage ended.”

  “Is that where he's buried?” Clem said.

  “Oh, no,” Jackeen said. “He's gone to places that'll make this life seem like a dream. He's left the circle, you see.”

  “No, I don't,” said Clem. “If he's left the circle, then where's he gone? Where have they all gone?”

  “Into it,” Jackeen said.

  Clem began to smile.

  “May I?” said Jackeen, rising and claiming from Clem's fingers the sheet which carried Gentle's last message.

  My friends, he'd written, Pie is here. I am found. Will you show these pages to the world, so that every wanderer may find their way home?

  “I think our duty is plain, gentlemen,” Jackeen said. He stooped again to lay the final page in the middle of the circle, marking the place of spirits to which the Reconciler had gone. “And when we've done that duty, we have here the map that will show us where we must go. We'll follow him. There's nothing more certain. We'll all of us follow him, by and by.”