Sacrament

-do you see a piece of open ground?' 'Yes.'

'Carry me to it. The House is there.' 'I don't see anything.' 'That's because it has ways to fold itself out of your sight. But it's there. Trust me, it's there. And it wants us inside.'

CHAPTER XII

The sound of the avalanche was audible in the Domus Mundi, but Will took little notice of it, distracted as he was by the scale of the spectacle before him. Or more precisely, above him. For it was there that Gerard Rukenau, the satyric sermonizer himself, had chosen to make his home. The considerable expanse of the chamber was criss-crossed with a complex network of ropes and platforms, the lowest of them hanging a little above head-height, while the highest were virtually lost in the shadows of the vaulted ceiling. In places, the knotted ropes were so densely intertwined, and so encrusted with detritus, that they formed almost solid partitions, and in one spot a kind of chimney that rose to the ceiling. To add further to the sum of these strangenesses, there were scattered throughout the structure items of antique furniture collected, perhaps, out of that mysterious house in Ludlow from which Galloway had liberated his friend Simeon. Amongst this collection were several chairs, suspended at various heights; two or three small tables. There was even a platform heaped with pillows and bed-clothes, where, presumably, Rukenau laid his head at night. Though the cords and branches from which all of this was constructed were filthy, and the furniture, despite its quality, much the worse for wear, the obsessive elaboration of knots and partitions and platforms was beautiful in the flickering luminescence which rose from the bowls of pale flame that were set around the web, like stars in a strange firmament.

And then, from a location perhaps forty feet above Will's head, at the top of the woven chimney, Rukenau's voice came floating down.

'So now, Theodore,' he said. 'Who have you brought to see me?' His voice was more musical than it had sounded when he'd been summoning them. He sounded genuinely curious as to who this stranger in their midst might be.

'His name's Will,' Ted said.

'I heard that much,' Rukenau replied, 'and he hates William; which is sensible. But I also heard you came looking for me, Will; and that's far more intriguing to me. How is it you've come looking for a man who's been removed from human sight for so long?'

'There's still a few people talking about you,' Will said, looking up into the murky heights

'You mustn't do that,' Ted whispered to him. 'Keep your head bowed.' Will ignored the advice, and continued to stare up at the mesh. His defiance was rewarded. There was Rukenau, descending through the myriad layers of his suspended world, stepping from one precarious perch to another like a tightrope walker. And as he made his descent, he talked on:

'Tell me, Wilclass="underline" do you know the man and woman making such a ruckus outside?' he asked.

'There's a man?' Will said.

'Oh yes, there's a man.'

It could only be one, Will knew; and hoped to God Frannie had got out of his path. 'Yes, I know them,' he told Rukenau, 'but I think you know them better.'

'Perhaps so,' the man above him replied, 'though it's been a very long time since I drove them out of here.'

'Do you want to tell me why you did that?'

'Because the male did not bong my Thomas back to me.'

'Thomas Simeon?'

Rukenau halted in his descent. 'Oh Jesu,' he said. 'You really do know something about me, don't you?'

'I'd still like to know more.'

'Thomas came back to me, at last; did you know that?'

'Once he was dead,' Will said. This piece of the story was a guess on his part, fuelled by Dwyer's theorizing; but the more he persuaded Rukenau he knew, the more he hoped the man would confess. And Dwyer had been right in her deductions it seemed, for Rukenau sighed and said: 'Indeed, he came back to me a corpse. And I think a little of my own life went out of me when he was laid in the rocks. He had a greater supply of God's grace in his little finger than I have in my entire being. Or ever had.'

Now after a little pause to mull this admission over, he continued to descend, and by degrees Will got a better sense of him. He was dressed in what had once been fine clothes, but which now, like almost everything in the House, were besmirched and encrusted. Only his face and hands were pale, and these uncannily pale, so that he resembled a bloodless doll. There was nothing brittle about his motion however; he moved with a kind of sinuous grace, so that despite his excremental garb, and the blandness of his features, Will could not take his gaze from the man.

'Tell me,' Rukenau said, as he continued his descent, 'how is it you know these people at the threshold?'

'You call them Nilotics, is that right?'

'Almost; but not quite,' Rukenau said. Once again he paused. He was now perhaps ten feet above Will's head, and perched upon a platform of bound boughs, he went down on his haunches and studied Will through the mesh as a fisherman might, to study his catch. 'I think despite your acuity you haven't quite comprehended their natures yet. Is that not so?'

'You're right,' Will said. 'I haven't. That's why I came here; to find out.'

Rukenau leaned forward a little further and pulled aside a portion of encrusted rope in order to see his subject better, which in turn gave Will a clearer view of Rukenau. It wasn't simply his sinuous motion that carried an echo of the serpentine. There was a gloss to his flesh which put Will in mind of a snake; as did his total absence of hair. He had no eyebrows, nor lashes, nor any sight of hair on his cheek or chin. If this was some dermatological disease, he didn't seem to be suffering any other effects. In fact he fairly radiated good health; his eyes gleamed, and his teeth shone, uncommonly white.

'You came here out of curiosity?' he said.

'I suppose that's part of it.'

'What else?'

'Rosa ... is dying.'

'I doubt that.'

'She is. I swear.'

'And the male? Jacob? Is he sickening too?'

'Not the way Rosa is, but yes ... he's sickening.'

'Then,' Rukenau chewed on this a moment, 'I think we should continue this conversation without young Theodore. Why don't you go and fetch me some sustenance, my boy?'

'Yes, sir-' Ted replied, thoroughly cowed.

'Wait-' Will said, catching hold of Ted's arm before he could leave. 'Ted had something to ask you for.'

'Yes, yes, his wife ...' Rukenau said, wearily. 'I hear you sobbing over her, Theodore, night and day. But I can do nothing for you, I'm afraid. She doesn't care to see you any longer. That's the long and short of it. Don't take it too personally. She's just become enthralled with this damnable place.'

'You don't like it here?' Will said.

'Like it?' Rukenau replied, his mask of pleasantry evaporating in a heartbeat. 'This is my prison, Will. Do you understand me? My purgatory. Nay; I would say, my Hell.' He leaned down a little, and studied Will's face. 'But I wonder, when I look at you, if perhaps some gracious angel hasn't sent you to set me free.'

'It can't be that difficult to get out of here, surely,' Will said. 'Ted told me he found his way back to the front door without-'

Rukenau interrupted, his voice all exasperation: 'What do you suppose would happen to me if I stepped outside these walls?' he said. 'I've shed a lot of skins in this House, Will, and I've cheated the Reaper doing so.

But the moment I step beyond the limits of this abominable place my immortality is forfeit. I would have thought that would have been plain enough to a man of your wisdom. Tell me, by the way, what do they call we magi in your age? Necromancer always sounded theatrical to my ear; and Doctor of Philosophy entirely too dusty. The fact is, I don't think there ever was a word that suited us. We're part metaphysicians; part demagogues.'