Venus Preserved (Secret Books of Venus Series) (22 page)

All this was also in the song, which spoke of searching over scalded plains of land and anatomy.

And in the twanging purring of the s’tha.

Come to me now
, said the song.
Here I am
, said the song.

Picaro was no longer afraid of anything, in the world or out of it. Nor of
her
. Nor of himself.

Here I am
.

Above,
everywhere
, a form now merged out of cloud and water. Blood-red snakes of energy tore the upper atmosphere, like birth-blood, running, dripping.

And from this chaos, the angel was made manifest, clad in its electric, interminate, semi-bodily yet un-bodied form.

It was at first limitless as the horizon, yet now, from being the whole sky, it condensed. It became only a giant.

You might see its face at last. Which was exquisite, and of a gorgeous,
gentle
ferocity, pitiless and mindless nearly as the mask of a hunting beast. And its eyes you might see,
beaming
down. It was all sheening, flame-wet brilliance.

A spear of razored lightning struck the head of the Tower.

Then, the angel opened all its wings, of argent and brass and orichalc, of sard and chrysoprase and corundum. One behind another, another and another. Another.

It dropped. Like a hawk.

To the pointed apex of the Tower.

The Magpie played on.

What do magpies do?

T
HE
T
OWER SHOOK
, and to Jula, the lightning flash, the roar of wings, demonstrated what had arrived there.

Into her mind, one thought.

I will, if need be, die for you. As part of my repayment for all the ones I have killed
.

The thought was gone.

Virtually sexless and mindless as any angel, a machine, the gladiatrix stood and raised her sword.

She had not reasoned it out, instinct only. But an instinct coalesced from all her almost-recollected pasts.

The demon was mortal clay made ether, energy
embodied
. And so it was both, neither, something new—and yet, as India had told them, without the getting of that body it would never have come to this.

Now, in some esoteric and integral way, it was possible to stretch the essence of it
away from itself
. To place it therefore, in
two minds
.

She was no positive threat to it, could not be.

Yet, as a man only, in that body’s first life, and since in its beginning as a man here, when it played at believing it was only mortal,
then
she could have been.

Picaro’s music, unheard by Jula, thrumming and singing through the storm around the Tower top, engaged the psyche of what the demon-angel was.

Jula, by her presence, and the nature of what
she
still was—fighter, defender,
pursuer
—(and in her placing in the Tower, between the chakras of heart and belly, sheer
guts
) she called to some other part of the demon.

Immaculate though it was, what was physical in it
could not ignore her, if what was spirit in it maybe never even
noticed
.

And so (physically
threatened
) that element of it,
physically
descended.

The sword in her hand seared crimson, white.

Through the four narrow gallery windows sprang four shapes.

She knew each one.

The Gaul was a blond man she had killed when she was only sixteen. He was clad merely in his kilt, a dented metal helm and greaves and armlets. It had been a make-shift bout, a trial of her, not even in the arena at Stagna Maris but some other little nearby pit. Second was a man from Talio’s school, a Neptuni Retiarius, with net and trident. She had killed him in her third fight with him—when she was about twenty. The crowd had not liked him that day and not allowed him the Missio. The third man was Phaetho. Oh yes. Phaetho that she had killed, her last. He was kitted out as a murmillo—a
shelled
fish. The crested, round-rimmed helmet, with its lowered vizor, hid his face, even the eyes behind their lattice—which now she knew resembled the faceted eyes of insects—the greaves, padded and thicker protection on the left leg, as on the right arm, the four-foot length of shield, the short sword. Above his bared torso, a sculpted artwork, she noted, without amazement, the scar of the death-wound she had had to give him, across his neck. The fourth man was a challenger-provocator. Despite the closed, rimless, and uncrested helm with its feathered points, the rectangular breastplate, the concealment of shield and greaves, she recognized this man too. She had
never
fought him, never killed him.
It was the other way about
. He was the nameless gladiator at the feast, who had seen to her poisoning.

She understood all four were dead. That these were not—
themselves
. But she too, what else was she but one who had been dead, and who was
not
.

They came at her together and at once, of course. All four.

There had been such times—past images of built bridges above water in the stadium, fighting against three men—a fight with wolves made terrible by hunger and mistreatment—a free-fight, seven against seven.

Then the longer sword of forged ferrum, the nameless provocator’s weapon, arced inward, and for a second she felt its shrill claw on her ribs, before her shield was there instead.

Already dead, Nameless was not afraid to fight her now.

I
N THE OPEN GALLERY ABOVE
, Picaro was aware of, yet did not hear, the clash of blades below, could not hear Flayd’s trumpet-voice thundering—

Could not hear the storm, the curdling wind, the waves smashing in over the Primo Square, driving before them the wreckage of crushed ships, the crashing of glass and brickwork no longer CX-protected—

Could not hear rewoken, limping sirens, the shouting, the screaming of fear throughout the City, the pan-demonic of despair—

Could not hear the sky falling.

Picaro played the s’tha.

A pleasing sensual heat, like sunlight or the hot fur of a cat, bloomed up against his face and throat, his chest, his hands that danced on the strings—

A marvel of effulgence was there, sunlike and wonderful.

Something

leaned
towards him—

He felt its touch
.

Not a hand now, nor a cup against his lip, not jealous pain and sickness—

No, this was the infatuating brushing of an unearthly aura,
stroking
against him—

In union
—

Like—

Like
then
—

with
her
. Simoon—

Breast to breast.

Just
like that.

Not even sex. Never love.

Stronger
.

An emotion that should never have existed in the mortal world, and which never had, till then.

Till now.

Picaro, as sometimes he did with a captured audience, half glanced up, toward it.

So he looked directly at what hovered there against the roof and the parapet of the Torre dell’ Angelo, and against
him
.

Probably its blissful glow would blind him, like the sun it had copied. Which wouldn’t matter.

Its ethereal splendor.

He too—
he too
—was partly this—

It was shining and so bright. He could not look away.

(Unfaltering, his musician’s hands raced on.)

And—with things so bright and shining, what do magpies do?

A
BOVE NOW
, J
ULA
HEARD
the music, and the singing and the sizzling like a conflagration in the air. Below her the
howl of the sea, the quake of the City, Flayd’s bronzen calling in a hundred different tongues.

She had killed the Neptuni Retiarius, as before she had, evading the net, taking the trident against her shield, slicing upward through his side. But the others were at her, circling. … The Gaul, eager now as he had not been in the past, struck her in the side.

Jula paid the wound no attention.

This combat could only end in her death. So she believed. She had no care.

And above Music, and below Prayer—

Instinctively turning, she ducked under the longer sword of the provocator, the short thrusting sword of Phaetho—she stabbed the Gaul through and through—he tumbled aside.

She too sprang away, and saw, unstartled by it, how the two upright adversaries she had evaded were suddenly entangled with each other, blade on blade, ignoring her, cursing—believing themselves—not brainless automata of an angel, but actual gladiators, matched together, muddled. For a stupid minute they fought, murmillo with provocator, an unusual pairing. Then that was over.

As they pulled away, turning to fix their hidden eyes again on her, the new-killed Gaul, and the retiarius, like the remade warriors of the Dragon’s Teeth, were getting once more to their feet.

In her closed-shut helmet, Jula grunted. It was a laugh.

This was not Phaetho, and the nameless one who had poisoned her was not himself, nor the Gaul, nor the man with the net.
Things
, that was all.

She ran at them, the sword swerving, now here, now there, her metal-edged shield tilted, weapon not defense.

T
HE FLAWLESS FACE
of the angel poised centimeters from Picaro’s own. Its breath was on his skin, transparent and glittering—
visible
, and unadulterated as virgin honey.

What do magpies do?

The angel

Spoke

to Picaro.

Come to me
, said the angel (as the song had said.) And then:
I can give you everything. You need no one but me
.

As Simoon had said it, long ago.

Picaro ceased to play the s’tha. The angel was the music, and he, Picaro. It was they themselves now who played, without any musician.

“Come to
me
,” said Picaro. He smiled up into the wondrous face. The longing to throw himself against it, to become absorbed, was very strong, ecstatic, almost—sexual—
not
. “Come to me. I can give
you
everything. You don’t need anyone but me.
You’re mine
.”

And

It smiled. The angel smiled.

In all worlds, there, here, nowhere, never had there been a vision so peerless, or so irresistible. It was what mankind clandestinely dreams of. The love of God.

T
HE NAMELESS PROVOCATOR
engaged her, while the other three, temporarily, were again down, stunned or slain, believing it themselves.

As fighters sometimes did, but never wisely, the provocator began to talk to Jula.

“Why did I have you killed?” asked the provocator. “
I
wasn’t fearful of you. No. I too was simply paid to see to it. You were discovered to be a Christian,
even if
you
didn’t know. And to our masters, the Christiani were intent on overthrowing all earthly authority. And where most Christiani were passive victims, you, Jula, were not. You had been
trained
to fight. Have you heard of the rebellious gladiator called Spartacus? He led a revolt that made a cavity in Roman might. Those men he inspired could win against the legions. Rome never forgot Spartacus. They thought you might be one of that kind. And you were so popular, too. Nor did they dismiss you for being a woman. Rome knew women more deadly than any man—all those foreign queens that had hammered against their empire. I was paid. I bullied and bribed and buggered the kitchen slave into doing it for me. Poison on a cake. You died.”

Unwise to speak. She had no care at all.

She knew she had heard all the truth at last. Even in this extremity, it intrigued her.

“How do you know?” she said.

She had thought too, This thing knows nothing. It is I who know, have known—this voice talks inside me, and is mine.

Were these
things
, then, dissembling as gladiators, also hers? Her own demons, which the demon-angel had brought to life—
through her
?

Cephus, who was Petrus, had blessed her and given her to his Christ. She thought, to the Christiani—ultimately
not
to fight was the one true battle.

She thought of the peacock in the courtyard, and its colors. Green and blue. What did it mean, any of it?

Jula stood back.

As once in a dream, she let go her sword.

The Gaul was standing. Phaetho was getting up—absurdly, for a second, assisting the fallen retiarius—

Jula let her shield topple down.

She looked at the gorgon enameled on the breastplate of the nameless provocator.

“Again, kill me,” said Jula. “I have done enough. I won’t harm you any more.”

As she said this, a colossal quietude rose within her. She had never felt in all her life—her lives—such stillness. She drew off her helmet and discarded that too. She lifted her head. She looked at the four things that were spatters of etheric dough, bits of a demon-angel. Ghosts.

She heard the old man say, blind and clear as clarity in her mind, out of the catacomb of death: “
She is Yours
.”

W
HAT MAGPIES DO IS
steal what is bright and shining; for that act they’re well known.

Picaro sighed.

As he reached to embrace the angel, it too, now enormous, now only the size of a tall man, put out its arms to him.

Breast to breast.

Molten.

Not a cup, but its lips on his own.

He had kissed Jula.

That had prepared Picaro.
Taught
him.

The kiss of the angel was not like the pressure of a mouth, but like a mending. Nor was its proximity like anything of the body. It was so healingly warm.

Yet the mouth also—was still a cup. Picaro parted his lips. He was parched, always. He must drink. No water, no alcohol, no drug, could help him. Nothing would do—but this.

He breathed inward, opening wide, like wings, his singer’s lungs. And drew in the glowing scintillant breath of the angel.

Drew and drew. In and in.

He and it—one kind.