Barker, Clive – Imajica 01 – The Fifth Dominion. Part 7

There’d been a labyrinthine cellar, she remembered, lined with shelves piled high with books and manuscripts. There’d been a wall (lovers coupling against it) and, behind it, hidden from every sight but hers, a cell in which a bound woman had lain in darkness for a suffering age. She heard the prisoner’s scream now, in her mind’s ear: that howl of madness that had driven her up out of the ground and back through the dark streets to the safety of her own house and head. Was the woman still screaming, she wondered, or had she sunk back into the comatose state from which she’d been so unkindly woken? The thought of her pain brought tears to Jude’s eyes, mingling with the rain.

“What are you doing?”

Oscar had reappeared from the tower and was hurrying across the gravel towards her, his jacket raised and tented over his head.

“My dear, you’ll freeze to death. Get in the car. Please, please. Get in the car.”

She did as he suggested, the rain running down her neck.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I . . . I wondered where you’d gone, that was all. Then . . . I don’t know . . . the place seemed familiar.”

“It’s a place of no importance,” he said. “You’re shivering. Would you prefer we didn’t go to the opera?”

“Would you mind?”

“Not in the least. Pleasure shouldn’t be a trial. You’re wet and cold, and we can’t have you getting a chill. One sickly individual’s enough.”

She didn’t question this last remark; there was too much; else on her mind. She wanted to sob, though whether out of joy or sorrow she wasn’t sure. The dream she’d come to dismiss as fancy was founded in solid fact, and this solid fact beside her—Godolphin—was in turn touched by something momentous. She’d been persuaded by his practiced understatement: the way he talked of traveling to the Dominions as he would of boarding a train, and his expeditions in Yzordderrex as a form of tourism as yet unavailable to the great unwashed. But his reductionism was a screen—whether he was aware of the fact or not—a ploy to conceal the greater significance of his business. His ignorance, or arrogance, might well kill him, she began to suspect: which thought was the sorrow in her. And the joy? That she might save him, and he learn to love her out of gratitude.

Back at the house they both changed out of their formal attire. When she emerged from her room on the top floor she found him on the stairs, waiting for her.

“I wonder. . . perhaps we should talk?”

They went downstairs into the tasteful clutter of the lounge. The rain beat against the window. He drew the curtains and poured them brandies to fortify them against the cold. Then he sat down opposite her.

“We have a problem, you and I.”

“We do?”

“There’s so much we have to say to each other. At least . . . here am I presuming it’s reciprocal, but for myself, certainly .. . certainly I’ve got a good deal I want to say, and I’m damned if I know where to begin. I’m aware that I owe you explanations, about what you saw at the estate, about

Dowd and the voiders, about what I did to Charlie. The list goes on. And I’ve tried, really I have, to find some way to

make it all clear to you. But the truth is, I’m not sure of the truth myself. Memory plays such tricks”—she made a mur-mur of agreement—“especially when you’re dealing with

places and people who seem to belong half in your dreams.

Or in your nightmares.” He drained his glass and reached for the bottle he’d set on the table beside him.

“I don’t like Dowd,” she said suddenly. “And I don’t

trust him.”

He looked up from refilling his glass. “That’s percep-tive,” he said. “You want some more brandy?” She prof-fered her glass, and he poured her an ample measure. “I agree with you,” he said. “He’s a dangerous creature, for a number of reasons.”

“Can’t you get rid of him?”

“He knows too much, I’m afraid. He’d be more danger-ous out of my employ than in it.”

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