"There is a certain poetic beauty in destroying that which you love."
—Conrad Bland
Jericho got off the bus twenty miles south of Amaymon. A few minutes later he managed to flag down a southbound truck. He dispatched the driver with bloodless efficiency, appropriated his clothes, and placed the corpse in the back of the truck. He then cut over the median strip and proceeded north, giving Amaymon a reasonably wide berth and picking up a highway that roughly paralleled the River Styx. When he was within seven miles of the appointed meeting place he waited until there were no other vehicles in sight, then drove the truck into the water, jumping clear at the last instant. Even though it vanished beneath the surface he had no doubt that it would be found in the next day or two; the river wasn't all that deep, and it would probably impede barge traffic. But a day or two was all the head start that he needed, especially now that he was beyond Sable's jurisdiction and free to choose a new identity.
It took him a little more than an hour to walk through the gathering darkness to the new bridge, and he arrived just as the planet's two small moons were producing a beautiful counterpoint to the last stages of the sunset. A few minutes later a woman dressed all in white approached him.
"Jericho?"
He nodded.
"Follow me, please." She turned on her heel without waiting for an acknowledgment or acquiescence.
He fell into step behind her and they walked, unspeaking, along the riverbank for a little more than a mile. Then she led him up a relatively steep incline to the top of a rocky bluff overlooking the Styx, and he found himself facing a large concrete building. Night had fallen, and the interior of the building was aglow with artificial light.
The woman entered, gestured him to follow her, and led him down a long corridor. He looked for some symbols or tokens to indicate which sect the White Lucy belonged to, but the whitewashed walls and ceilings were devoid of any religious artifacts or ornamentation. They passed a number of rooms, each sparsely and austerely furnished, then stopped before a heavy wooden door. The woman paused for a moment, then nodded her head and opened it, and Jericho quickly stepped through the doorway. Seated on a wooden chair, her arms resting on its arms as if they were too feeble to move, was a very old woman. A teenaged girl sat at her feet. Both were dressed in white.
"Come in. Sit down," said the old woman in a stronger voice than he had expected. He looked around, found a chair in the shadows by the window, and walked over to it. The woman who had acted as his guide left the room, closing the door behind her.
Jericho sat down and looked at the old woman. Her hair was long and gray, done up in a bun atop her head, and her face was so wrinkled that he couldn't begin to guess her age.
She turned her face to him and he saw that her eyes were covered by thin white membranes.
"You're the White Lucy?" he asked.
"I am," she said. "You may leave us now, Dorcas." The girl at her feet stood up and left the room. "A nice girl, Dorcas, but I don't need her now that you're here."
"I don't understand," said Jericho.
"Your eyes," she said. "I need someone's eyes to see through."
"You're seeing what I'm seeing?"
"Oh, yes," said the White Lucy. "I almost wish I wasn't, though. I used to be a very pretty woman."
"I'm sure you were."
"About a century ago," she continued. "I am one hundred and twenty-eight years old. Can you believe that?"
"I have no reason to doubt you," he said.
"Of course you don't," she said. "And you couldn't hide it if you did. You have a curiously flat mind, Jericho; I don't think I've ever found one quite like it."
"Oh?"
"Indeed. Most people would be very apprehensive about meeting with a woman who can read their innermost thoughts. You seem not to care at all. A very curious mind: no hills or valleys at all. No passions, no hates, no fears, no lusts. Just flat and businesslike. I think the reason you accept my age without question is not that I am telling you the truth, but that it makes no difference to you whether I am or not. Such a clean, uncluttered mind! It might be interesting to shock it out of its straight lines and carefully measured angles, just to see how it reacts. I could, you know."
"I don't doubt it," said Jericho. "Since you're inside my head already, why are we speaking?"
The White Lucy chuckled. "Because you're not a telepath. I can read your thoughts, but you can't read mine. That's why I sent for you: so that we could speak face to face. Though if you'd like to look out the window, I would enjoy that: I like to see the stars."
"All right," said Jericho, turning his gaze to the night sky. "You sent for me. I'm here. Now what can you do for me?"
"To begin with, I can warn you not to go to Malkuth," said the White Lucy.
"Why?"
"Because Conrad Bland has scheduled every last man, woman, and child in Malkuth for extermination. Within a week nothing will be left alive there, and even you, with all your skills, would not be able to escape the city or its destruction."
"Interesting," remarked Jericho. "What has Bland got against Malkuth?"
"Nothing."
"But—"
"Ah!" exclaimed the old woman. "So that's what your mind looks like when it's puzzled! Such curious patterns! I wish you could see it."
"Why does Bland want to destroy Malkuth?" repeated Jericho.
"Because he is an evil man."
"That's no answer," said Jericho. He slowly, deliberately, closed his eyes.
"What happened?" said the White Lucy, suddenly confused. "Ah! Now I see. Isn't that a little juvenile, Jericho, cutting off a poor weak old lady's vision?"
"There's nothing poor or weak about you," said Jericho coldly. "I just thought I'd bring you back to the subject at hand: Why should Bland want to destroy Malkuth?"
"Because it is his nature to destroy things," said the White Lucy.
"You're saying he's some kind of madman?"
"No!" snapped the old woman. "Conrad Bland is totally rational, as rational and as much in control of himself as you are. I don't know if the concept of good is embodied anywhere in this universe. I only know that there is evil and there is everything else, and that the evil resides within Conrad Bland."
"You make it sound rather mystical," said Jericho.
"And now your mind is saying that you've wasted a trip, and that I'm nothing but a demented old religious fanatic after all," said the White Lucy. "But your mind hasn't been where mine has been. I tell you truthfully that left to his own devices Conrad Bland will destroy every living thing on this planet."
"That doesn't make any sense. Walpurgis is the only planet in the Republic that was willing to grant him sanctuary."
"He will not do this because it makes sense," said the White Lucy, "but because it is his nature. No alternative to destroying Walpurgis has ever occurred to him. No alternative ever will." She paused. "Why do I see confusion in your mind?"
"You've convinced me of your sincerity," he said with a sardonic smile. "But since you can read my mind, you knew exactly what to say to convince me. However, it makes no difference. I personally couldn't care less why you want Bland dead. I want to know how you think you can help me, and why you think I can't kill him alone."
"You need our help because you have made a serious blunder," said the White Lucy, shifting slightly on her chair.
"The newspaper ad?" he asked.
"A minor thing," she said. "No, your blunder was killing Parnell Burnam."
"Who was he?"
"The first of your victims."
"I had to find out what—"
"I know your reasons," she interrupted. "But it got John Sable involved, and he turned out to be a lot smarter than you thought. Even then I didn't interfere, but now he's told Bland everything he knows, and I couldn't put off our meeting any longer."
"Why?" said Jericho. "Bland doesn't know who he's looking for any more than Sable did. I won't be using any of my Amaymon identities again."
"Bland knows exactly who he's looking for," said the White Lucy, scuffing the floor with her right foot. "Oh, he may not be able to pinpoint you the way I could, but he knows a Republic assassin is on his way to Tifereth. Today alone he has killed more than seven hundred people who were traveling within a two-hundred-mile radius of Tifereth. Tomorrow he will kill more. He will surround himself with death and desolation, and will kill any living thing that approaches him."
"Then I fail to see how you can help get me into Tifereth," said Jericho.
"Amazing!" said the White Lucy.
"What is?"
"The fact that he's killing all these innocent people doesn't mean a thing to you, does it?"
"A professional in my line of work can't afford to be emotional."
"Even after all I've told you, you have no more concern for Bland than if he were an insect. You don't especially care whether he lives or dies, except as it affects the remainder of your fee."
"What difference do my motives make to you as long as I kill him?" said Jericho. "Every minute I waste here is another minute he has to prepare his defenses. I appreciate the fact that you want him dead. I appreciate the fact that you can read his mind. I appreciate the fact that you can also read the minds of his security forces. But I fail to see how that can help me if he's mowing down everything that approaches the city. Besides, you can't send your thoughts to me once I leave here, even if you learn something useful."
"Oh yes I can," she said. "I have receiving stations posted all over Walpurgis."
"Your white witches?"
"My people—and we're not white witches. We practice no magic or devil worship. We are merely women with a gift."
"Why do you wear white?" he asked.
"Protective coloration. You, of all people, should understand that."
"And you've got people like yourself all over the world?" he continued.
"Not exactly like myself. Most of them can only receive. A few can send. Only I can do both."
"It strikes me that you're a pretty dangerous person in your own right," said Jericho, getting up from his chair and stretching.
"Don't be foolish," she said. "Why would I keep your identity and whereabouts a secret from the police and expose my own powers to you if I weren't on your side?"
"I don't know," admitted Jericho, walking around the room and staring idly at various smudges on the wall. "I wish I did."
"You're a very untrusting man," said the White Lucy. "Your mind has been conditioned that way. I am telling you the truth, but, to borrow your own words, what difference does it make? We both want Bland killed, and I have offered you my help."
He stared at her long and hard, trying to scrutinize her withered face, and simultaneously he became very aware of the fact that she was probably digging around inside his head, seeking weak spots, points of least resistance that would allow her to convince him to accept her aid. Suddenly, as he tried to make his mind a blank, a series of grotesquely erotic images shot across it. Embarrassed, he tried to expunge them, and found that the harder he tried the more they persisted.
"Very good, Jericho," said the White Lucy with a smile. "That's usually the initial reaction I get when someone finds out I am reading his mind. I would call this a delayed reaction. . . . Oh! That's a new one!"
He fidgeted uncomfortably. Finally he dredged up a picture of the body of Benson Rallings in its death throes. It was neither pleasant nor unpleasant. He concentrated on it.
"Ah, you learn quickly. If it will ease your discomfort, I will withdraw from your mind."
He felt no different, and wasn't sure he could trust her. He drew a mental picture of how he might disembowel her, then watched her for a reaction. There was none.
"All right," he said at last, still not sure she had kept her word but seeing no alternative to believing her, at least for the moment. "How can your people help?"
"I have arranged to put you aboard a freighter that will be coming up the Styx tomorrow morning before daylight," said the White Lucy. "Dorcas will accompany you."
"No," he said firmly. "I work alone."
"I know you do," she said. "Now please let me finish. Dorcas will accompany you until such time as I feel that remaining on the river is no longer safe. She will then be instructed to return home, and you will go ashore and make your way north to Tifereth. In most of the cities of Walpurgis my people function as fortune-tellers and palmists. Since they can have me read a customer's mind and tell them what they need to know, we are naturally a little more successful than our competitors, and hence we make enough money to support ourselves. I have women stationed in most of the cities between here and Tifereth. They will be able to tell you of any new developments, of the disposition of Bland's forces, of any further attempts being made to determine who and where you are. They will know which cities are still safe, which of your disguises have been penetrated."
"There are a lot of fortune-tellers around," said Jericho. "How will I know which ones are yours?"
"They'll be wearing white."
"So do white witches."
"But white witches don't tell fortunes," said the White Lucy.
"Have you any people in Tifereth itself?" he asked.
"I did. They're dead now."
"Why? Did Bland figure out who they were?"
"No."
"Then why did he kill them?" persisted Jericho.
"Because it is his nature to kill everything," said the White Lucy.
"He enjoys it?"
"No more or less than you enjoy breathing," she said.
"I don't understand."
"It is the nature of evil to do evil things. You kill by choice and by calculation. He kills from compulsion. You find a certain beauty, a sense of symmetry, in a well-planned hunt and an efficiently performed execution. He finds no beauty or symmetry or satisfaction in taking life, because he has never considered, and will never consider, not taking it. You are polar opposites, you and he. You kill because you can, and he kills because he must. I find a certain irony in considering that you will be the instrument of his destruction, or he of yours."
"He of mine?" repeated Jericho. "What are you talking about?"
"I can direct you to him," said the White Lucy. "I can help you past his defenses. But I cannot strike the death blow. Only you can do that."
"Are you implying that I won't be able to?"
"Oh, you have the capacity to kill," she said. "There can hardly be any doubt about that can there? And of course we pray that you succeed, because if you fail, Walpurgis is going to become one enormous funeral pyre. But Conrad Bland is unlike any man you have ever faced before. He is a man to whom destruction is just another natural function. You were trained to murder, but he was born to it."
She paused, turning her sightless, covered eyes to him. "He is the very essence of evil, while in your mind I can find no trace of evil at all. I can only hope that this does not give him an insurmountable advantage."
"This is getting a little too metaphysical for me," said Jericho. "He's flesh and blood like any other man, and he can be killed like any other man. I'll start for Tifereth in the morning."
"True," said the White Lucy. "Metaphysics has no part in this business. I shall leave my final question unasked."
He displayed no interest whatsoever, but a thousand silent voices from across the planet nudged her, urged her to state the question, and so, relenting, she did:
If he has the power to kill the ultimate Evil, then is he not an even greater threat himself?