Back in the Fifth, Gentle came to a halt at the edge of the fog. He'd sworn to himself that he'd never leave the Dominion again, but the drink swilling in his system had weakened his resolve. His feet itched to go after her into the fog.
"Well, boss," Monday said. "Are we going or aren't we?"
"Do you care either way?"
"Yes, as it happens."
"You'd still like to get your hands on Hoi-Polloi, huh?"
"I dream about her, boss. Cross-eyed girls, every night."
"Ah, well," Gentle said. "If we're chasing dreams, then I think that's good reason to go."
"Yeah?"
"In fact it's the only reason."
He grabbed hold of Monday's bottle and took a healthy swig from it.
"Let's do it," he said, and together they plunged into the fog, running over ground that softened and brightened as they went, paving stones becoming sand, night becoming day.
They caught sight of the women briefly, gray silhouettes against the peacock sky ahead, then lost them again as they gave chase. The gleam of day grew, however, and so did the sound of voices, which rose to the din of an excited crowd as they emerged from the passing place. There were buyers, sellers, and thieves on every side, and, disappearing into the throng, the women. They followed with renewed fervor, but the tide of people conspired to keep them from their quarry, and after half an hour of fruitless pursuit, which finally brought them back to the fog and the commercial hubbub which surrounded it, they had to admit that they'd been outmaneuvered.
Gentle was tetchy now, his head no longer buzzing but aching. "They're away," he said. "Let's give up on it."
"Shit."
"People come, people go. You can't afford to get attached to anyone."
"It's too late," Monday said dolefully. "I am."
Gentle squinted at the fog, his lips pursed. It was a cold October on the other side.
"I tell you what," he said after a little time. "We'll wander over to Vanaeph and see if we can find Tick Raw. Maybe he can help us."
Monday beamed. "You're a hero, boss. Lead the way."
Gentle went on tiptoe, attempting to orient himself.
"Trouble is, I haven't a bloody clue where Vanaeph is," he said.
He collared the nearest passerby and asked him how to get to the Mount. The fellow pointed over the heads of the crowd, leaving the boss and his boy to burrow their way to the edge of the market, where they had a view not of Vanaeph but of the walled city that stood between them and the Mount of Lipper Bayak. The grin reappeared on Monday's face, broader than ever, and on his lips the name he'd so often breathed like an enchantment.
"Patashoqua?"
"Yes."
"We painted it on the wall together, d'you remember?"
"I remember."
"What's it like inside?"
Gentle was peering at the bottle in his hand, wondering if the peculiar exhilaration he felt was going to pass with the headache that accompanied it.
"Boss?"
"What?"
"I said, what's it like inside?"
"I don't know. I've never been."
"Well, shouldn't we?"
Gentle thrust the bottle at Monday and sighed, a lazy, easy sigh that ended in a smile. "Yes, my friend," he said. "I think maybe we should."
Thus began the last pilgrimage of the Maestro Sartori— called John Furie Zacharias, or Gentle, the Reconciler of Dominions—across the Imajica.
He hadn't intended it to be a pilgrimage at all, but having promised Monday that they would find the woman of his dreams, he couldn't bring himself to desert the boy and return to the Fifth. They began their search, of course, in Patashoqua, which was more prosperous than ever these days, with its proximity to the newly reconciled Dominion creating businesses every day. After almost a year of wondering what the city would be like, Gentle was inevitably somewhat disappointed once he got inside its walls, but Monday's enthusiasm was a sight in itself, and a poignant reminder of his own astonishment when he and Pie had first entered the Fourth.
Unable to trace the women in the city, they went on to Vanaeph, hoping to find Tick. He was off traveling, they were told, but one sharp-sighted individual claimed to have seen two women who fitted the description of Jude and Hoi-Polloi hitching a ride at the edge of the highway. An hour later, Gentle and Monday were doing the same thing, and the pursuit that was to take them across the Dominions began in earnest.
For the Maestro the journey was very different from those that had preceded it. The first time he'd made this trek he'd traveled in ignorance of himself, failing to comprehend the significance of the people he'd met and the places he'd seen. The second time he'd been a phantom, flying at the speed of thought between members of the Synod, his business too urgent to allow him to appreciate the myriad wonders he was passing through. But now, finally, he had both the time and the comprehension to make sense of his pilgrimage, and, having begun the journey reluctantly, he soon had as much taste for it as his companion.
Word of the changes in Yzordderrex had spread even to the tiniest villages, and the demise of the Autarch's Empire was everywhere cause for jubilation. Rumors of the Imajica's healing had also spread, and when Monday told people where he and his quiet companion came from (which he was wont to do at the vaguest cue) they were plied with drinks and grilled for news of the paradisiacal Fifth. Many of their questioners, knowing that the door into that mystery finally stood open, were planning to visit the Fifth and wanted to know what gifts they should take with them into a Dominion that was already so full of marvels. When this question was put, Gentle, who usually let Monday do the talking during these interviews, invariably spoke up.
"Take your family histories," he'd say. "Take your poems. Take your jokes. Take your lullabies. Make them understand in the Fifth what glories there are here."
People tended to look at him askance when he answered in this fashion, and told him that their jokes and their family histories didn't seem particularly glorious. Gentle would simply say, "They're you. And you're the best gift the Fifth could be given."
"You know, we could have made a fortune if we'd brought a few maps of England with us," Monday remarked one day.
"Do we care about fortunes?" Gentle said.
"You might not, boss," Monday replied. "Personally, I'm much in favor."
He was right, Gentle thought. They could have sold a thousand maps already, and they were only just entering the Third: maps which would have been copied, and the copies copied, each transcriber inevitably adding their own felicities to the design. The thought of such proliferation led Gentle back to his own hand, which had seldom worked for any purpose other than profit, and which for all its labor had never produced anything of lasting value. But unlike the paintings he'd forged, maps weren't cursed by the notion of a definitive original. They grew in the copying, as their inaccuracies were corrected, their empty spaces filled, their legends redevised. And even when all the corrections had been made, to the finest detail, they could still never be cursed with the word finished, because their subject continued to change. Rivers widened and meandered, or dried up altogether; islands rose and sank again; even mountains moved. By their very nature, maps were always works in progress, and Gentle—his resolve strengthened by thinking of them that way—decided after many months of delay to turn his hand to making one.