Part 61 (2/2)
s.h.i.+t, she thought, that's blown it.
”No,” she said quickly. ”Absolutely not.”
”What does he want from me?”
”Nothing. I'm not his go-between. He got me into the Loop for the same reason he got you in, all those years ago. You remember that?”
”Oh yes,” he said, his voice totally devoid of color. ”Difficult to forget.”
”But do you know why he wanted you in the Loop?”
”He needed an acolyte.”
”No. He needed a body. ”
”Oh yes. He wanted that too.”
”He's a prisoner there, Jaffe. The only way he could ever get out was by stealing a body.”
”Why are you telling me this?” he said. ”Haven't we got better things to do, before the end?”
”The end?”
”Of the world,” he said. He put his back against the wall and allowed gravity to take him down on to his haunches. ”That's what's going to happen, isn't it?”
”What makes you think that?”
Jaffe raised his hands in front of his face. They hadn't healed at all. The flesh had been bitten off down to the bone in several places. Two fingers and the thumb of his right hand had gone entirely.
”I get glimpses,” he said, ”of things Tommy-Ray is seeing. There's something coming...”
”Can you see what?” she asked him, eager for any clue, however small, as to the Iad's nature. Did they come bearing baubles or bombs?
”No. Just a terrible night. An everlasting night. I don't want to see it.”
”You have to look,” Tesla said. ”Isn't that what Artists are supposed to do? To look and keep looking, even when the thing you're looking at is too much to bear. You're an Artist, Randolph-”
”No. I'm not.”
”You opened the schism didn't you?” she said. ”I'm not saying I agree with your methods, I don't, but you did what n.o.body else dared do. Maybe could ever do.”
”Kissoon planned it all this way,” Jaffe said. ”I see that now. He made me his acolyte even though I didn't know it. He used me.”
”I don't think so,” Tesla said. ”I don't think even he could have plotted something so byzantine. How could he know you and Fletcher would discover the Nuncio? No. What happened to you wasn't planned...you were your own agent in this, not Kissoon's. The power's yours. And so's the responsibility.”
She let her argument rest there for a little while, as much because she was exhausted as for any other reason. Jaffe didn't follow through. He just stared at the pseudofire, which would soon be guttering out, and then at his hands. It was only after a minute of this that he said: ”You came down here to tell me that?”
”Yes. Don't tell me I came on a fool's errand.”
”What do you want me to do?”
”Help us.”
”There's no help to be had.”
”You opened the hole, you can close it.”
”I'm not going near that house.”
”I thought you wanted Quiddity,” Tesla said. ”I thought being there was your great ambition.”
”I was wrong.”
”You got all that way, just to discover you were wrong? What changed your mind?”
”You won't understand.”
”Try me.”
He looked back towards the fire. ”That was the last of them,” he said. ”When the light goes, we're all in the dark.”
”There must be other ways out of here.”
”There are.”
”Then we'll take one of them. But first...first...tell me why you changed your mind.”
He took a lazy moment to contemplate his answer, or whether he was going to give it at all.
Then he said: ”When I first began looking for the Art, all the clues were about crossroads. Not all. But many. Yes, many. The ones that made any sense to me. And so I kept looking for a crossroads. I thought that was where I'd find the answer. Then Kissoon drew me into his Loop, and I thought, here he is, the last of the Shoal, in a hut in the middle of nowhere. No crossroads. I must have been wrong. And all that's happened since: at the Mission, in the Grove...none of it happened at a crossroads. I was being literal, you see. I've always been so d.a.m.n literal. Physical. Actual. Fletcher thought of air and sky, and I thought of power and bone. He made dreams from people's heads, I made stuff from their guts and sweat. Always thinking the obvious. And all the time...” his voice was thickening with feeling; hatred in it, self-directed, ”...all the time I didn't see. Until I used the Art, and realized what the crossroads were-”
”What?”
He put the less injured of his hands to his s.h.i.+rt, fumbling inside it. There was a medallion around his neck, on a fine chain. He pulled, hard. The chain broke, and he tossed the symbol over to Tesla. She knew before she caught it what it was going to be. She'd played this scene once before, with Kissoon. But that time she'd not been ready to understand what she understood now, holding the Shoal's sign in her hand.
”The crossroads,” she said. ”This is its symbol.”
”I don't know what symbols are any longer,” he replied. ”It's all one.”
”But this stands for something,” she said, looking again at the forms inscribed on the arm of the cross.
”To understand it is to have it,” Jaffe said. ”At the moment of comprehension it's no longer a symbol.”
”Then...make me understand,” Tesla said. ”Because I look at this and it's still just a cross. I mean, it's beautiful an' all, but it doesn't mean a whole lot. There's this guy in the center, looks like he's being crucified, 'cept there's no nails. And then all these creatures.”
”Doesn't it make any sense?”
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