And then, above the din of a.s.sault, came a voice she'd only heard raised once before.

"Let her go."

Celestine had emerged from her bedroom, draped in a sheet. The candlelight shook all around her, but she was steady, her gaze mesmeric. The angels looked around at her, Clem's hands still holding Jude fast.

"She wants to-"

"I know what she wants to do," Celestine said. "If you're our guardians, guard us now. Let her go."

Jude felt doubt loosen the hold on her. She didn't give the angels time to change their mind, but dragged herself free and started up the stairs again. Halfway up, she heard.a shout and glanced down to see both Hoi-Polloi and Monday thrown forward as the door's middle panel broke and a prodigious limb reached through to s.n.a.t.c.h at the air.

"Go on!" Celestine yelled up to her, and Jude returned to her ascent as the woman stepped onto the bottom stair to guard the way.

Though there was far less light above than below, the details of the physical world became more insistent as she climbed. The flight beneath her bare feet was suddenly a wonderland of grains and knotholes, its geography entrancing. Nor was it simply her sight that filled to br.i.m.m.i.n.g. The banister beneath her hand was more alluring than silk; the scent of sap and the taste of dust begged to be sniffed and savored. Defying these distractions, she fixed her attention on the door ahead, holding her breath and removing her hand from the banister to minimize the sources of sensation. Even so, she was a.s.sailed. The creaks of the stairs were rich enough to be orchestrated. The shadows around the door had nuances to parade and called for her devotion. But she had a rod at her back: the commotion from below. It was getting louder all the time, and now-cutting through the shouts and roars-came the sound of Sartori's voice.

"Where are you going, love?" he asked her. "You can't leave me. I won't let you. Look! Love? Look! I've brought the knives."

She didn't turn to see, but closed her eyes and stopped her ears with her hands, stumbling up the rest of the stairs blind and deaf. Only when her toes were no longer stubbed, and she knew she was at the top, did she dare the sight again. The seductions began again, instantly. Every nick in every nail of the door said, Stop and study me. The dust rising around her was a constellation she could have lost herself in forever. She pitched herself through it, with her gaze glued to the door handle, and clasped it so hard the discomfort canceled the beguilings long enough for her to turn it and throw the door open. Behind her Sartori was calling again, but this time his voice was slurred, as though he was distracted by profusion.

In front of her was his mirror image, naked at the center of the stones. He sat in the universal posture of the meditator: legs crossed, eyes closed, hands laid palms out in his lap to catch whatever blessings were bestowed. Though there was much in the room to call her attention-mantelpiece, window, boards, and rafters-their sum of enticements, vast as it was, could not compete with the glory of human nakedness, and this nakedness, that she'd loved and lain beside, more than any other. Neither the blandishments of the ., walls-their stained plaster like a map of some unknown country-nor the persuasions of the crushed leaves at the ^ sill could distract her now. Her senses were fixed on the : Reconciler, and she crossed the room to him in a few short ; strides, calling his name as she went.

He didn't move. Wherever his mind wandered, it was too far from this place-or rather, this place was too small a part of his arena-for him to be claimed by any voices here, however desperate. She halted at the edge of the circle. Though there was nothing to suggest that what lay inside was in flux, she'd seen the harm done to both Dowd and his voider when the bounds had been injudiciously breached. From down below she heard Celestine raise a cry of warning. There was no time for equivocation. What the circle would do it would do, and she'd have to take the consequences.

Steeling herself, she stepped over the perimeter. Instantly, the myriad discomforts that attended pa.s.sage afflicted her-itches, pangs, and spasms-and for a moment - she thought the circle intended to dispatch her across the In Ovo. But the work it was about had overruled such functions, and the pains simply mounted and mounted, driving her to her knees in front of Gentle. Tears spilled from her knitted lids, and the ripest curses from her lips. The circle hadn't killed her, but another minute of its persecutions and it might. She had to be quick.

She forced open her streaming eyes and set her gaze on Gentle. Shouts hadn't roused him, nor had curses, so she didn't waste her breath with more. Instead she seized his shoulders and began to shake him. His muscles were lax, and he lolled in her grasp, but either her touch or the fact of her trespa.s.s in this charmed circle won a response. He gasped as though he'd been drawn up from some airless deep.

Now she began to talk.

"Gentle? Gentle! Open your eyes! Gentle. I said, Open your f.u.c.king eyes!"

She was causing him pain, she knew. The tempo and volume of his gasps increased, and his face, which had been beatifically placid, was knotted with frowns and grimaces. She liked the sight. He'd been so smug in his messianic mode. Now there had to be an end to that complacency, and if it hurt a little it was his own d.a.m.n fault for being too much his Father's child.

"Can you hear me?" she yelled at him. "You've got to stop the working. Gentle! You've got to stop it!"

His eyes started to flicker open.

"Good! Good!" she said, talking at his face like a school-marm trying to coax a delinquent pupil.

"You can do it! You can open your eyes. Go on! Do it! If you won't, I'll do it for you, I'm warning you!"

She was as good as her word, lifting her right hand to his left eye and thumbing back the lid. His eyeball was rolled back into its socket. Wherever he was, it was still a tong way off, and she wasn't sure her body had the strength to resist its harrowment while she coaxed him home.

Then, from the landing behind her, Sartori's voice.

"It's too late, love," he said. "Can't you feel it? It's too late."

She didn't need to look back at him. She could picture him well enough, with the knives in his hands and elegy on his face. Nor did she reply. She needed every last ounce of will and wit to stir the man in front of her.

And then inspiration! Her hand went from his face to his groin, from his eyelid to his t.e.s.t.i.c.l.es. Surely there was enough of the old Gentle left in the Reconciler to value his manhood. The flesh of his s.c.r.o.t.u.m was loose in the warmth of the room. His b.a.l.l.s were heavy in her hand, heavy and vulnerable. She held them hard.

"Open your eyes," she said, "or so help me I'm going to hurt you."

He remained impa.s.sive. She tightened her grip. "Wake up," she said.

Still nothing. She squeezed harder, then twisted. "Wake up!"

His breath quickened. She twisted again, and his eyes suddenly opened, his gasps becoming a yell which didn't stop until there was no breath left in his lungs to loose it on. As he inhaled his arms rose to take hold of Jude at the neck. She lost her grip on his b.a.l.l.s, but it didn't matter. He was awake and raging. He started to rise and, as he did so, pitched her out of the circle. She landed clumsily, but began hara.s.sing him before she'd even raised her head.

"You've got to stop the working!"

"Crazy .,. woman ..." he growled.

"I mean it! You've got to stop the working! It's all a plot!" She hauled herself up. "Dowd was right, Gentle! It's got to be stopped,"

"You're not going to spoil it now," he said. "You're too late."

"Find a way!" she said. "There's got to be a way!"

"If you come near me again I'll kill you," he warned. He scanned the circle, to be certain it was still intact. It was. "Where's Clem?" he yelled. "Clem?"

Only now did he look beyond Judith to the door, and beyond the door to the shadowy figure on the landing. His frown deepened into a scowl of revulsion, and she knew any hope of persuading him was lost. He saw conspiracy here.

"There, love," said Sartori. "Didn't I tell you it was too late?"

The two gek-a-gek fawned at his feet. The knives gleamed in his fists. This time he didn't offer the handle of either one. He'd come to take her life if she refused to take her own.

"Dearest one," he said, "it's over."

He took a step and crossed the threshold.

"We can do it here," he said, looking down at her, "where we were made. What better place?"

She didn't need to look back at Gentle to know he was hearing this. Was there some sliver of hope in that fact?

Some persuasion that might drop from Sartori's lips and move Gentle where hers had failed?

"I'm going to have to do it for us both, love," he said. "You're too weak. You can't see clearly."

"I don't... want... to die," she said.

"You don't have any choice," he said. "It's either by the Father or the Son. That's all. Father or Son."

Behind her, she heard Gentle murmur two syllables.

"Oh, Pie."

Then Sartori took a second step, out of the shadow into the candlelight. When he did, the obsessive scrutiny of the room fixed him in every wretched morsel. His eyes were wet with despair, his lips so dry they were dusty. His skull gleamed through his pallid skin, and his teeth, in their array, made a fatal smile. He was Death, in every detail. And if she recognized that fact-she who loved him-then so, surely, did Gentle.

He took a third step toward her and raised the knives above his head. She didn't look away, but turned her face up towards him, daring him to spoil with his blades what he'd caressed with his fingers only minutes before.

"I would have died for you," he murmured. The blades were at the top of their gleaming arc, ready to fall. "Why wouldn't you die for me?"

He didn't wait for an answer, even if she'd had one to give, but let the knives descend. As they came for her eyes she looked away, but before they caught her cheek and neck the Reconciler howled behind her, and the whole room shook. She was thrown from her knees, Sartori's blades missing her by inches. The candles on the mantelpiece guttered and went out, but there were other lights to take their place. The stones of the circle were flickering like tiny bonfires flattened by a high wind, flecks of their brightness racing from them to strike the walls. At the circle's edge stood Gentle. In his hand, the reason for this turmoil. He'd picked up one of the stones, arming himself and breaking the circle in the same moment. He clearly knew the gravity of his deed. There was grief on his face, so profound it seemed to have incapacitated him. Having raised the stone he was now motionless, as if his will to undo the working had already lost momentum.

She got to her feet, though the room was shaking more violently than ever. The boards felt solid enough beneath ; her, but they'd darkened to near invisibility. She could see only the nails that kept them in place; the rest, despite the light from the stones, was pitch black, and as she started towards the circle she seemed to be treading a void.

There was a noise accompanying every tremor now: a , mingling of tortured wood and cracking plaster, all underscored by a guttural boiling, the source of which she didn't comprehend until she reached the edge of the circle. The darkness beneath them was indeed a void-the In Ovo, opened by Gentle's breaking of the circle-and in it, al- , ready woken by Sartori's dabblings, the prisoners that connived and suppurated there, rising at the scent of escape.

At the door, the gek-a-gek set up a clamor of antic.i.p.ation, sensing the release of their fellows. But for all their power they'd have few of the spoils in the coming ma.s.sacre. There were forms appearing below that made them look kittenish: ent.i.ties of such elaboration neither Jude's eyes nor wits could encompa.s.s them. The sight terrified her, but if this was the only way to halt the Reconciliation, then so be it. History would repeat itself, and the Maestro be twice d.a.m.ned.

He'd seen the Oviates' ascent as clearly as she and was frozen by the sight. Determined to prevent him from reestablishing the status quo at all costs, she reached to s.n.a.t.c.h the stone from his hand, so as to pitch it through the window. But before her fingers could grasp it he looked up at her. The anguish went from his face, and rage replaced it.

"Throw the stone away!" she yelled.

His eyes weren't on her, however. They were on a sight at her shoulder. Sartori! She threw herself aside as the knives came down and, clutching the mantelpiece, turned back to see the brothers face to face, one armed with blades, the other with the stone.

Sartori's glance had gone to Jude as she leapt, and before he could return it to his enemy Gentle brought the stone down with a two-handed blow, striking sparks from one of the blades as he dashed it from his brother's fingers. While the advantage was his, Gentle went after the second blade, but Sartori had it out of range before the stone could connect, so Gentle swung at the empty hand, the cracking of his brother's bones audible through the din of Oviates and boards and cracking walls.

Sartori made a pitiful yell and raised his fractured hand in front of his brother, as if to win remorse for the hurt. But as Gentle's eyes went to Sartori's broken hand, the other, whole and sharp, came at his flank. He glimpsed the blade and half turned to avoid it, but it found his arm, opening it to the bone from wrist to elbow. He dropped the stone, a rain of blood coming after, and as his palm went up to stem the flow Sartori entered the circle, slashing back and forth as he came.

Defenseless, Gentle retreated before the blade and, arching back to avoid the cuts, lost his footing and went down beneath his attacker. One stab would have finished him there and then. But Sartori wanted intimacy. He straddled his brother's body and squatted down upon it, slashing at Gentle's arms as he attempted to ward off the coup de grace.

Jude scoured the unsolid boards for the fallen knife, her gaze distracted by the malignant forms that were everywhere turning their faces to freedom. The blade, if she could find it, would be of no use against them, but it might still dispatch Sartori. He'd planned to take his own life with one of these knives. She could still turn it to such work, if she could only find it.

But before she could do so, she heard a sob from the circle and, glancing back, saw Gentle sprawled beneath his brother's weight, horrendously wounded, his chest sliced open, his jaw, cheeks, and temples slashed, his hands and arms crisscrossed with cuts. The sob wasn't his, but Sartori's.. He'd raised the knife and was uttering this last cry before he plunged the blade into his brother's heart.

His grief was premature. As the knife came down, Gentle found the strength to thrash one final time, and instead of finding his heart the blade entered his upper chest below his clavicle. Slickened, the handle slipped through Sartori's fingers. But he had no need to reclaim it. Gentle's rally was over as suddenly as it had begun. His body uncurled, its spasms ceased, and he lay still.

Sartori rose from his seat on his brother's belly and looked down at the body for a time, then turned to survey the spectacle of the void. Though the Oviates were close to the surface now, he didn't hurry to act or retreat, but surveyed the whole panorama at the center of which he stood, his eyes finally coming to rest on Jude.

"Oh, love," he said softly. "Look what you've done. You've given me to my Heavenly Father."

Then he stooped and reached out of the circle to take hold of the stone that Gentle had removed and, with the finesse of a painter laying down a final stroke, put it back in place.

The status quo wasn't instantly restored. The forms below continued to rise, seething with frustration as they sensed that their route into the Fifth had been sealed. The fire in the stone began to go out, but before their last gutterings Sartori murmured an order to the gek-a-gek and they sloped from their places at the door, their flat heads skimming the ground. Jude thought at first they were coming for her, but it was Gentle they'd been ordered to collect. They divided around the circle and reached over its perimeter, taking hold of the body almost tenderly and lifting it out of their Maestro's way.

"Down the stairs," he told them, and they retreated to the door with their burden, leaving the circle in Sartori's sole possession.

A terrible calm had descended. The last glimpses of the In Ovo had disappeared; the light in the stones was all but gone. In the gathering darkness she saw Sartori find his place at the center of the circle and sit.

"Don't do this," she murmured to him.

He raised his head and made a little grunt, as though he was surprised she was still in the room.

"It's already done," he said. "All I have to do is hold the circle till midnight."

She heard a moan from below, as Clem saw what the Oviates had brought to the top of the stairs. Then came the thump, thump, thump as the body was thrown down the flight. There could only be seconds before they came back for her, seconds to coax him from the circle. She knew only one way, and if it failed there could be no further appeal.

"I love you," she said.

It was too dark to see him, but she felt his eyes.

"I know," he said, without feeling. "But my Heavenly Father will love me more. It's in His hands now."

She heard the Oviates moving behind her, their breaths chilly on her neck.

"I don't ever want to see you again," Sartori said.

"Please call them off," she begged him, remembering the way Clem had been apprehended by these beasts, his arms half swallowed.

"Leave of your volition, and they won't touch you," he said. "I am about my Father's business."

"He doesn't love you...."

"Leave."

"He's incapable...."

"Leave,"

She got to her feet. There was nothing left to say or do. As she turned her back on the circle the Oviates pressed their cold flanks against her legs and kept her trapped between them until she reached the threshold, to be certain she made no last attempt on their summoner's life. Then she was allowed to go unescorted onto the landing. Clem was halfway up the stairs, bludgeon in hand, but she instructed him to stay where he was, fearful that the gek-a-gek would claw him to shreds if he climbed another step.

The door to the Meditation Room slammed behind her, and she glanced back to confirm what she'd already guessed: that the Oviates had followed her out and were now standing guard at the threshold. Still nervous that they'd land some last blow, she crossed to the top of the flight as though she were walking on eggs and only picked up her speed once she was on the stairs.

There was light below, but the scene it illuminated was as grim as anything above. Gentle was lying at the bottom of the stairs, his head laid on Celestine's lap. The sheet she'd worn had fallen from her shoulders, and her b.r.e.a.s.t.s were bare, bloodied where she'd held her son's face to her skin.

"Is he dead?" Jude murmured to Clem.

He shook his head. "He's holding on."

She didn't have to ask what for. The front door was open, hanging half demolished from its hinges, and through it she could hear the first stroke of midnight from a distant steeple.

"The circle's complete," she said.

"What circle?" Clem asked her.

She didn't reply. What did it matter now? But Celestine had looked up from her meditation on Gentle's face, and the same question was in her eyes as on Clem's lips, so Jude answered them as plainly as she could.

"The Imajica's a circle," she said.

"How do you know?" Clem asked.

"The G.o.ddesses told me."

She was almost at the bottom of the stairs, and now that she was closer to mother and son she could see that Gentle was literally holding on to life, clutching at Celestine's arm and staring up into her face. Only when Jude sank down onto the bottom stair did Gentle's eyes go to her.

"I... never knew," he said.