He felt more and more confident. He smiled to himself as he walked down the stairs to his own apartment, a stairway now clear of strangers and invisibles.
That night he stood at the window to look out on the city and there was a darkness where before lights had shone over the dome. He missed the glow, and yet the darkness itself was a sign of completion. Generations to come might want to light the Square by night; but for his part, it belonged in the sun, which gave it essence. He turned his face from the window and paced, restless, his thoughts more toward the port than, this night, toward Jenks Square.
He took the brooch which had lain on the table, from beside the tray which the servants would take away, but no one had pilfered the brooch and he had not, in fact, expected that it would vanish. He ran his fingers over it, traced the smooth spirals of the design and the silky surface of the blue stones. Invisible, like the makers, like the mind which had shaped it and the hands which had handled it until his took it up.
And he went to the closet and clipped it to the collar of the Black he would wear tomorrow. The humor of it pleased him; he had had enough of invisible absurdities, because still the memory of that Outsider hand which had dared check him rankled. His arm felt bruised. So he chose his own absurdities. Let Waden comment. He dusted himself and stripped off his still dusty garments and tossed them into the corner, his old and own habits; the Residency had made him too meticulous, as Keye had wished to make him, observant of her amenities.
So let the servants pick it up if they liked. Servants washed the clothes. They could find them wherever they were dropped and he had no present desire to be agreeable to anyone. He began to weary of the Residency, this stifling place where Waden's guests came and went.
He thought of returning to the University. He thought even of Law's Valley and a visit to Camus Province, recalled that he had thought of summoning his family here for his great day, that on which the Work would be finished, but that . . . that indicated a desire for something, which he denied, and the mere thought of the logistics involved was tedium. He desired nothing; needed nothing. He found himself charged with a surfeit of energy, facing physical work on the morrow, but with nothing for his mind to do. He could not face bed, or sleep, and thought of Keye again, with vexation. He paced and thought even of dressing again and going out and walking the streets to burn off the energy.
He should have stayed in that conference. Waden's invisible might have been interesting. And if he had stayed, there would have been trouble, because he was in a mood for encounter, for debate, for anything to occupy his mind, and Waden and Keye without the visitor would have been the company he would have chosen. But he had sensed in Waden a protective attitude toward the intruder: Waden's Art . . . he did well, he decided, to have walked out, and not to have been there in his present state of energy.
He paced, and ended up at the table again, staring at the rest of the wine which had come with dinner, and reminding himself that he had decided not to take that route to sleep; that he was headed away from that very visible precipice. It damaged him. So did lying awake and rising early, and doing physical and mental labor on two hours' sleep a night.
With resentment, he uncapped the bottle, poured the glass full, set bottle and glass by the bedside.
He began to think where he was going next, what project he might have in mind; but the one he was finishing was still too vivid for him, refused to leave his thoughts and yet refused further elaborations. It became a pit out of which he could not climb, offering no broader perspectives, affording him no view of where he was going next.
The vision would come, he reckoned, lying abed and sipping at the wine and staring at the wall opposite, with the dark window at his left and nothing out there to dream about. It would come. As yet it did not.
XIX
Waden Jenks: Inspire me, I defy you to do more.
Master Law: When I defy you to do more, I fear you can.
Waden Jenks: Then have you not, Herrin, met your master?
Master Law: Then have you not met the thing you say you fear most?
The finish came at night. The Work stood complete and it was all done—in the dark and with no admirers. The night was cold as nights in the season could be, with a beclouded moon and puddles of rain in the dome, water which had drifted through the perforations as a light mist that haloed the lamps.
Herrin had seen the finish near, so near, had pushed himself on after dark. "Light," he had asked of Carl Gytha and Andrew Phelps, who remained with him; and John Ree, who was there for reasons unexplained; and some of the others who had decided to work the off shift of other jobs they had gotten since the project finished, or after classes they had joined after the finish of the project; and nighttime strollers who had found a place to be and something going on ended up lending a hand with the carrying of this and that "Light" he would say, his back turned to all of this activity, and peevishly, for his arms ached and he had bitten through his lip from the sheer strain of holding his position to polish this place and the other. It did not occur to him to inquire whether holding that light was a strain; or it did, but he was having trouble reaching a spot at the moment and forgot to ask afterward. His own pain was by far enough, and he was beset with anxiety that he could not last, that they would face the anticlimax of giving up, and coming back at dawn to do the last work, all because his strength might give out. He worked, and gave impatient orders that kept the beam on the sculpture so that he could see what he was doing; he ran sore hands over the surface which had become like glass, seeking any tiny imperfection.
"We'll do it," they said about him, and, "Quiet, don't rattle that," and, "The foundry has it; we can get it . . . ." The plaque, they meant: he had asked about that, in a lull for rest, and he trusted they were doing something in the matter, because he had shown them where it should go, had picked a paving-square which could come out, out where the square began to be the Square, and not Main. They had hammered the paving-square out during the day, and prepared the matrix, not only to set the names in bronze, but to seal the bronze to protect it from oxidation and from time. He heard some activity outside, and ignored it, locked in his own concentration on his own task.
He stopped finally and took the cup a worker thrust to his lips, took it in his own aching hands, drank and drew breath.
"Get the scaffolding down now," he said, a mere hoarse whisper. "It's done."
"Yes, sir," said Carl Gytha, and patted his shoulder. "Yes, sir."
He swung his legs off the platform.
"It's done" someone said aloud, and the word passed and echoed in the acoustics of the dome . . . done . . . done . . . done . . . drowned by applause, a solemn and sober applause, from a whole array of people who had no obligation to be there at all. He slid down into steadying hands, and there was a rush to get him a coat and to hand him his drink, as if he were their child and fragile. "What about the plaque?" he asked, remembering that.
"In, sir," said John Ree. "Got it set and setting, and not a bubble."
"Show me."