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 satiric sermonizer himself, had chosen to make his home. The considerable expanse of the chamber was crisscrossed 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.

Among this collection were several chairs, suspended at various heights, and two or three small tables. There was even a platform heaped with pillows and bedclothes, 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 that 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, Will, 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 he hoped to God that 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 bring 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, fueled 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, 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 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 meta-physicians; part demagogues.”

“I’m none of those things,” Will said.

“Oh, but there’s a spirit moves in you,” Rukenau said. “An animal of some kind, is it?”

“Why don’t you come down and see for yourself?”

“I could never do that.”

“Why not?”

“I’ve told you. The house is an atrocity. I have sworn I will not set foot on it. Ever again.”

“But you’re the one who had it built.”

“How is it you know so much?” Rukenau said. “Did you get all this from Jacob? Because let me tell you, if you did, he knows less than he thinks.”

“I’ll tell you everything I know, and where I learned it,” Will said. “But first—”

Rukenau looked lazily at Ted. “Yes, yes, his wretched wife. Look at me, Theodore. That’s better. Are you sure you want to leave my employ? I mean, is it such a burden to fetch me a little fruit or a little fish?”

“I thought you told me you never left the house?” Will said to Ted.

“Oh he doesn’t go out to get it,” Rukenau said. “He goes in, don’t you, Theodore? He goes where his wife has gone, or as close as he dares.”

Will was confounded by this, but he did his best to keep the bewilderment from his face. “If you really want to leave,” Rukenau went on, “I will make no objection. But I’m warning you, Theodore, your wife may feel otherwise. She went into the soul of the house, and she was enamored of what she found. I have no power over that kind of stupidity.”

“But if I could somehow get her back?” Ted said.

“Then if your new champion here will stay in your place, I would not prevent your leaving. How’s that? Will? Is that a fair bargain?”

“No,” Will said, “but I’ll accept it.” Ted was beaming. “Thank you,” he said to Will. “Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.” Then to Rukenau, “Does that mean I can go?”

“By all means. Find her. If she’ll come to you, that is, which I frankly doubt . . .”

This talk didn’t wipe the smile from Ted’s face. He was gone in a moment, darting off across the chamber. Before he’d even reached the door he’d started calling his wife’s name.

“She won’t come to him,” Rukenau said, when Ted had exited the chamber. “The Domus Mundi has her. What does he have to offer her by way of seduction?”

“His love?” Will said.

“The world doesn’t care for love, Will. It goes on its way, indifferent to our feelings. You know that.”

“But perhaps—”

“Perhaps what? Go on, tell me what’s on your mind.”

“Perhaps we haven’t shown it enough love ourselves.”

“Oh would that make the world kind?” Rukenau said.

“Would that make the sea bear me up if I was drowning? Would a plague rat elect not to bite me, because I professed my love?

Will, don’t be so childish. The world doesn’t care what Theodore feels for his wife, and his wife is too entranced with the glamour of this miserable place to look twice at him. That is the bitter truth.”

“I don’t see what’s so enchanting about this place.”

“Of course you don’t. That’s because I’ve worked against its seductions over the years. I’ve had them sealed from my sight with mud and excrement. Much of it my own, by the way. A man passes a lot of shit in two hundred and seventy years.”

“So it was you that covered the walls?”

“At the beginning it was my personal handiwork, yes. Later, when people made the mistake of wandering in, I turned their hands to the task. Many of them died doing it, I’m afraid—” He interrupted himself, rising to his feet on his perch. “Oh now,” he said. “It begins.”

“What’s happening?”

“Jacob Steep has just entered.” There was a barely perceptible tremor in Rukenau’s voice.

“Then you’d better tell me what you know about him,” Will replied. “And do it quickly.”