Clive Barker - Imajica 02 - The Reconciliator

"It's over, Mama...."

"I know, child," Celestine said. There was conciliation in her tone, not rebuke.

"He's going to kill everything...."

"Yes. I know that too."

"I had to hold the circle for Him... it's what He wanted."

"And you had to do what He wanted. I understand that, child. Believe me, I do. 1 served Him too, remember? It's no great crime."

At these words of forgiveness, the door of the Meditation Room clicked open and slowly swung wide. Jude was too far down the staircase to see more than the rafters, lit either by a candle or the halo of Oviate tissue that had attended on Sartori when he was out in the street. With the door open, his voice was much clearer.

"Will you come in?" he asked Celestine.

"Do you want me to?"

"Yes, Mama. Please. I'd like us to be together when the end conies."

A familiar sentiment, Jude thought. Apparently he didn't much care what breast he laid his sobbing head on, as long as he wasn't left to die alone. Celestine put up no further show of ambivalence but accepted her child's invitation and stepped inside. The door didn't close, nor did the gek-a-gek creep back into place to block it. Celestine was quickly gone from sight, however. Jude was sorely tempted to continue her ascent and watch what unfolded inside, but she was afraid that any further advance would be sensed by the Oviates, so she gingerly sat down on the stairs, halfway between the Maestro at the top and the body at the bottom. There she waited, listening to the silence of the house; of the street; of the world.

In her mind, she shaped a prayer.

Goddess, she thought, this is Your sister, Judith. There's a fire coming, Goddess. It's almost upon me, and I'm afraid.

From above, she heard Sartori speak, his voice now so low she could catch none of his words even with the door open. But she heard the tears that they became, and the sound broke her concentration. The thread of her prayer was lost. No matter. She'd said enough to summarize her feelings.

The fire's almost upon me, Goddess. lam afraid.

What was there left to say?

The speed at which Gentle and the Nullianac traveled didn't diminish the scale of the city they were passing through: quite the opposite. As the minutes passed, and the streets continued to flicker by, thousand upon thousand, their buildings all raised from the same ripely colored stone, all built to obscure the sky, all laid to the horizon, the magnitude of this labor began to seem not epic but insane. However alluring its colors were, however satisfying its geometries and exquisite its details, the city was the work of a collective madness: a compulsive vision that had refused to be placated until it had covered every inch of the Dominion with monuments to its own relentlessness. Nor was there any sign of any life on any street, leading Gentle to a suspicion that he finally voiced, not as a statement but as a question.

"Who lives here?" he said.

"Hapexamendios."

"And who else?"

"It's His city," the Nullianac said,

"Are there no citizens?"

"It's His city."

The answer was plain enough: the place was deserted. The shaking of vines and drapes he'd seen when he'd first arrived had either been caused by his approach or, more likely, been a game of illusion the empty buildings had devised to while away the centuries.

But at last, after traveling through innumerable streets that were indistinguishable from each other, there were finally subtle signs of change in the structures ahead. Their luscious colors were steadily deepening, the stone so drenched it must soon surely ooze and run. And there was a new elaboration in the fagades, and a perfection in their proportions, that made Gentle think that he and the Nullianac were approaching the First Cause, the district of which the streets they'd passed through had been imitations, diluted by repetition.

Confirming his suspicion that the journey was nearing its end, Gentle's guide spoke.

"He knew you'd come," it said. "He sent some of my brothers to the perimeter to look for you."

"Are there many of you?"

"Many," the Nulh'anac said. "Minus one." It looked in Gentle's direction, "But you know this, of course. You killed him."

"He would have killed me if I hadn't."

"And wouldn't that have been a proud boast for our, tribe," it said, "to have killed the Son of God?"

It made a laugh from its lightning, though there was more humor in a death rattle.

"Aren't you afraid?" Gentle asked it,

"Why should I be afraid?"

"Talking this way when my Father may hear you?"

"He needs my service," came the reply. "And I do not need to live." It paused, then said, "Though I would miss burning the Dominions."

Now it was Gentle's turn to ask why.

"Because it's what I was born to do. I've lived too long, waiting for this."

"How long?"

"Many thousands of years, Maestro. Many, many thousands.":

It silenced Gentle, to think that he was traveling beside an entity whose span was so much vaster than his own, and anticipated this imminent destruction as its life's reward. How far off was that prize? he wondered. His sense of time was impoverished without the tick of breath and heartbeat . to aid it, and he had no clue as to whether he'd vacated his body in Gamut Street two minutes before, or five, or ten. It was in truth academic. With the Dominions reconciled, Hapexamendios could choose His moment, and Gentle's only comfort was the continued presence of his guide, who would be, he suspected, gone from his side at the first call to arms.

As the street ahead grew denser, the Nullianac's speed and height dropped, until they were hovering inches above the ground, the buildings around them grotesquely elaborate now, every fraction of their brick and stonework etched and carved and filigreed. There was no beauty in these intricacies, only obsession. Their surfeit was more morbid than lively, like the ceaseless, witless motion of maggots. And the same decadence had overcome the colors, the delicacy and profusion of which he'd so admired in the suburbs. Their nuances were gone. Every color now competed with scarlet, the mingled show not brightening the air but bruising it. Nor was there light here in the same abundance as there'd been at the outskirts of the city. Though seams of brightness still flickered in the stone, the elaboration that surrounded them devoured their glow and left these depths dismal.

"I can go no farther than this, Reconciler," the Nullianac said. "From here, you go alone."

"Shall I tell my Father who found me?" Gentle said, hoping that the offer might coax a few more tidbits from the creature before he came into Hapexamendios' presence.

"I have no name," the Nullianac replied. "I am my brother and my brother is me."

"I see. That's a pity."

"But you offered me a kindness, Reconciler. Let me offer you one."

"Yes?"

"Name me a place to destroy in your name, and I'll make it my business to do so: a city, a country, whatever."

"Why would I want that?" Gentle said.

"Because you're your Father's son," came the reply. "And what your Father wants, so will you."

Despite all his caution, Gentle couldn't help but give the destroyer a sour look.

"No?" it said.

"No."

"Then we're both without gifts to give," it said and, turning its back, rose and went from Gentle without another word.

He didn't call after it for directions. There was only one way to go now, and that was on, into the heart of the me tropolis, choked though it was by gaud and elaboration. He had the power to go at the speed of thought, of course, but he wished to do nothing that might alarm the Unbeheld, so took his spirit into the garish gloom like a pedestrian, wan dering between edifices so fraught with ornament they could not be far from collapse.