Clive Barker - Imajica 02 - The Reconciliator

"But now?"

"We don't have the time, love. My brother's about his work up there, and when he's finished"—he sighed, his voice dropping lower still—"when he's finished—"

"What?" she said. There was something he wanted to share, but he was forbidding himself.

"I hear you went back to Yzordderrex," he said.

She wanted to press him to complete his earlier explanation, but she knew better than to push too hard, so she answered him, knowing his earlier doubts could surface again if she was patient. Yes, she said, she had indeed been to Yzordderrex, and she'd found the palace much changed. This sparked his interest.

"Who's taken it over? Not Rosengarten? No. The Dearthers. That damn priest Athanasius—"

"None of those."

"Who then?"

"Goddesses."

The web of luminescence fluttered around his head, shaken by his distress.

"They were always there," she told him. "Or at least one was, a Goddess called Uma Umagammagi. Have you ever heard of Her?"

"Legends—"

"She was in the Pivot."

"That's impossible," he said. "The Pivot belongs to the Unbeheld. The whole of the Imajica belongs to the Unbeheld."

She'd never heard of a breath of subservience in him before, but she heard it now.

"Does He own us too?" she asked him.

"We may escape that," he said. "But it'll be hard, love. He's the Father of us all. He expects to be obeyed, even to the very end." Again an aching pause, but this time a request on its heels. "Will you embrace me?" he asked her.

She answered with her arms. His hands slid from her face and through her hair to clasp behind her.

"I used to think it was a godlike thing to build cities," he murmured. "And if I built one fine enough it would stand forever, and so would I. But everything passes away sooner or later, doesn't it?"

She heard in his words a despair that was the inverse of Gentle's visionary zeal, as though in the time she'd known them they'd exchanged their lives. Gentle the faithless lover had become a dealer in heavens, while Sartori, the sometime maker of hells, was here holding out love as his last salvation.

"What is God's work," she asked him quietly, "if it's not the building of cities?"

"I don't know," he said.

"Well... maybe it's none of our business," she said, pretending a lover's indifference to matters of moment. "We'll: forget about the Unbeheld. We've got each other. We've got the child. We can be together for as long as we like."

There was enough truth in these sentiments, enough hope in her that this vision might come true, that using it for manipulative purpose sickened her. But having turned her: back on the house and all it contained, she could hear in her lover's whispers echoes of the same doubts that had made her an outcast, and if she had to use the feelings betweea them as a way to finally solve the enigma, so be it. Her queasiness at her deceit wasn't soothed by its effectiveness. When Sartori let out a tiny sob, as he did now, she wanted to confess her motives. But she fought the desire and let him suffer, hoping that he'd finally purge himself of all he knew, — even though she suspected he'd never dared even shape these thoughts before, much less speak them.

"There'll be no child," he said, "no being together."

"Why not?" she said, still striving to keep her tone optimistic. "We can leave now, if you want. We can go anywhere and hide away."

"There are no hiding places left," he said.

"We'll find one."

"No. There are none."

He drew away from her. She was glad of his tears. They. were a veil between his gaze and her duplicity.

"I told the Reconciler I was my own destroyer," he said. "I said I saw my works, and I conspired against them. But then I asked myself, Whose eyes am I seeing with? And you know what the answer is? My Father's eyes, Judith. My Father's eyes...."

Of all the voices to return into Jude's head as he spoke, it was Clara Leash's she heard. Man the destroyer, willfully undoing the world. And what more perfect manhood was there than the God of the First Dominion?

"If I sec my works with these eyes and want to destroy them," Sartori murmured, "what does He see? What does He want?"

"Reconciliation," she said.

"Yes. But why? It's not a beginning, Judith. It's the end. When the Imajica's whole, He'll turn it into a wasteland."

She drew away from him. "How do you know?"

"I think I've always known."

"And you said nothing? All your talk about the future—"

"I didn't dare admit it to myself. I didn't want to believe I was anything but my own man. You understand that. I've seen you fight to see with your own eyes. I did the same. I couldn't admit He had any part of me, until now." "Why now?"

"Because I see you with my eyes. I love you with my heart. I love you, Judith, and that means I'm free of Him. I can admit... what... I... know."

He dissolved in grief, but his hands kept hold of her as he shook.

"There's nowhere to hide, love," he said. "We've got a few minutes together, you and I: a few sweet moments. Then it's over."

She heard everything he said, but her thoughts were as much with what was going on in the house behind her. Despite all she'd heard from Uma Umagammagi, despite the zeal of the Maestro, despite all the calamities that would come with her interference, the Reconciliation had to be halted.

"We can still stop Him," she said to Sartori.

"It's too late," he replied. "Let Him have His victory. We can defy Him a better way. A purer way."

"How?"

"We can die together."

"That's not defying Him. It's defeat."

"I don't want to live with His presence in me. I want to lie down with you and die. It won't hurt, love."

He opened his jacket. There were two blades at his belt. They glittered by the light of the floating threads, but his eyes glittered more dangerously still. His tears had dried. He looked almost happy.

"It's the only way," he said.

"I can't."

"If you love me you will."

She drew her arm from his grasp. "I want to live," she said, backing away from him.

"Don't desert me," he replied. There was warning in his voice as well as appeal. "Don't leave me to my Father. Please. If you love me don't leave me to my Father. Judith!" .

He drew the knives out of his belt and came after her, offering the handle of one as he came, like a merchant selling suicide. She swiped at the proffered blade, and it went from his grasp. As it flew she turned, hoping to the Goddess that Clem had left the door open. He had; and lit every can—die he could find, to judge by the spill of light onto the step. She picked up her pace, hearing Sartori's voice behind her as she went. He only spoke her name, but the threat in it was unmistakable. She didn't reply—her flight from him was answer enough—but when she reached the pavement she glanced back at him. He was picking up the dropped knife, and rising.

Again he said, "Judith—"

But this time it was a warning of a different order. Off to her left a motion drew her glance. One of the gek-a-gek, the sharpener, was coming at her, its flat head now wide as a manhole and toothed to its gut.

Sartori yelled an order, but the thing was rogue and came on at her unchecked. She raced for the step, and as she did so heard a whoop from the door, Monday was there, naked but for his grimy underwear: in his hand, a homemade bludgeon, which he swung around his head like a man possessed. She ducked beneath its sweep as she made the step. Clem was behind him, ready to haul her in, but she turned to call Monday to retreat, in time to see the gek-a-gek mounting the step in pursuit. Her defender didn't retreat, but brought the weapon down in a whistling arc, striking the gek-a-gek's gaping head. The bludgeon shattered, but the blow sheared off one of the beast's bulbous eyes. Though wounded, its mass was still sufficient to carry it forward, and one of its freshly honed claws found Monday's back as he turned to dodge it. The boy shrieked and might have fallen beneath the Oviate's attack if Clem hadn't grabbed his arms and all but thrown him into the house.