"I know," she replied, thinking he was speaking of Hapexamendios' plot. "I didn't want to believe it either."

Gentle shook his head. "I mean the circle," he said. "I never knew it was a circle...."

"It was the G.o.ddesses' secret," Jude said.

Now Celestine spoke, her voice as soft as the flames that lit her lips. "Doesn't Hapexamendios know?"

Jude shook her head.

"So whatever fire he sends," Celestine murmured, "will burn its way around the circle."

Jude studied her face, knowing there was some profit in this knowledge but too exhausted to make sense of it. Celestine looked down at Gentle's face.

"Child?" she said.

"Yes, Mama."

"Go to Him," she said. "Take your spirit into the First and find your Father."

The effort of breathing seemed almost too much for Gentle, never mind a journey. But what his body was incapable of, maybe his spirit could achieve. He lifted his fingers towards his mother's face. She caught hold of them.

"What are you going to do?" Gentle said.

"Call His fire," Celestine said.

Jude looked towards Clem to see if this exchange made any more sense to him than it did to her, but he looked completely perplexed. What was the use of inviting death when it was going to come anyway, and all too quickly?

"Delay Him," Celestine was telling Gentle. "Go to Him as a loving son, and hold His attention for as long as you can. Flatter Him. Tell Him how much you want to see His face. Can you do that for me?"

"Of course, Mama."

"Good."

Content that her child would do as he was charged, Celestine laid Gentle's hand back upon his chest, and slid her knees out from beneath his head, lowering it tenderly to the boards. She had one last instruction for him.

"When you go into the First, go through the Dominions. He mustn't know that there's another way, do you understand?"

"Yes, Mama."

"And when you get there, child, listen for the voice. It's in the ground. You'll hear it, if you listen carefully. It says-"

"Nisi Nirvana."

"That's right."

"I remember," Gentle said. "Nisi Nirvana."

As if the name were a blessing and would protect him as he went on his way, he closed his eyes and took his leave.

Celestine didn't indulge in sentiment but rose, pulling the sheet up around her as she crossed to the bottom of the stairs. "Now I have to speak to Sartori."

"That's going to be difficult," Jude said. "The door's locked and guarded."

"He's my son," Celestine replied, looking up the flight. "He'll open it for me."

And so saying, she ascended.

24.

Gentle's spirit went from the house, thinking not of the Father that awaited him in the First Dominion but of the mother he was leaving behind. In the hours since his return from the Tabula Rasa's tower they'd shared all too brief a time together. He'd knelt beside her bed for a few minutes while she told the story of Nisi Nirvana. He'd held on to her in the G.o.ddesses' rain, ashamed of the desire he felt but unable to deny it. And finally, moments ago, he'd lain in her arms while the blood seeped out of him. Child; lover; cadaver. There was the arc of a little life there, and they'd have to be content with it.

He didn't entirely comprehend her purpose in sending him from her, but he was too confounded to do anything but obey. She had her reasons, and he had to trust them, now that the work he'd labored to achieve had soured. That too he didn't entirely comprehend. It had happened too fast. One moment he'd been so remote from his body he was almost ready to forget it entirely; the next he was back in the Meditation Room, with Jude's grip earning his screams, and his brother mounting the stairs behind her, his knives gleaming. He'd known then, seeing death in his brother's face, why the mystif had torn itself to shreds in order to make him seek Sartori out. Their Father was there in that face, in that despairing certainty, and had been all along, no doubt. But he'd never seen it. All he'd ever seen was his own beauty, twisted out of true, and told himself how fine it was to be Heaven to his other's h.e.l.l. What a mockery that was! He'd been his Father's dupe-His agent, His fool- and he might never have realized it if Jude hadn't dragged him raw from the Ana and showed him in terrible particulars the destroyer in the mirror.

But the recognition had come so late, and he was so ill equipped to undo the damage he'd done. He could only hope that his mother understood better than he where the little hope left to them lay. In pursuit of it, he'd be her agent now and go into the First to do whatever he could at her behest.

He went the long way round, as she'd instructed, his path taking him back over the territories he'd traveled when he'd sought out the Synod, and though he longed to swoop out of the air and pa.s.s the time of a new day with the others, he knew he couldn't linger.

He glimpsed them as he went, however, and saw that they'd survived the last hectic minutes in the Ana and were back in their Dominions, beaming with their triumph. On the Mount of Lipper Bayak, Tick Raw was howling to the heavens like a lunatic, waking every sleeper in Vanaeph and stirring the guards in the watchtowers of Patashoqua. In the Kwem, Scopique was clambering up the slope of the Pivot pit where he'd sat to do his part, tears of joy in his eyes as he turned them skyward. In Yzordderrex, Athanasius was on his knees in the street outside the Eurhetemec Kesparate, bathing his hands in a spring that was leaping up at his wounded face like a dog that wanted to lick him well. And on the borders of the First, where Gentle's spirit slowed, Chicka Jackeen was watching the Erasure, waiting for the blank wall to dissolve and give him a glimpse of Hapexa-mendios' Dominion.

His gaze left the sight, however, when he felt Gentle's presence. "Maestro?" he said.

More than any of the others, Gentle wanted to share something of what was afoot with Jackeen, but he dared not. Any exchange this close to the Erasure might be monitored by the G.o.d behind it, and he knew he'd not be able to converse with this man, who'd shown him such devotion, without offering some word of warning, so he didn't tempt himself. Instead he commanded his spirit on, hearing Jackeen call his name again as he went. But before the appeal could come a third time he pa.s.sed through the Erasure and into the Dominion beyond. In the blind moments before the First appeared, his mother's voice echoed in his head.

"She went into a city of iniquities," he heard her saying, "where no ghost was holy, and no flesh was whole."

Then the Erasure was behind him, and he was hovering on the perimeters of the City of G.o.d.

No wonder his brother had been an architect, he thought. Here was enough inspiration for a nation of prodigies, a labor of ages, raised by a power for whom an age was the measure of a breath. Its majesty spread in every direction but the one behind, the streets wider than the Patashoquan Highway and so straight they only disappeared at their vanishing point, the buildings so monumental the sky was barely visible between their eaves. But whatever suns or satellites hung in the heavens of this Dominion, the city had no need of their illumination. Cords of light ran through the paving stones, and through the bricks and slabs of the great houses, their ubiquity ensuring that all but the most vapid shadows were banished from the streets and plazas.

He moved slowly at first, expecting soon to encounter one of the city's inhabitants, but after pa.s.sing over half a dozen intersections and finding no soul on the streets, he began to pick up his speed, slowing only when he glimpsed some sign of life behind the facades. He wasn't nimble enough to catch a face, nor was he so presumptuous as to enter uninvited, but he several times saw curtains moving, as though some shy but curious citizen was retiring from the sill before he could return the scrutiny. Nor was this the only sign of such presences. Carpets left hanging over bal.u.s.trades still shook, as if their beaters had just retired from their patios; vines dropped their leaves down as fruit gatherers fled for the safety of their rooms.

It seemed that however fast he traveled-and he was moving faster than any vehicle-he couldn't overtake the rumor that drove the populace into hiding. They left nothing behind: no pet, no child, no sc.r.a.p of litter, no stroke of graffiti. Each was a model citizen and kept his or her life out of sight behind the drapes and the closed doors.

Such emptiness in a metropolis so" clearly built to teem might have seemed melancholy had it not been for the structures themselves, which were built of materials so diverse in texture and color, and were lent such vitality by the light that ran in them, that, even though they were deserted, the streets and plazas had a life of their own. The builders had banished gray and brown from their palette and in its place had found slate, stone, paving, and tiles of every conceivable hue and nuance, mingling their colors with an audacity no architect of the Fifth would have dared. Street after street presented a spectacle of glorious color: facades of lilac and amber, colonnades of brilliant purples, squares laid out in ocher and blue. And everywhere, amid the riot, scarlet of eye-p.r.i.c.king intensity; and a white as perfect; and here and there, used more sparingly still, flicks and snippets of black: a tile, a brick, a seam in a slab.

But even such beauty could pall, and after a thousand such streets had slipped by-all as heroically built, all as lushly colored-the sheer excess of it became sickening, and Gentle was glad of the lightning that he saw erupt from one of the nearby streets, its brilliance sufficient to bleach the color from the facades for a flickering time. In search of its source, he redirected himself and came into a square, at the center of which stood a solitary figure, a Nullianac, its head thrown back as it unleashed its silent bolts into the barely glimpsed sky. Its power was many orders of magnitude greater than anything Gentle had witnessed from its like before. It, and presumably its brothers, had a piece of the G.o.d's power between the palms of its face, and its capacity for destruction was now stupendous.

Sensing the approach of the wanderer, the creature left off its rehearsals and floated up from the square as it searched for this interloper. Gentle didn't know what harm it could do to him in his present condition. If the Nullianacs were now Hapexamendios' elite, who knew what authority they'd been lent? But there was no profit in retreat. If he didn't seek some direction, he might wander here forever and never find his Father.

The Nullianac was naked, but there was neither sensuality nor vulnerability in that state. Its flesh was almost as bright as its fire, its form without visible means of procreation or evacuation: without hair, without nipples, without navel. It turned and turned and turned again, looking for the ent.i.ty whose nearness it sensed, but perhaps the new scale of its destructive powers had made it insensitive, because it failed to find Gentle until his spirit hovered a few yards away.

"Are you looking for me?" he said.

It found him now. Arcs of energy played back and forth between the palms of its head, and out of their cracklings the creature's unmelodious voice emerged.

"Maestro," it said.

"You know who I am?"

"Of course,"itsaid. "Of course."

Its head wove like that of a mesmerized snake as it drew closer to Gentle.

"Why are you here?" it said.

"To see my Father."

"Ah."

"1 came here to honor Him."

"So do we all."

"I'm sure. Can you take me to Him?"

"He's everywhere," the Nullianac said. "This is His city, and He's in its every mote."

"So if I speak to the ground I speak to Him, do I?"

The Nullianac mused on this for a few moments. "Not the ground," it said. "Don't speak to the ground."

"Then what? The walls? The sky? You? Is my Father in you?"

The arcs in the Nullianac's head grew more excitable. "No," it said. "I wouldn't presume-"

"Then will you take me to where I can do Him devotion? There isn't much time."

It was this remark more than any other which gained the Nullianac's compliance. It nodded its death-laden head.

"I'll take you," it said, and rose a little higher, turning from Gentle as it did so. "But as you say, we must be swift. His business cannot wait long."

Though Jude had been loath to let Celestine climb the stairs above, knowing as she did what lay at the top, she also knew that her presence would only spoil what little chance the woman had of gaining access to the Meditation Room, so she reluctantly stayed below, listening hard-as did they all-for some clue to what was transpiring in the shadows of the landing.

The first sound they heard was the warning growls of the gek-a-gek, followed by Sartori's voice, telling trespa.s.sers that their lives would be forfeit if they attempted to enter. Celestine answered him, but in a voice so low the sense of what she said was lost before it reached the bottom of the flight, and as the minutes pa.s.sed-were they minutes? perhaps only dreadful seconds, waiting for another eruption of violence-Jude could resist the temptation no longer and, snuffing out the candles closest to her, started a slow ascent.

She expected the angels to make some move to stop her, but they were too preoccupied with tending to Gentle's body, and she climbed unhindered by all but her caution. Celestine was still outside the door, she saw, but the Oviates were no longer blocking her way. At the instruction of the man inside they'd shrunk away and were waiting, bellies to the ground, for a cue to do mischief. Jude was now almost halfway up the flight, and she was able to catch fragments of the exchange that was under way between mother and son. It was Sartori's voice she heard first; a wasted whisper.

"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.

G.o.ddess, she thought, this is Your sister, Judith. There's a fire coming, G.o.ddess. 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, G.o.ddess. 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 pa.s.sing through: quite the opposite. As the minutes pa.s.sed, 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 f.a.gades, 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 pa.s.sed through had been imitations, diluted by repet.i.tion.

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."