"For the better," Jude said.
"I don't like ruin, however picturesque it is," Gentle replied.
Jude eyed him strangely at this, but she said nothing.
"Are we safe here?" Hoi—Polloi said, addressing nobody in particular. "It's so dark."
"Course we're safe," Monday said, putting his arm around the girl's shoulders. "We got the whole fuckin' place sealed up. He's not going to get in, is he, boss?"
"Who?" Jude asked.
"Sartori," said Monday.
"Is he somewhere in the vicinity?"
Gentle's silence was reply enough.
"And you think a few locks are going to keep him out?"
"Won't they?" said Hoi—Polloi.
"Not if he wants to get in," Jude said.
"He won't," Gentle replied. "When the Reconciliation begins, there's going to be a flow of power through this house ... my Father's power."
The thought was as distasteful to Jude as Gentle assumed it would be to Sartori, but her response was subtler than revulsion.
"He's your brother," she reminded him, "Don't be so sure he won't want a taste of what's in here. And if he does, he'll come and get it."
He stared hard at her.
"Are we talking about power, here, or you?"
Jude took a moment before replying. Then she said, "Both."
Gentle shrugged. "If that happens, you'll make your decision," he said. "You've made them before, and you've been wrong. Maybe it's time to have a little faith, Jude." He stood up. "Share what the rest of us already know," he said.
"And what's that?"
"That in a few hours we'll be standing in a legendary place."
Monday softly said, "Yeah," and Gentle smiled.
"Take care down here, all of you," he said, and headed to the door.
Jude reached for Clem, and with his help hauled herself to her feet. By the time she reached the door Gentle was already on the stairs.
She didn't say his name. He simply stopped for a moment and, without turning, said, "I don't want to hear."
Then he continued his ascent, and she knew by the slope of his shoulders and the weight of his tread that for all his prophetic talk there was a little worm of doubt in him just as there was in her, and he was afraid that if he turned and saw her, it would fatten on their look and choke him.
The scent of sap was waiting for him on the threshold, and as he'd hoped it masked the sourer smell from the darkened streets outside. Otherwise his room, in which he'd lounged and laughed and debated the conundrums of the cosmos, offered no solace. It suddenly seemed to him a stagnant place, too well feited and swayed for its own good: the last place on earth to perform his work. But then hadn't he berated Jude, just moments ago, for not having sufficient faith? There was no great power in geography. It was all rooted in the Maestro's faith in the miraculous, and in the will that sprang from that faith.
In preparation for the work ahead, he undressed. Once naked, he crossed to the mantelpiece, intending to fetch the candles off it and set them around the circle. But the sight of their flames in flickering array made him think instead of worship, and he dropped to his knees in front of the empty grate to pray. The Lord's Prayer came most readily to his lips, and he recited it aloud. Its sentiments had never been apter, of course. But after tonight it would be a museum piece, a relic of a time before the Lord's Kingdom had come and His will been done, on Earth and in Heaven.
A touch on the back of his neck brought this recitation to a halt. He opened his eyes, raised his head, turned. The room was empty, but his nape still tingled where the touch had come. This wasn't memory, he knew. It was something more delicate than that, a reminder of the other prize that lay at the end of this night's work. Not glory, not the gratitude of the Dominions: Pie 'oh' pah. He looked up at the stained wall above the mantelpiece and seemed for a moment to see the mystif s face there, changing with each flicker of the candlelight. Athanasius had called the love he felt for the mystif profane. He hadn't believed it then, and he didn't now. The purpose that was in him as Reconciler and the desire he felt for reunion were part of the same plan.
The prayer was gone from his tongue. No matter, he thought; I'm its executor now. He got up, took one of the candles from the mantelpiece, and, smiling, stepped over the perimeters of the circle, not as a simple traveler but as a Maestro, ready to use its engine to miraculous end.
Lying on the cushions in the lounge below, Jude felt the flow of energies start. They ached in her chest and belly, like mild dyspepsia. She rubbed her stomach, in the hope of soothing the discomfort, but it did little good, so she got to her feet and hobbled out, leaving Monday to entertain HoiPolloi with his chatter and his handiwork. He'd taken to drawing on the walls with the smoke from one of the candles, enhancing the marks with his chalks. Hoi—Polloi was much impressed, and her laughter, the first Jude had ever heard from the girl, followed her out into the hallway, where she found Clem standing guard beside the locked front door.
They stared at each other in the candlelight for several seconds before she said, "Do you feel it too?"
"Yep. It's not very pleasant, is it?"
"I thought it was only me," she said.
"Why only you?"
"I don't know, some kind of punishment...."
"You still think he's got some secret agenda, don't you?"
"No," Jude said, glancing up the stairs. "I think he's doing what he believes is best. In fact I know it. Uma Umagammagi got inside his head—"
"God, he hated that."
"She gave him a good report, whether he hated it or not."
"So?"
"So there's still a conspiracy somewhere."
"Sartori?"
"No. It's something to do with their Father and this damn Reconciliation." She winced as the discomfort in her belly became more severe. "I'm not afraid of Sartori. It's what's going on in this house"—she gritted her teeth as another wave of pain passed through her system—"that I can't quite trust."
She looked back at Clem and knew that, as ever, he'd listen as a loving friend, but she could expect no support from him. He and Tay were the angels of the Reconciliation, and if she pressed them to decide between her welfare and that of the working, she'd be the loser.
The sound of Hoi—Polloi's laughter came again, not as feathery as before, but with an undertow of mischief Jude knew was sexual. She turned her back on the sound and on Clem, and her gaze came to rest on the door of the one room in this house she'd never entered. It stood a little ajar, and she could see that candles were burning inside. Of all the company to seek out when she was in need of comfort, Celestine's was the least promising, but all other avenues were closed to her. She crossed to the door and pushed it open. The mattress was empty, and the candle beside it was burning low. The room was too large to be illuminated by such a fitful flame, and she had to study the darkness until she found its occupant. Celestine was standing against the far wall.
"I'm surprised you came back," she said.
Jude had heard many exquisite speakers since she'd last heard Celestine, but there was still something extraordinary in the way the woman mingled voices: one running beneath the other, as though the part of her touched by divinity had never entirely married with a baser self.
"Why surprised?"
"Because I thought you'd stay with the Goddesses."
"I was tempted," Jude replied.
"But finally you had to come back. For him."
"I was a messenger, that's all. I've got no claims on Gentle now."
"I didn't mean Gentle."
"I see."
"I meant—"
"I know who you meant."
"Can't you bear to have his name spoken?"
Celestine had been staring at the candle flame, but now she looked up at Jude.
"What will you do when he's dead?" she asked. "He will die, you realize that? He has to. Gentle'11 want to be magnanimous, the way .victors are supposed to be; he'll want to forgive all his brother's trespasses. But there'll be too many demands for his head."