"I don't think we should do that," Hoi-Polloi replied.

"It's not just the water that's being called," Jude said. "We are too. Can't you feel it?"

"No," the girl said bluntly. "I could turn around now and go back home."

"Is that what you want to do?"

Hoi-Polloi looked at the river running a yard from her foot. As luck would have it, the water was carrying some of its less lovely cargo past them: a flotilla of chicken heads and the partially incinerated carca.s.s of a small dog.

"You drank that," Hoi-Polloi said.

"It tasted fine," Jude said, but looked away as the. dog went by.

The sight had confirmed Hoi-Polloi in her unease. "I think I will go home," she said. "I'm not ready to meet G.o.ddesses, even if they are up there. I've sinned too much."

"That's absurd," said Jude. "This isn't about sin and forgiveness. That kind of nonsense is for the men. This is ..." she faltered, uncertain of the vocabulary, then said, "This is wiser than that."

"How do you know?" Hoi-Polloi replied. "n.o.body really understands these things. Even Poppa. He used to tell me he knew how the comet was made, but he didn't. It's the same with you and these G.o.ddesses."

"Why are you so afraid?"

"If I wasn't I'd be dead. And don't condescend to me. I know you think I'm ridiculous, but if you were a bit politer you'd hide it."

"I don't think you're ridiculous."

"Yes, you do."

"No, I just think you loved your Poppa a little too much. There's no crime in that. Believe me, I've made the same mistake myself, over and over again. You trust a man, and the next thing . . ." She sighed, shaking her head. "Never mind. Maybe you're right. Maybe you should go home. Who knows, perhaps he'll be waiting for you. What do I know?"

They turned their backs on each other without further word, and Jude headed on up the hill, wishing as she went that she'd found a more tactful way of stating her case.

She'd climbed fifty yards when she heard the soft pad of Hoi-Polloi's step behind her, then the girl's voice, its rebuking tone gone, saying, "Poppa's not going to come home, is he?"

Jude turned back, meeting Hoi-Polloi's cross-eyed gaze as best she could. "No," she said, "I don't think he is."

Hoi-Polloi looked at the cracked ground beneath her feet. "I think I've always known that," she said, "but I just haven't been able to admit it." Now she looked up again and, contrary to Jude's expectation, was dry-eyed. Indeed, she almost looked happy, as though she was lighter for this admission. "We're both alone now, aren't we?" she said.

"Yes, we are."

"So maybe we should go on together. For both our sakes."

"Thank you for thinking of me," Jude said. " "We women should stick together," Hoi-Polloi replied, and came to join Jude as she resumed the climb.

To Gentle's eye Yzordderrex looked like a fever dream of itself. A dark borealis hung above the palace, but the streets and squares were everywhere visited by wonders. Rivers sprang from the fractured pavements and danced up the mountainside, spitting their climb in gravity's face. A nimbus of color painted the air over each of the springing places, bright as a flock of parrots. It was a spectacle he knew Pie would have reveled in, and he made a mental note of every strangeness along the way, so that he could paint the scene in words when he was back at the mystifs side.

But it wasn't all wonders. These prisms and waters rose amid scenes of utter devastation, where keening widows sat, barely distinguishable from the blackened rubble of their houses. Only the Eurhetemec Kesparate, at the gates of which he presently stood, seemed to be untouched by the fire raisers. There was no sign of any inhabitant, however, and Gentle wandered for several minutes, silently honing a fresh set of insults for Scopique, when he caught sight of the man he'd come to find. Athanasius was standing in front of one of the trees that lined the boulevards of the Kesparate, staring up at it admiringly. Though the foliage was still in place, the arrangement of branches it grew upon was visible, and Gentle didn't have to be an aspirant Christos to see how readily a body might be nailed to them. He called Athanasius' name several times as he approached, but the man seemed lost in reverie and didn't look around, even when Gentle was at his shoulder. He did, however, reply.

"You came not a moment too soon," he said.

"Auto-crucifixion," Gentle replied. "Now that would be a miracle."

Athanasius turned to him. His face was sallow and his forehead b.l.o.o.d.y. He looked at the scabs on Gentle's brow and shook his head.

"Two of a kind," he said. Then he raised his hands. The palms bore unmistakable marks. "Have you got these too?"

"No. And these"-Gentle pointed to his forehead- "aren't what you think. Why do you do this to yourself?"

"I didn't do it," Athanasius replied. "I woke up with these wounds. Believe me, I don't welcome them."

Gentle's face registered his skepticism, and Athanasius responded with vim.

"I've never wanted any of this," he said. "Not the stigmata. Not the dreams."

"So why were you looking at the tree?"

"I'm hungry," came the reply, "and I was wondering if I had the strength to climb."

The gaze directed Gentle's attention back to the tree. Amid the foliage on the higher branches were cl.u.s.ters of comet-ripened fruit, like zebra tangerines.

"I can't help you, I'm afraid," Gentle said. "I don't have enough substance to catch hold of them. Can't you shake them down?"

"I tried. Never mind. We've got more important business than my belly."

"Finding you bandages, for one," Gentle said, his suspicions chastened out of him by this misunderstanding, at least for the moment. "I don't want you Weeding to death before we begin the Reconciliation."

"You mean these?" he said, looking at his hands. "No, it stops and starts whenever it wants. I'm used to it."

"Well, then, we should at least find you something to eat. Have you tried any of the houses?"

"I'm not a thief."

"I don't think anybody's coming back, Athanasius. Let's find you some sustenance before you pa.s.s out."

They went to the nearest house, and after a little encouragement from Gentle, who was surprised to find such moral nicety in his companion, Athanasius kicked open the door. The house had either been looted or vacated in haste, but the kitchen had been left untouched and was well stocked. There Athanasius daintily prepared himself a sandwich with his wounded hands, b.l.o.o.d.ying the bread as he did so.

"I've such a hunger on me," he said. "I suppose you've been fasting, have you?"

"No. Was I supposed to?"

"Each to their own," Athanasius replied. "Everybody walks to Heaven by a different road. I knew a man who couldn't pray unless he had his loins in a zarzi nest."

Gentle winced. "That's not religion, it's masochism."

"And masochism isn't a religion?" the other replied. "You surprise me."

Gentle was startled to find that Athanasius had a capacity for wit, and found himself warming to the man as they chatted. Perhaps they could profit from each other's company after all, though any truce would be cosmetic if the subject of the Erasure and all that had happened there wasn't broached.

"I owe you an explanation," he said.

"Oh?"

"For what happened at the tents. You lost a lot of your people, and it was because of me."

"I don't see how you could have handled it much differently," Athanasius said. "Neither of us knew the forces we were dealing with."

"I'm not sure I do now."

Athanasius made a grim face. "Pie 'oh' pah went to a good deal of trouble to come back and haunt you," he said.

"It wasn't a haunting."

"Whatever it was, it took will to do it. The mystif must have known what the consequences would be, for itself and for my people."

"It hated to cause harm."

"So what was so important that it caused so much?"

"It wanted to make certain I understood my purpose."

"That's not reason enough," Athanasius said.

"It's the only one I've got," Gentle replied, skirting the other part of Pie's message, the part about Sartori. Athanasius had no answers to such puzzles, so why vex him with them?

"I believe there's something going on we don't understand," Athanasius said, "Have you seen the waters?"

"Yes."

"Don't they perturb you? They do me. There are other powers at work here besides us, Gentle. Maybe we should be seeking them out, taking their advice."

"What do you mean by powers? Other Maestros?"

"No. I mean the Holy Mother. I think she may be here in Yzordderrex."

"But you're not certain."

"Something's moving the waters."

"If She was here, wouldn't you know it? You were one of her high priests."

"I was never that. We worshiped at the Erasure because there was a crime committed there. A woman was taken from that spot into the First."

Floccus Dado had told Gentle this story as they'd driven across the desert, but with so much else to vex and excite him, he'd forgotten the tale: his mother's of course.

"Her name was Celestine, wasn't it?"

"How do you know?"

"Because I've met her. She's still alive, back in the Fifth."

The other man narrowed his eyes, as though to sharpen his gaze and p.r.i.c.k this if it was a lie. But after a few moments a tiny smile appeared.

"So you've had dealings with holy women," he said. "There's hope for you yet."

"You can meet her yourself, when all this is over."

"I'd like that."

"But for now, we have to hold to our course. There can be no deviations. Do you understand? We can go looking for the Holy Mother when the Reconciliation's done, but not before."

"I feel so d.a.m.n naked," Athanasius said.

"We all do. It's inevitable; But there's something more inevitable still."

"What's that?"

"The wholeness of things," Gentle said. "Things mended. Things healed. That's more certain than sin, or death, or darkness."

"Well said," Athanasius replied. "Who taught you that?"

"You should know. You married me to it."

"Ah." He smiled. "Then may I remind you why a man marries? So that he can be made whole: by a woman."

"Not this man," Gentle said.

"Wasn't the mystif a woman to you?"

"Sometimes...."

"And when it wasn't?"

"It was neither man nor woman. It was bliss."

Athanasius looked intensely discomfited by this. "That sounds profane to me," he remarked.

Gentle had never thought of the bond between himself and the mystif in such terms before, nor did he welcome the burden of such doubts now. Pie had been his teacher, his friend, and his lover, a selfless champion of the Reconciliation from the very beginning. He could not believe that his Father would ever have sanctioned such a liaison if it were anything but holy.

"I think we should let the subject lie," he told Athanasius, "or we'll be at each other's throats again, and I for one don't want that."

"Neither do I," Athanasius replied. "We'll not discuss it any further. Tell me, where do you go from here?"

"To the Erasure."

"And who represents the Synod there?"

"Chicka Jackeen."

"Ah! So you chose him, did you?"