"Why not? I know where they've gone."

"Oh, do you?" he said, raising a quizzical eyebrow. "And where's that?"

"To the Imajica," she said, affecting complete familiarity with the notion, though it still astonished her.

He made a tiny smile, though she wasn't sure whether it was one of acceptance or subtle mockery. He watched her study him, almost basking in her scrutiny, taking it, perhaps, for simple admiration.

"And how do you know about the Imajica?" he inquired.

"Doesn't everybody?"

"I think you know better than that," he replied. "Though how much much better, I'm not entirely sure." better, I'm not entirely sure."

She was something of an enigma to him, she suspected, and, as long as she remained so, might hope to keep him friendly.

"Do you think they made it?" she asked.

"Who knows? The voider may have spoilt their pa.s.sage by trying to tag along. They may not have reached Yzordderrex."

"So where will they be?"

"In the In Ovo, of course. Somewhere between here and the Second Dominion."

"And how will they get back?"

"Simple," he said. "They won't."

So they waited. Or, rather, she waited, watching the sun disappear behind trees blotted with rookeries, and the evening stars appearing as light bringers in its place. Dowd busied himself dealing with the bodies of the voiders, dragging them out of the chapel, making a simple pyre of dead wood, and burning them upon it. He showed not the least concern that she was witnessing this, which was a lesson and perhaps a warning to her. He apparently a.s.sumed she was part of the secret world he and the voiders occupied, not subject to the laws and moralities the rest of the world was bounded by. In seeing all she'd seen, and pa.s.sing herself off as expert in the ways of the Imajica, she had become a conspirator. There was no way back after this, to the company she'd kept and the life she'd known; she belonged to the secret, every bit as much as the secret belonged to her.

That of itself would be no great loss if G.o.dolphin returned. He would help her find her way through the mysteries. If he didn't return, the consequences were less palatable. To be obliged to keep Dowd's company, simply because they were fellow marginals, would be unbearable. She would surely wither and die. But then if G.o.dolphin was not in her life, what could that matter? From ecstasy to despair in the s.p.a.ce of an hour. Was it too much to hope the pendulum would swing back the other way before the day was out?

The chill was adding to her misery, and-having no other source of warmth-she went over to the pyre, preparing to retreat if the scent or the sight was too offensive. But the smoke, which she'd expected to smell of burning meat, was almost aromatic, and the forms in the fire unrecognizable. Dowd offered her a cigarette, which she accepted, lighting it from a branch plucked from the edge of the fire.

"What were they?" she asked him, eyeing the remains.

"You've never heard of voiders?" he said. "They're the lowest of the low. I brought them through from the In Ovo myself, and I'm no Maestro, so that gives an idea of how gullible they are."

"When it smelled the wind-"

"Yes, that was rather touching, wasn't it?" Dowd said. "It smelled Yzordderrex."

"Maybe it was born there."

"Very possibly. I've heard it said they're made of collective desire, but that's not true. They're revenge children. Got on women who were working the Way for themselves."

"Working the Way isn't good?"

"Not for your s.e.x, it isn't. It's strictly forbidden."

"So somebody who breaks the law's made pregnant as revenge?"

"Exactly. You can't abort voiders, you see. They're stupid, but they fight, even in the womb. And killing something you gave birth to is strictly against the women's codes. So they pay to have the voiders thrown into the In Ovo. They can survive there longer than just about anything. They feed on whatever they can find, including each other. And eventually, if they're lucky, they get summoned by someone in this Dominion."

So much to learn, she thought. Perhaps she should cultivate Dowd's friendship, however charmless he was. He seemed to enjoy parading his knowledge, and the more she knew the better prepared she'd be when she finally stepped through the door into Yzordderrex. She was about to ask him something more about the city when a gust of wind, blowing from out of the chapel, threw a flurry of sparks up between them.

"They're coming back," she said, and started towards the building.

"Be careful," Dowd said. "You don't know it's them."

His warning went unheeded. She went to the door at a run, and reached it as the spicy summer wind died away. The interior of the chapel was gloomy, but she could see a single figure standing in the middle of the mosaic. It staggered towards her, its breathing ragged. The light from the fire caught it as it came within two yards of her. It was Oscar G.o.dolphin, his hand up to his bleeding nose. "That b.a.s.t.a.r.d," he said. "Where is he?"

"Dead," he said plainly. "I had to do it, Judith. He was crazy. G.o.d alone knows what he might have said or done..." He put his arm towards her, "Will you help me? He d.a.m.n near broke my nose."

"I'll take him," Dowd said possessively. He stepped past her, fetching a handkerchief from his pocket to put to Oscar's nose. It was waved away.

"I'll survive," Oscar said. "Let's just get home." They were out of the chapel now, and Oscar was eyeing the fire. "The voiders," Dowd explained. Oscar threw a glance at Judith, "He made you pyre-watch with him?" he said. "I'm so sorry." He looked back at Dowd, pained. "That's no way to treat a lady," he said. "We're going to have to do better in future."

"What do you mean?"

"She's coming to live with us. Aren't you, Judith?" She hesitated a shamelessly short time; then she said, "Yes, I am."

Satisfied, he went over to look at the pyre.

"Come back tomorrow," she heard him tell Dowd. "Scatter the ashes and bury the bones. I've got a little prayer book Peccable gave me. We'll find something appropriate in there."

While he spoke she stared into the murk of the chapel, trying to imagine the journey that had been taken from here, and the city at the other end from which that tantalizing wind had blown. She would be there one day. She'd lost a husband in pursuit of pa.s.sage, but from her present perspective that seemed like a negligible loss. There was a new order of feeling in her, founded at the sight of Oscar G.o.dolphin. She didn't yet know what he would come to mean to her, but perhaps she could persuade him to take her away with him, someday soon.

Eager as she was to create in her mind's eye the mysteries that lay beyond the veil of the Fifth, Jude's imagination, for all its fever, could never have conjured the reality of that journey. Inspired by a few clues from Dowd, she had imagined the In Ovo as a kind of wasteland, where voiders hung like drowned men in deep-sea trenches, and creatures the sun would never see crawled towards her, their paths lit by their own sickly luminescence. But the inhabitants of the In Ovo beggared the bizarreness of any ocean floor. They had forms and appet.i.tes that no book had ever set down. They had rages and frustrations that were centuries old.

And the scenes she'd imagined awaiting her on the other side of that prison were also very different from those she'd created. If she'd traveled on the Yzordderrexian Express she'd would not have been delivered into the middle of a summer city but into a dampish cellar, lined with the merchant Peccable's forbidden cache of charms and petrifications. In order to reach the open air, she would have had to climb the stairs and pa.s.s through the house itself. Once she'd reached the street, she'd have found some of her expectations satisfied at least. The air was warm and spicy there, and the sky was bright. But it was not a sun that blazed overhead, it was a comet, trailing its glory across the Second Dominion. And if she stared at it a moment, then looked down at the street, she'd have found its reflection glittering in a pool of blood. Here was the spot where the brawl between Oscar and Charlie had ended, and where the defeated brother had been left.

He had not remained there for very long. News of a man dressed in foreign garb and dumped in the gutter had soon spread, and before the last of his blood had drained from his body three individuals never before seen in this Kesparate had come to claim him. They were Dearthers, to judge by their tattoos, and had Jude been standing on Peccable's step watching the scene, she would have been touched to see how reverently they treated their burden as they spirited it away. How they smiled down at that bruised and lolling face. How one of them wept. She might also have noticed-though in the flurry of the street this detail might have escaped her eye-that though the defeated man lay quite still in the cradle his bearers made of their limbs, his eyes closed, his arms trailing until they were folded across his chest, said chest was not entirely motionless.

Charles Estabrook, abandoned for dead in the filth of Yzordderrex, left its streets with enough health in his body to be dubbed a loser, not a corpse.

22

The days following Pie and Gentle's second departure from Beatrix seemed to shorten as they climbed, supporting the suspicion that the nights in the Jokalaylau were longer than those in the lowlands. It was impossible to confirm that this was so, because their two timekeepers-Gentle's beard and Pie's bowels-became increasingly unreliable as they climbed, the former because Gentle ceased to shave, the latter because the travelers' desire to eat, and thus their need to defecate, dwindled the higher they went. Far from inspiring appet.i.te, the rarefied air became a feast in itself, and they traveled for hour upon hour without their thoughts once turning to physical need. They had each other's company, of course, to keep them from completely forgetting their bodies and their purpose, but more reliable still were the beasts on whose s.h.a.ggy backs they rode. When the doeki grew hungry they simply stopped, and would not be bullied or coaxed into moving from whatever bush or piece of pasture they'd found until they were sated. At first, this was an irritation, and the riders cursed as they slipped from their saddles on such occasions, knowing they had an idling hour ahead while the animals grazed. But as the days pa.s.sed and the air grew thinner, they came to depend upon the rhythm of the doekis' digestive tracts and made such stopping places mealtimes for themselves.

It soon became apparent that Pie's calculations as to the length of this journey had been hopelessly optimistic. The only part of the mystif's predictions that experience was confirming was the hardship. Even before they reached the snow line, both riders and mounts were showing signs of fatigue, and the track they were following became less visible by the mile as the soft earth chilled and froze, refusing the traces of those who had preceded them. With the prospect of snowfields and glaciers ahead, they rested the doeki for a day and encouraged the beasts to gorge themselves on what would be the last available pasture until they reached the other side of the range.

Gentle had called his mount Chester, after dear old Klein, with whom it shared a certain ruminative charm. Pie declined to name the other beast, however, claiming it was bad luck to eat anything you knew by name, and circ.u.mstances might very well oblige them to dine on doeki meat before they reached the borders of the Third Dominion. That small disagreement aside, they kept their exchanges frictionless when they set off again, both consciously skirting any discussion of the events in Beatrix or their significance. The cold soon became aggressive, the coats they'd been given barely adequate defense against the a.s.sault of winds that blew up walls of dusty snow so dense they often obliterated the way ahead. When that happened Pie pulled out the compa.s.s-the face of which looked more like a star map to Gentle's untutored eye-and a.s.sessed their direction from that. Only once did Gentle remark that he hoped the mystif knew what it was doing, earning such a withering glance for his troubles it silenced him utterly on the matter thereafter.

Despite weather that was worsening by the day-making Gentle think wistfully of an English January-good fortune did not entirely desert them. On the fifth day beyond the snow line, in a lull between gusts, Gentle heard bells ringing, and following the sound they discovered a group of half a dozen mountain men, tending to a flock of a hundred or more cousins to the terrestrial goat, these s.h.a.ggier by far and purple as crocuses. The herders spoke no English, and only one of them, whose name was Kuthuss and who boasted a beard as s.h.a.ggy and as purple as his beasts (leading Gentle to wonder what marriages of convenience had occurred in these lonely uplands), had any words in his vocabulary that Pie could comprehend. What he told was grim. The herders were bringing their herds down from the High Pa.s.s early because the snow had covered ground the beasts would have grazed for another twenty days in a normal season. This was not, he repeated several times, a normal season. He had never known the snow to come so early or fall so copiously; never known the winds to be so bitter. In essence, he advised them not to attempt the route ahead. It would be tantamount to suicide. Pie and Gentle talked this advice over. The journey was already taking far longer than they'd antic.i.p.ated. If they went back down below the snow line, tempting as the prospect of relative warmth and fresh food was, they were wasting yet more time. Days when all manner of horrors could be unfolding: a hundred villages like Beatrix destroyed, and countless lives lost.

"Remember what I said when we left Beatrix?" Gentle said.

"No, to be honest, I don't."

"I said we wouldn't die, and I meant it. We'll find a way through."

"I'm not sure I like this messianic conviction," Pie said. "People with the best intentions die, Gentle. Come to think of it, they're often the first to go."

"What are you saying? That you won't come with me?"

"I said I'd go wherever you go, and I will. But good intentions won't impress the cold."

"How much money have we got?"

"Not much."

"Enough to buy some goatskins off these men? And maybe some meat?"

A complex exchange ensued in three languages-with Pie translating Gentle's words into the language Kuthuss understood and Kuthuss in turn translating for his fellow herders. A deal was rapidly struck; the herders seemed much persuaded by the prospect of hard cash. Rather than give over their own coats, however, two of them got about the business of slaughtering and skinning four of the animals. The meat, they cooked and shared among the group. It was fatty and underdone, but neither Gentle nor Pie declined, and it was washed down with a beverage they brewed from boiled snow, dried leaves, and a dash of liquor which Pie understood Kuthuss to have called the p.i.s.s of the goat. They tasted it in spite of this. It was potent, and after a shot of it-downed like vodka-Gentle remarked that if this made him a p.i.s.s-drinker, so be it.

The next day, having been supplied with skins, meat, and the makings of several pots of the herders' beverage, plus a pan and two gla.s.ses, they made their inarticulate farewells and parted company. The weather closed in soon after, and once again they were lost in a white wilderness. But their spirits had been buoyed up by the meeting, and they made steady progress for the next two and a half days, until, as twilight approached on the third, the animal Gentle was riding started to show signs of exhaustion, its head drooping, its hooves barely able to clear the snow they were trudging through.

"I think we'd better rest him," Gentle said.

They found a niche between boulders so large they were almost hills in themselves, and lit a fire to brew up some of the herders' liquor. It, more than the meat, was what had sustained them through the most demanding portions of the journey so far, but try as they might to use it sparingly, they had almost consumed their modest supply. As they drank they talked about what lay ahead. Kuthuss' predictions were proving correct. The weather was worsening all the time, and the chances of encountering another living soul up here if they were to get into difficulty were surely zero. Pie took a moment to remind Gentle of his conviction that they weren't going to die; come blizzard, come hurricane, come the echo of Hapexamendios Himself, down from the mountain.

"And I meant what I said," Gentle replied. "But I can still fret about it, can't I?" He put his hands closer to the fire. "Any more in the p.i.s.s pot?"

"I'm afraid not."

"I tell you, when we come back this way-" Pie made a wry face "-we will, we will. When we come back this way we've got to get the recipe. Then we can brew it back on earth."

They'd left the doeki a little distance away and heard now a lowing sound.

"Chester!" Gentle said, and went to the beasts.

Chester was lying on its side, its flank heaving. Blood streamed from its mouth and nose, melting the snow it poured upon.

"Oh, s.h.i.t, Chester," Gentle implored, "don't die."

But he'd no sooner put what he hoped was a comforting hand on the doeki's flank than it turned its glossy brown eye towards him, let out one final moan, and stopped breathing.

"We just lost fifty percent of our transport," he said to Pie.

"Look on the bright side. We gained ourselves a week of meat."

Gentle glanced back towards the dead animal, wishing he'd taken Pie's advice and never named the beast. Now when he sucked its bones he'd be thinking of Klein.

"Will you do it or should I?" he said. "I suppose it should be me. I named him, I should skin him."

The mystif didn't argue, only suggested that it should move the other animal out of sight of the scene, in case it too lost all will to live, seeing its comrade disemboweled. Gentle agreed, and watched while Pie led the fretting creature away. Wielding the blade they'd been given as they left Beatrix, he then set about his butchering. He rapidly discovered that neither he nor the knife were equal to the task. The doeki's hide was thick, its fat rubbery, its meat tough. After an hour of hacking and tearing he'd only managed to strip the hide from the upper half of its back leg and a small portion of its flank. He was sticky with its blood and sweating inside his coat of furs.

"Shall I take over?" Pie suggested.

"No," Gentle snapped, "I can do it," and continued to labor in the same inept fashion, the blade dulled by now and the muscles driving it weary.

He waited a decent interval, then got up and went back to the fire where Pie was sitting, gazing into the flames. Disgruntled by his defeat, he tossed, the knife down in the melting snow beside the fire.

"I give up," he said. "It's all yours."

Somewhat reluctantly, Pie picked up the knife, proceeded to sharpen it on the rock face, then went to work. Gentle didn't watch. Repulsed by the blood that had spattered him, he elected to brave the cold and wash it off. He found a place a little way from the fire where the ground was untrammeled, removed his coat and shirt, and knelt down to bathe in the snow. His skin crawled at the chill, but some urge to self-mortification was satisfied by this testing of will and flesh, and when he'd cleaned his hands and face he rubbed the p.r.i.c.king snow into his chest and belly, though the doeki's fluids hadn't stained him there. The wind had dropped in the last little while, and the sky visible between the rocks was more gold than green. He was seized by the need to stand unenc.u.mbered in its light, and without putting his coat back on he clambered up over the rocks to do so. His hands were numb, and the climb was more arduous than he'd antic.i.p.ated, but the scene above and below him when he reached the top of the rock was worth the effort. No wonder Hapexamendios had come here on His way to His resting place. Even G.o.ds might be inspired by such grandeur. The peaks of the Jokalaylau receded in apparently infinite procession, their white slopes faintly gilded by the heavens they reached for. The silence could not have been more utter.

This vantage point served a practical as well as an aesthetic purpose. The High Pa.s.s was plainly visible. And so, some distance off to the right, was a sight perplexing enough for him to call the mystif up from its work. A glacier, its surface shimmering, lay a mile or more from the rock. But it wasn't the spectacle of such frozen enormity that claimed Gentle's eye, it was the presence within the ice of a litter of darker forms.

"You want to go and find out what they are?" the mystif said, washing its bloodied hands in the snow.

"I think we should," Gentle replied, "If we're walking in the Unbeheld's footsteps, we should make it our business to see what He saw."

"Or what He caused," Pie said.

They descended, and Gentle put his shirt and coat back on. The clothes were warm, having been left beside the fire, and he was glad of that comfort, but they also stank of his sweat and of the animals whose backs they'd been stripped from, and he half wished he could go naked, rather than be burdened by another hide.

"Have you finished with the skinning?" Gentle asked Pie as they set off, going by foot rather than waste the energies of their remaining vehicle.

"I've done what I can," Pie replied, "but it's crude. I'm no butcher."

"Are you a cook?" Gentle asked. "Not really. Why'd you ask?"

"I've been thinking about food a lot, that's all. You know, after this trip I may never eat meat again. The fat! The gristle! It turns my stomach thinking about it."

"You've got a sweet tooth."

"You noticed. I'd kill for a plate of profiteroles right now, swimming in chocolate sauce." He laughed. "Listen to me. The glories of Jokalaylau laid before us and I'm obsessing on profiteroles." Then again, deadly serious. "Do they have chocolate in Yzordderrex?"

"By now, I'm sure they do. But my people eat plainly, so I never got an addiction for sugar. Fish, on the other hand-"

"Fish?" said Gentle. "I've no taste for it."

"You'll get one in Yzordderrex. There's restaurants down by the harbor..." The mystifs talk turned into a smile. "Now I'm sounding like you. We must both be sick of doeki meat."

"Go on," Gentle said. "I want to see you salivate."

"There are restaurants down by the harbor where the fish is so fresh it's still flapping when they take it into the kitchen."

"That's a recommendation?"