Barker, Clive – Imajica 01 – The Fifth Dominion. Part 8

Despite their baggy and by now well-crumpled clothes, both Pie and Gentle were bare-headed and smooth-skulled, so they attracted a good deal of attention from envious poseurs parading on the pavement. It was far from welcome, of course. If Pie’s theory was correct and Ham-meryock or Pontiff Farrow had described them to the Autarch’s torturers, their likenesses might very well have appeared in the broadsheets of L’Himby. If so, an envious dandy might have them removed from the competition with a few words in a soldier’s ear. Would it not be wiser, Gentle suggested, if they hailed a taxi, and traveled a little more discreetly? The mystif was reluctant to do so, explaining that it could not remember Scopique’s address, and their only hope of finding it was to go on foot, while Pie followed its nose. They made a point of avoiding the busier parts of the street, however, where cafe customers were outside enjoying the evening air or, less frequently, where soldiers gathered. Though they continued to attract interest and admiration, nobody challenged them, and after twenty minutes they turned off the main thoroughfare, the well-tended buildings giving way within a couple of blocks to grimier structures, the fops to grimmer souls.

“This feels safer,” Gentle said, a paradoxical remark given that the streets they were wandering through now were the kind they would have instinctively avoided in any city of the Fifth: ill-lit backwaters, where many of the houses had fallen into severe disrepair. Lamps burned in even the most dilapidated, however, and children played in the gloomy streets despite the lateness of the hour. Their games were those of earth, give or take a detail—not filched, but invented by young minds from the same basic materials: a ball and a bat, some chalk and a pavement, a rope and a rhyme. Gentle found it reassuring to walk among them and hear their laughter, which was indistinguishable from that of human children.

Eventually the tenanted houses gave way to total dereliction, and it was clear from the mystif s disgruntlement that it was no longer sure of its whereabouts. Then, a little noise of pleasure, as it caught sight of a distant structure.

“That’s the temple.” Pie pointed to a monolith some miles from where they stood. It was unlit and seemed forsaken, the ground in its vicinity leveled. “Scopique had that view from his toilet window, I remember. On fine days he said he used to throw open the window and contemplate and defecate simultaneously.”

Smiling at the memory, the mystif turned its back on the sight.

“The bathroom faced the temple, and there were no more streets between the house and the temple. It was common land, for the pilgrims to pitch their tents.”

“So we’re walking in the right direction,” Gentle said. “We just need the last street on our right.”

“That seems logical,” Pie said. “I was beginning to doubt my memory.”

They didn’t have much farther to look. Two more blocks, and the rubble-strewn streets came to an abrupt end.

“This is it.”

There was no triumph in Pie’s voice, which was not surprising, given the scene of devastation before them. While it was time that had undone the splendor of the streets they’d passed through, this last had been prey to more systematic assault. Fires had been set in several of the houses. Others looked as though they’d been used for target practice by a Panzer division.

“Somebody got here before us,” Gentle said.

“So it seems,” Pie replied. “I must say I’m not altogether surprised.”

“So why the hell did you bring us here?”

“I had to see for myself,” Pie said. “Don’t worry, the trail doesn’t end here. He’ll have left a message.”

Gentle didn’t remark on how unlikely he thought this, but followed the mystif along the street until it stopped in front of a building that, while not reduced to a heap of blackened stones, looked ready to succumb. Fire had eaten out its eyes, and the once-fine door had been replaced with partially rotted timbers; all this illuminated not by lamplight (the street had none) but by a scattering of stars.

“Better you stay out here,” Pie ‘oh’ pah said. “Scopique may have left defenses.”

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