Barker, Clive – Imajica 01 – The Fifth Dominion. Part 9

“Have you eaten, my girl?” Clara wanted to know.

Jude told her she had.

“Good,” Clara said. “We’ll need all our strength tonight.”

“Before we go any further,” Jude said, “I want to show

you something. I don’t know what use it can be to us, but I

think you ought to see it.” She brought the parcel of cloth

out of her bag. “Remember what you said about Celestine

plucking the thoughts out of your head?”

“Of course.”

“This is what did the same to me.”

She began to unwrap the eye, a subtle tremor in her fin-gers as she did so. Four months and more had passed since she’d hidden it away with such superstitious care but her , memory of its effect was undimmed, and she half expected it to exercise some power now. It did nothing, though; it lay in the folds of its covering, looking so unremarkable she was almost embarrassed to have made such a show of unveiling it. Clara, however, stared at it with a smile on her lips.

“Where did you get this?” she said.

“I’d rather not say.”

“This is no time for secrets,” Clara snapped. “How did -you come by it?”•

“I thought we’d agreed—” Clem said.“I know It was given to my husband. My ex-husband.”

“Who by?”

“His brother.”

“And who’s his brother?”

She took a deep breath, undecided even as she drew it , whether she’d expel it again as truth or fabrication.

”His name’s Oscar Godolphin,” she said.

At this reply Clara physically retreated from Judith, almost as though this name was proof of the plague.

“Do you know Oscar Godolphin?” she said, her tone appalled.

“Yes, I do.”

“Is he the watchdog?” she said,

“Yes, he is.”

“Cover it up,” she said, shunning the eye now. “Cover it up and put it away.” She turned her back on Judith, running her crabbed hands through her hair. “You and Godolphin?” she said, half to herself. “What does that mean?

What does that mean?”

“It doesn’t mean anything,” Jude said. “What I feel for him and what we’re doing now are completely different issues.”

“Don’t be naive,” Clara replied, glancing back at Jude. “Godolphin’s a member of the Tabula Rasa, and a man. You and Celestine are both women, and his prisoners—”

“I’m not his prisoner,” Jude said, infuriated by Clara’s condescension. “I do what I want when I want.”

“Until you defy history,” Clara said. “Then you’ll see how much he thinks he owns you.” She approached Jude again, taking her voice down to a pained whisper. “Understand this,” she said. “You can’t save Celestine and keep his affections. You’re going to be digging at the very foundations—literally, the foundations—of his family and his faith, and when he finds out—and he will, when the Tabula Rasa starts to crumble—whatever’s between you will mean nothing. We’re not another sex, Judith, we’re another spe-ties. What’s going on in our bodies and our heads isn’t remotely like what’s going on in theirs. Our hells are different. So are our heavens. We’re enemies, and you can’t be on both sides in a war.”

“It isn’t war,” Jude said. “If it was war I’d be angry, and I’ve never been calmer.”

“We’ll see how calm you are, when you see how things really stand.”

Jude took another deep breath. “Maybe we should stop arguing and do what we came to do,” she said. Clara looked at her balefully. “I think stubborn bitch is the phrase you’re looking for,” Jude remarked.

“I never trust the passive ones,” Clara said, betraying a trace of admiration. “I’ll remember that.”

The tower was in darkness, and the trees clogged the lamp-tight from the street, leaving the forecourt shadowy and the route down the flank of the building virtually lightless. Gara had obviously wandered here by night many times, however, because she went with confidence, leaving Jude : to trail, snared by the brambles and stung by the nettles it had been easy to avoid in the sunshine. By the time she reached the back of the tower, her eyes were better accustomed to the murk and found Clara standing twenty yards from the building, staring at the ground.

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