The Reconciliation Read online

  Go back into the Fifth Dominion and complete what you began. Make the many One. This is the only salvation.

  The stone sky began to roil again, and the clouds closed over the sun. With the darkness, the cold returned, but he didn't relinquish his place in the Pivot's shadow for several seconds, still hoping some crack would open and the God speak a last consoling word, a whisper perhaps, of how this onerous duty might be passed to another soul more readily equipped to accomplish it. But there was nothing. The vision had passed, and all he could do was wrap his arms around his shuddering frame and stumble out to where Sartori stood. The other's cigarette lay smoking at his feet, where it had dropped from his fingers. By the expression on his face it was apparent that even if he'd not comprehended every detail of the exchange that had just taken place, he had the gist.

  “The Unbeheld speaks,” he said, his voice as flat as the God's.

  “I don't want this,” Gentle said.

  “I don't think this is any place to talk about denying Him,” Sartori said, giving the Pivot a queasy glance.

  “I didn't say I was denying Him,” Gentle replied. “Just that I didn't want it.”

  “Still better discussed in private,” Sartori whispered, turning to open the door.

  He didn't lead Gentle back to the mean little room where they'd met, but to a chamber at the other end of the passageway, which boasted the only window he'd seen in the vicinity. It was narrow and dirty, but not as dirty as the sky on the other side. Dawn had begun to touch the clouds, but the smoke that still rose in curling columns from the fires below all but canceled its frail light.

  “This isn't what I came for,” Gentle said as he stared out at the murk. “I wanted answers.”

  “You've had 'em.”

  “I have to take what's mine, however foul it is?”

  “Not yours, ours. The responsibility. The pain”—he paused—“and the glory, of course.”

  Gentle glanced at him. “It's mine,” he said simply.

  Sartori shrugged, as though this were of no consequence to him whatsoever. Gentle saw his own wiles working in that simple gesture. How many times had he shrugged in precisely that fashion-raised his eyebrows, pursed his lips, looked away with feigned indifference? He let Sartori believe the bluff was working.

  “I'm glad you understand,” he said. “The burden's mine.”

  “You've failed before.”

  “But I came close,” Gentle said, feigning access to a memory he didn't yet have in the hope of coaxing an informative rebuttal.

  “Close isn't good enough,” Sartori said. “Close is lethal. A tragedy. Look what it did to you. The great Maestro. You crawl back here with half your wits missing.”

  “The Pivot trusts me.”

  That struck a tender place. Suddenly Sartori was shouting.

  “Fuck the Pivot! Why should you be the Reconciler? Huh? Why? One hundred and fifty years I've ruled the Imajica. I know how to use power. You don't.”

  “Is that what you want?” Gentle said, trailing the bait of that possibility. “You want to be the Reconciler in my place?”

  “I'm better equipped than you,” Sartori raged. “All you're good for is sniffing after women.”

  “And what are you? Impotent?”

  “I know what you're doing. I'd do the same. You're stirring me up, so I'll spill my secrets. I don't care. There's nothing you can do I can't do better. You wasted all those years, hiding away, but I used them. I turned myself into an empire builder. What did you do?” He didn't wait for an answer. He knew his subject too well. “You've learned nothing. If you began the Reconciliation now, you'd make the same mistakes.”

  “And what were they?”

  “It comes down to one,” Sartori said. “Judith. If you hadn't wanted her—” He stopped, studying his other. “You don't even remember that, do you?”

  “No,” Gentle said. “Not yet.”

  “Let me tell you, brother,” Sartori said, coming face to face with Gentle. “It's a sad story.”

  “I don't weep easily.”

  “She was the most beautiful woman in England. Some people said, in Europe. But she belonged to Joshua Godolphm, and he guarded her like his soul.”

  “They were married?”

  “No. She was his mistress, but he loved her more than any wife. And of course he knew what you felt, you didn't disguise it, and that made him afraid—oh, God, was he afraid—that sooner or later you were going to seduce her and spirit her away. It'd be easy. You were the Maestro Sartori; you could do anything. But he was one of your patrons, so you bided your tune, thinking maybe he'd tire of her, and then you could have her without bad blood between you. It didn't happen. The months went by, and his devotion was as intense as ever. You'd never waited this long for a woman before. You started to suffer like a lovesick adolescent. You couldn't sleep. Your heart palpitated at the sound of her voice. This wasn't good for the Reconciliation, of course, having the Maestro pining away, and Godolphin came to want a solution as badly as you did. So when you found one, he was ready to listen.”

  “What was it?”

  “That you make another Judith, indistinguishable from the first. You had the feits to do it.”

  “Then he'd have one ...”

  “And so would you. Simple. No, not simple. Very difficult. Very dangerous. But those were heady days. Dominions hidden from human eyes since the beginning of time were just a few ceremonies away. Heaven was possible. Creating another Judith seemed like small potatoes. You put it to him, and he agreed—”

  “Just like that?”

  “You sweetened the pill. You promised him a Judith better than the first. A woman who wouldn't age, wouldn't tire of his company or the company of his sons, or the sons of his sons. This Judith would belong to the men of the Godolphin family in perpetuity. She'd be pliant, she'd be modest, she'd be perfect.”

  “And what did the original think of this?”

  “She didn't know. You drugged her, you took her up to the Meditation room in the house in Gamut Street, you lit a blazing fire, stripped her naked, and began the ritual. You anointed her; you laid her in a circle of sand from the margin of the Second Dominion, the holiest ground in the Imajica. Then you said your prayers, and you waited.” He paused, enjoying this telling. “It is, let me remind you, a long conjuration. Eleven hours at the minimum, watching the doppelgSnger grow in the circle beside its source. You'd made sure there was nobody else in the house, of course, not even your precious mystif. This was a very secret ritual. So you were alone, and you soon got bored. And when you got bored, you got drunk. So there you were, sitting in the room with her, watching her perfection in the firelight, obsessing on her beauty. And eventually—half out of your mind with brandy—you made the biggest mistake of your life. You tore off your clothes, you stepped into the circle, and you did about everything a man can do to a woman, even though she was comatose, and you were hallucinating with fasting and drink. You didn't fuck her once, you did it over and over, as though you wanted to get up inside her. Over and over. Then you fell into a stupor at her side.”

  Gentle began to see the error looming. “I fell asleep in the circle?” he said.

  “In the circle.”

  “And you were the consequence.”

  “I was. And let me tell you, it was quite a birth. People say they don't remember the moment they came into the world, but I do. I remember opening my eyes in the circle, with her beside me, and these rains of matter coming down on me, congealing around my spirit. Becoming bone. Becoming flesh.” All expression had gone from his face. “I remember,” he said, “at one point she realized she wasn't alone and she turned and saw me lying beside her. I was unfinished. An anatomy lesson, raw and wet. I've never forgotten the noise she made—”

  “I didn't wake up through any of this?”

  “You'd crawled away downstairs to douse your head, and you'd fallen asleep. I know because I found you, later on, sprawled on the dining room table.”

 
“The conjuration still worked, even though I'd left the circle?”

  “You're quite the technician, aren't you? Yes, it still worked. You were an easy subject. It took hours to decode Judith and make her doppelganger. But you were incandescent. The sway read you in minutes and made me in a couple of hours.”

  “You knew who you were from the beginning?”

  “Oh, yes. I was you, in your lust. I was you, full of drunken visions. I was you, wanting to fuck and fuck, and conquer and conquer. But I was also you when you'd done your worst, with your balls empty and your head empty, like death had got in, sitting there between her legs trying to remember what it was you were living for. I was that man too, and it was terrifying to have both those feelings in me at the same time.”

  He paused a moment.

  “It still is, brother.”

  “I would have helped you, surely, if I'd known what I'd done.”

  “Or put me out of my misery,” Sartori said. “Taken me into the garden and shot me like a rabid dog. I didn't know what you'd do. I went downstairs. You were snoring like a trooper. I watched you for a long while, wanting to wake you, wanting to share the terror I felt, but Godolphin arrived before I got up the courage. It was just before dawn. He'd come to take Judith home. I hid myself. I watched Godolphin wake you; I heard you talk together, I saw you climb the stairs like two expectant fathers and go into the Meditation Room. Then I heard your whoops of celebration, and I knew once and for all that I wasn't an intended child.”

  “What did you do?”

  “I stole some money and some clothes. Then I made my escape. The fear passed after a time. I began to realize what I was, the knowledge I possessed. And I realized I had this ... appetite. Your appetite. I wanted glory.”

  “And this is what you did to get it?” Gentle said, turning back to the window. The devastation below was clearer by the minute, as the comet's light strengthened. “Brave work, brother.”

  “This was a great city once. And there'll be others, just as great. Greater, because this time there'll be two of us to build it. And two of us to rule.”

  “You've got me wrong,” Gentle said. “I don't want an empire.”

  “But it's bound to come,” Sartori said, fired up with this vision. “You're the Reconciler, brother. You're the healer of the Imajica. You know what that could mean for us both? If you reconcile the Dominions there'll have to be one great city—a new Yzordderrex—to rule it from end to end. I'll found it and administrate it, and you can be pope.”

  “I don't want to be pope.”

  “What do you want then?”

  “Pie 'oh' pah for one. And some sense of what all this means.”

  “Being born to be the Reconciler's enough meaning for anyone. It's all the purpose you need. Don't run from it.”

  “And what were you born to do? You can't build cities forever.” He glanced out at the desolation. “Is that why you've destroyed it?” he said. “So you can start again?”

  “I didn't destroy it. There was a revolution.”

  “Which you fueled, with your massacres,” Gentle said. “I was in a little village called Beatrix, a few weeks ago—”

  “Ah, yes. Beatrix.” Sartori drew a heavy breath. “It was you, of course. I knew somebody was watching me, but I didn't know who. The frustration made me cruel, I'm afraid,”

  “You call that cruel? I call it inhuman.”

  “It may take you a little time to understand, but every now and again such extremes are necessary.”

  “I knew some of those people.”

  “You won't ever have to dirty your hands with that kind of unpleasantness. I'll do whatever's necessary.”

  “So will I,” said Gentle.

  Sartori frowned. “Is that a threat?” he said.

  “This began with me, and it'll end with me.”

  “But which me, Maestro? That one”—he pointed at Gentle—“or this? Don't you see, we weren't meant to be enemies. We can achieve so much more if we work together.” He put his hand on Gentle's shoulder. “We were meant to meet this way. That's why the Pivot kept silent all these years. It was waiting for you to come, and us to be reunited.” His face slackened. “Don't be my enemy,” he said. “The thought of—”

  A cry of alarm from outside the room cut him short. He turned from Gentle and started towards the door as a soldier appeared in the passageway beyond, his throat opened, his hand ineptly staunching the spurts. He stumbled and fell against the wall, sliding to the ground.

  “The mob must be here,” Sartori remarked, with a hint of satisfaction. “It's time to make your decision, brother. Do we go on from here together, or shall I rule the Fifth alone?”

  A new din rose, loud enough to blot out any further exchange, and Sartori left off his counseling, stepping out into the passageway.

  “Stay here,” he told Gentle. “Think about it while you wait.”

  Gentle ignored the instruction. As soon as Sartori was around the corner, he followed. The commotion died away as he did so, leaving only the low whistle from the soldier's windpipe to accompany his pursuit. Gentle picked up his pace, suddenly fearing that an ambush awaited his other. No doubt Sartori deserved death. No doubt they both did. But there was a good deal he hadn't prized from his brother yet, especially concerning the failure of the Reconciliation. He had to be preserved from harm, at least until Gentle had every clue to the puzzle out of him. The time would come for them both to pay the penalty for their excesses. But it wasn't yet.

  As he stepped over the dead soldier, he heard the mystifs voice. The single word it said was: “Gentle.”

  Hearing that tone—like no other he'd heard or dreamt— all concern for Sartori's preservation, or his own, was overwhelmed. His only thought was to get to the place where the mystif was; to lay his eyes on it and his arms around it. They'd been parted for far too long. Never again, he swore to himself as he ran. Whatever edicts or obligations were set before them, whatever malice sought to divide them, never again would he let the mystif go.

  He turned the corner. Ahead lay the doorway that led out into the antechamber. Sartori was on the other side, partially eclipsed, but hearing Gentle's approach he turned, glancing back into the passageway. The smile of welcome he was wearing for Pie 'oh' pah decayed, and in two strides he was at the door to slam it in his maker's face. Realizing he was outpaced, Gentle yelled Pie's name, but the door was closed before the syllable was out, plunging Gentle into almost total darkness. The oath he'd made seconds before was broken; they were divided again, before they could even be reunited. In his rage Gentle threw himself against the door, but like everything else in this tower it was built to last a millennium. However hard he hit it, all he got was bruises. They hurt; but the memory of Sartori's leer when he'd talked about his taste for mystifs stung more. Even now, the mystif was probably in Sartori's arms. Embraced, kissed, possessed.

  He threw himself against the door one final time, then gave up on such primitive assaults. Drawing a breath, he blew it into his fist and slammed the pneuma against the door the way he'd learned to do in the Jokalaylau. It had been a glacier beneath his hand on that first occasion, and the ice had cracked only after several attempts. This time, either because his will to be on the other side of the door was stronger than his desire to free the women in the ice, or simply because he was the Maestro Sartori now, a named man who knew at least a little about the power he wielded, the steel succumbed at the first blow, and a jagged crack opened in the door.

  He heard Sartori shouting on the other side, but he didn't waste time trying to make sense of it. Instead he delivered a second pneuma against the fractured steel, and this time his hand passed all the way through the door as pieces flew from beneath his palm. He put his fist to his mouth a third time, smelling his own blood as he did so, but whatever harm this was doing him, it had not yet registered as pain. He caught a third breath and delivered it against the door with a yell that wouldn't have shamed a samurai. The hinges shrieked, and the door f
lew open. He was through it before it had struck the floor, only to find the antechamber beyond deserted, at least by the living. Three corpses, companions to the soldier who'd raised the alarm, lay sprawled on the floor, all opened with single slashes. He leapt over them to the door, his broken hand adding its drops to the pools he trod.

  The corridor beyond was rank with smoke, as though something half rotted was burning in the bowels of the palace. But through the murk, fifty yards from him, he saw Sartori and Pie 'oh' pah. Whatever fiction Sartori had invented to dissuade the mystif from completing its mission, it had proved potent. They were racing from the tower without so much as a backward glance, like lovers just escaped from death's door.

  Gentle drew breath, not to issue a pneuma this time but a call. He shouted Pie's name down the passageway, the smoke dividing as his summons went, as though the syllables from a Maestro's mouth had a literal presence. Pie stopped and looked back. Sartori took hold of the mystif s arm as if to hurry it on, but Pie's eyes had already found Gentle, and it refused to be ushered away. Instead it shrugged off Sartori's hold and took a step in Gentle's direction. The curtain of smoke divided by his cry had come together again and made a blur of the mystif s face, but Gentle read its confusion from its body. It seemed not to know whether to advance or retreat.

  “It's me!” Gentle called. “It's me!”

  He saw Sartori at the mystif s shoulder and caught fragments of the warnings he was whispering: something about the Pivot having hold of their heads.

  “I'm not an illusion, Pie,” Gentle said as he advanced. “This is me. Gentle. I'm real.”

  The mystif shook its head, looking back at Sartori, then again at Gentle, confounded by the sight.