"They were safe enough when we left them," Cardenas explained.

"We watched a steady stream of a.s.sa.s.sins tramp through the ward," Simon told him impatiently. "It seemed time to do something about it."

They exchanged what news they could, and then Cardenas seized their joint attentions.

"All right," he began, spreading his strange map on the floor beneath his taper light. "All right, senor samurai, lets talk architecture and mathematics and for the moment lay thoughts of magic aside. Youll recall I once told you that my early studies at the university concentrated in mathematics. I remembered theories-silly geometric games, actually, at least thats what we thought-concerning manifold structures-"

"Manifold?"

"Si-multidimensional surfaces. Now look-" He fumbled out a deck of playing cards from a pocket. "Dont know why I kept these. The deck is three cards short. But perhaps it was providential. Now watch..." He fashioned a small house of cards, then collapsed it. "Where have the rooms gone?"

Gonji shrugged. "Nowhere. In the s.p.a.ce above. What are you getting at?"

"The s.p.a.ce still exists. It was defined by the enclosing surfaces. The surfaces are still there, but the figure has been enfolded. Closed inside itself. The walls occupy new dimensions. They dont exist in 'our s.p.a.ce. The s.p.a.ces are in new containment. Perhaps-perhaps in other worlds, coexisting with our own."

Gonji recalled Domingos similarly bizarre talk of alternate worlds. "Go on," he said to Cardenas grimly.

"This fortress has possibly been so enfolded. From our own world, all that shows is the small block on the surface, where we entered. But we have seen that an entire fortress is indeed contained within that block, all its walls, its apertures intact, by some...unknown manipulation of what we call s.p.a.ce. It all occupies a new...arrangement of s.p.a.ce." Cardenas motioned with his hands in a futile effort at delineation. "See my ill.u.s.tration-Ive tried to display the unfolding of the surfaces our eyes see. Judging by what Simon and I noted, the distortion of the pa.s.sages would be similar to what weve experienced."

"By what magic is this possible?" Sergeant Orozco asked, his brow crinkling. Cardenas could only shrug.

"So how does this help us with our immediate problems?" Gonji asked impatiently.

"It may not," the educated solicitor admitted, "if this is an individual phenomenon. But if what the witch told you is true-the business of the concurrent worlds, one within another, then there may be a place where they all overlap, a contiguous dimension, one they all touch, from which it all operates. Else-it might all collide. Be destroyed. Universal cataclysm."

There was silence for a s.p.a.ce.

Gonji exhaled heavily. "What do you suggest?"

"That we try to find it."

"Where?" Buey said.

"At the center, the final place of unfolding. Id guess...that would be somewhere in the lower reaches of this fortress. Weve seen little of them."

No one seemed cheered by Cardenas observation.

"Then we go on together," Gonji said slowly, considering. "Downward, somehow, I suppose. But let me remind you of our most immediate need-that of survival. Our enemies could be anywhere now. We must try to find those that still stalk us. And the dead may have an advantage. What one knows, they may all know. Who can say?"

"You speak of magic again," Cardenas reminded with a smile. "I am talking science and-"

"Gomen nasai-so sorry, but dead men are indeed stalking and killing us, agreed? Magic or science-it may all be of a piece, somewhere."

Cardenas shrugged. "Granted."

"Simon, are you well enough?" Gonji inquired sincerely.

"Oui, no thanks to your leadership, once again." He smirked crookedly. "There is still Evil about. Let us have done with these...hunters from the grave, one way or the other."

"Hai. Im afraid, my friends, that there is no gatekeeper, despite my witch friends a.s.surances. We must discover our secrets for ourselves. But first...survival."

"And let us hope and pray," Ahmed added, showing his parched tongue, "that those secrets include the location of water. And perhaps even a bit of food."

Gonjis jaw set, and a thundercloud settled over his features. "You are most honorable warriors, one and all. So sorry, but I must request of you one more service. Let us re-gather the women, and then turn on our predators. Gentlemen-ready your weapons."

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT.

Valentina was lost in clutching, enfolding darkness. Dank and musty, with the stench of a tomb. But not silent as a tomb: Something scurried along the walls, seeking her out.

She spat out an angry tuff of breath and knelt to steady the pistol, holding the mewling infant close with one arm. For an instant she hated the wygyll babe. What was it to her? What did she care for it? She would abandon it to- The scurrying feet came closer. She hugged the child tight to her bosom and snarled like an animal. Then what was left of her rational world dissolved with the white pinpoints that glowed in the hole that devoured the wall before her. The wall became a doorway into shepherds heaven. A wash of warmer, drier air embraced her like an enfolding mothers caress.

She saw first the rolling hill, green even in the velvety blackness of a night sky filled with a million cascading stars out of a poets dream. The hill was truncated, ending at some indistinguishable distance, a hillock floating in s.p.a.ce. The voussoirs of a broken arch loomed up before her. Curving along its apex was a crumbling inscription: ET IN ARCADIA EGO.

And seated with his back against the rear of the arch was a fair-skinned blond man, of indeterminate age, in a tunic, breeches, and sandals.

He turned and gazed at her over his shoulder, surprise fluttering his eyelids. He saw the wheel-lock pistol in her trembling fist.

"Please-there is no violence here. Your baby is crying."

Valentina was shaking, but the soft spell of peacefulness in the place, something in his alien tone, won her over. She lowered the pistol, looked behind her. The fortress was gone, supplanted by more intoxicatingly scented hills.

"I cant understand you," she said. "Do you speak-"

"Ah-Castilian Spanish. The lower worlds. Si, I speak it, along with a hundred other languages and dialects." He repeated his first words to her.

"Its not my baby. It is called a... wygyll."

"You use-an English word. You are a human woman, of the lower orders. I see few..." He seemed to drift into a private reverie a moment, then rose to approach her.

"I need water," Valentina said flatly. "The baby needs-milk, I suppose?"

He smiled paternally. "And you expect Ill produce a crude decanter of some sort. And a-lactating bovine beast?" He placed his hands at his chest, then performed a series of hand manipulations at eye level. The sound of rushing water came first, then two gateways opened in the air before him, ground-level, ragged doorway views of placid streams. A gaping Valentina could only process these as the "wounded s.p.a.ce" of two other, fanciful worlds. One floral-bordered patch ran with bubbling water; the other-dimmer and emanating a chill breath like morning dew-with a thicker, whitish liquid.

Smiling as one would in response to a waifs naive wonder, he said, "Yes, sustenance for the child."

"Are you the...gatekeeper-or an angel?"

"Something between, perhaps. Call it magic, if you will. Many throughout the spheres call us the Ianitori. There is no ready explanation within your grasp. You will have to find a way to strain the lacteus vitae-you dont expect me to suckle the child, do you? And please do not hold it so near. I can feel its distress. I am what you might call empathic. Its discomfort is mine." He moved away and gazed up into the stars, for a time.

Valentina slaked her own thirst, then found the cleanest portion of her caftan to strain the milky fluid for the wygyll babe. The cherub sucked at the fluid serenely.

"If you can feel its distress," she called at his back, "why dont you conjure someone to care for it? I cant care for it. Its not my species."

"You have no idea of the enormity of what you ask. I must shun involvement as others might shun death. How did you come upon the avian child?" And she began to explain, but his interest drifted instantly, as if he had not asked at all. Then: "Come, see this-the sunset alignment of several enlightened spheres. I have not embraced it with another in longer than I can remember."

He began to gesture again, and Valentina gasped to see the vast rainbow effect he had conjured, as it seemed she saw a vision of countless suns descending over the multihued horizons of worlds of splendor and beauty.

"All this you can command," she said in awe, laying the wygyll babe in the spongy gra.s.ses. "Have you and the other angels watched us struggle like bugs in a spiders web, suffering, dying?" Her voice quavered.

"No. I have no idea what you mean. I have no interest at all in the struggles and strife attendant on common human folly."

But he did seem to show interest. In her. And whether man or G.o.d, he possessed male weaknesses she knew well. She postured strong but compliant now, as she moved beside him.

"Yet you did rescue me, and I can only guess at your motive."

"It was a mistake," he replied in a tightened voice. "I wandered out farther onto the jetties than I should ever dare. I...felt your terror. I should better have-have-"

"I am grateful," she said, folding her arms under her bosom, not unaware of his fleeting glances. "But I know theres nothing a mortal can offer a visiting angel in grat.i.tude. I should have died down there if you hadnt come. Whats your name?"

"Shem," he answered simply.

"I am Valentina de Corsia. Are you still...a man, like other men?"

Shem ignored her, though he tensed somewhat, yet tried to conceal it.

"See the coruscations on Andelaara 3," he said, pointing. But when he saw her staring at him, he answered her query. "Like other men, in most ways. I am a Prober. Ianitori. A-priest, you might call us. Member of a venerable order, a secret order of adepts who alone can discern the spheres, can enjoy the fullness of Arcadia. Or of what man made of it, in his pride and avarice and dark usage." This last was spoken bitterly.

"Arcadia?" she wondered aloud. "Ive heard it mentioned. Isnt it inscribed on your arch?"

"You speak of it the way all men do, as though it were some handful of earth they might murder their fellows for. Everything is Arcadia. Arcadia is all the Architect-G.o.d created in his wisdom. Shattered. Dispersed. Irretrievable."

She felt her influence slipping, attempted a new tack, uncertain as to what she was striving for, but intuiting that unthinkable power flowed through this strange man. Demureness having failed her, causing him to withdraw into a sh.e.l.l of unease and s.e.xual tension, she tried the more earthy approach that had frequently brought university scholars under her spell, though she wished earnestly for some sudden imputation of their great learning.

"s.h.i.t-all this power you command, and you use it to flatter yourself with visions of sunsets. As if any man could dare to call them his own!"

He stiffened, seemed about to say something, but held his tongue. Valentina felt herself treading on serpents, but she went on. "You say you felt my terror. Have you never felt the horror of a million like me, groveling in some h.e.l.lish darkness? Preyed on by whatever evil l.u.s.ts might-look at me when I speak to you. Dont turn away from me!"

"You fill me with unaccustomed anger," he said, as though shed done him some irreparable harm. "I should never have conducted you here. Leave me!"

"Will you send me back to that dungeon? And the bird-child with me? Think of the suffering souls you might pluck from torment-the infants like that one whove died because your magical stream is denied them-G.o.d d.a.m.n it, how dare you have such power?!"

She began to cry. Tears of sudden rage she hardly understood drove all artifice before them. She felt a child again, a lonely child unable to cope with the blows of a brutal world.

A look of compa.s.sion etched Shems face. He winced slightly as he touched her cheek, drawing a single tear close to his eyes.

"You must understand, our most profound vow is to avoid interference in the power games of the spheres. We only observe, try to reorder the keys, repair the jetties of entry, restore the Architects original construct. Once, in ages past, all sentient beings were able to use the gateways freely. Arcadia was all things to all beings. A unity of multiple worlds. Perfect. Endlessly bountiful. Then there was a great upheaval. Someone, some...cabal of grasping forces, moved by pride, stole the secret for themselves. And Arcadia was withdrawn from its orderly use by all of creation. But as a gesture of hope, the Architect imparts the power over the gateways to some few as they sleep. However, we are forbidden to trifle in individual affairs. With good reason. It would be both pointless and maddening to set any single ill aright, in the light of the overwhelming chaos besetting the spheres of existence. Someone must have tried here, eons ago, when they erected this fortress as a nexus of salient gateways. Their wish was to exert power over numerous spheres by using the gateways from this stronghold. You have seen what resulted. We call it-a local entropy effect. Im sorry, but I cannot add my hands work to this rampant chaos-"

"But you already have," she argued. "You saved me. And the child. And every great goodness starts with one small act." She wiped her tears. "If you wont help, then send me back to die with my friends. Only save the wygyll infant. Her mother gave her life for-something."

He stared at her a long moment, tipping back and forth on his heels, as if calculating, or struggling internally, his lips pursed. Then, his eyes closing, Shem raised an arm uncertainly. Manipulating the air again, he opened another gateway, onto a sprawling nexus of worlds, from which shed been plucked. The frightening array displayed such cosmic power and depth that Valentina began to gasp and waver, as if she might fall into its immensity. She cried out in fear.

But Shem steadied her with his other hand. Then he banished all but a single world, out of that kaleidoscopic maelstrom, showing her, at last, an overhead view of the Fortress of the Dead. Opened...expanded into a bizarre figure of tenuously connected blocks that could not support itself in any normal spatial reference. Tiny figures moved therein, and Valentina inhaled a whistling breath to see it.

"Watch," Shem told her, pa.s.sing his hands before the construct in such a way as to rea.s.semble it into a recognizable structure. It grew in the vista before her, now occluding the hillside view. "See how insignificant it appears from this vantage."

And she did feel a sensation of headiness. For an instant Valentina was a G.o.ddess, overlooking a tiny castle in her thrall.

But at her side, Shems fair brow deepened and clouded over with a fatal realization.

Within the fortress, the questing party found that suddenly normal, navigable s.p.a.ce had returned. For whatever unfathomable reason, the magic had departed. Walls, doors and windows behaved truly, serving up visions of physical reality.

"Our advantage now," Gonji told them through gritted teeth, once they had accepted the return of the reality they had known. "To the gatehouse, where Simon left Valentina, and Lola and the bird-woman!"

"Our advantage!" Buey echoed.

The small band of warriors moved off with renewed determination.

But then, with the colossal upheaval that ensued, shattering all physical boundaries and driving them to the brink of madness, it was suddenly no ones advantage.

Valentina gulped and recovered her senses. She turned from her view of the Fortress and snapped Shem from his own disquieting vision.

"Shem, the dead pursue us. Kill us. Do you know how? Is there anything you can tell me that might help us against this sorcery?"

"Time suspension, perhaps," he said simply, absently. "Yes. I cant explain further, but yes, its possible." He seemed to be intent on watching the castle a moment. Then: "Do you-do you have a lover among those doomed men?"

She was taken aback by the sudden candor. To see her blanching expression, Shem blushed, aware that hed laid his soul bare. He looked awkward and uncomfortable. "I am sorry, I-"

"No, its all right. No, its...its funny, you see, I-Im among the best friends Ive ever had. People Im willing to die for. But theres none that I would call my lover, though Ive called many men lovers when I wouldnt have called them friends." She snickered at the curious irony shed uncovered. "I thought to give my flesh to you, if it would have helped." Her brow knit, now, to hear her own frankness, to see Shem avert his face in embarra.s.sment. "But I wouldnt have done that to you. Not to you. I-I have an affliction, you see..."

Shem looked back to her. Slowly, his expression opening to her, he moved nearer. He touched her hand. Understanding lit his deep blue eyes. "You are soiled, nothing more." He smiled, as if comforting an unduly troubled child.

Valentinas eyes went wide. She experienced a depth of embarra.s.sment, to hear his words, that made her want to run. She drew back, but Shem took her hand again.

"Come with me. The child sleeps. Nothing can harm it here. This is the arch of the Architect-G.o.d himself. Once, legend tells us, it was the first he created. The first gateway by which beings of flesh and seeking mind might seek his bounty. The inscription read, Et in Arcadia Ego...Sum-'And in Arcadia, I am. I will show you another."

She went willingly, drawn by his gentle spell. They walked the hills for a time and through two gateways in which he bade her not to look about, lest she see things best withheld. She found herself complying, resisting her incidental curiosity in favor of a burning desire to reach their destination.

When they reached a second arch, this one undamaged, he translated its inscription: And in Arcadia, I heal.

"Elixir vitae," Shem said, waving a hand over the lush garden that sprawled before a cataract of crystal-clear water. "Panacea for many ills of the human corpus."

He plucked a yellow blossom and laid it on a cut on Valentinas arm. There was an effervescent effect, and the wounds lips began to shrink, to close, though the residue of dried blood remained. He drew the astonished woman toward a mossy bank and pointed.

"The aquamarine growth. A fungus. Three applications, one each by the suns of this sphere. You first inhale its vapors long enough to induce sleep. The second day you drink a distillate of a small quant.i.ty. The third day, you fast, and at nightfall you indulge in a quant.i.ty, raw, no larger than will fit into your palm...and you are cleansed."

She was thunderstruck by the simple, saving eloquence of what he said.

"It is evening. Will you...sleep here tonight?" Shems voice, breathless, had diminished to the volume of a moths wing-beats.