by Clive Barker
“So he’s got a mind like a cathedral?”
“That makes it sound too sublime. It isn’t. It’s decaying, year by year, day by day. It’s getting darker and colder in there, and Steep doesn’t know how to stay warm, except by killing things, and that doesn’t work as well as it used to.”
Will’s fingers remembered the velvet of the moth’s wings, and the heat of the fire that would soon consume them. Though he didn’t speak the thought, the fox heard it anyway. “You’ve had experience of his methodologies, of course. I was forgetting that. You’ve seen his madness at firsthand. That should arm you against him, at least a little.”
“And what happens if he dies?”
“I escape his head,” the fox said. “And I’m free.”
“Is that why you’re haunting me?”
“I’m not haunting you. Haunting’s for ghosts and I’m not a ghost. I’m a … what am I? I’m a memory Steep made into a little myth. The Animal That Devoured Men. That’s who I am. I wasn’t really interesting as a common or garden fox. So he gave me a voice. Stood me on my hind legs. Called me Lord Fox. He made me just as he made you.” The admission was bitter. “We’re both his children.”
“And if he lets you go?”
“I told you: I’m away free.”
“But in the real world you’ve been dead for centuries.”
“So? I had children while I was alive. Three litters to my certain knowledge. And they had children, and their children had children. I’m still out there in some form or other. You should sow a few oats yourself, by the way, even if it does go against the grain. It’s not as if you don’t have the equipment.” He glanced down at Will’s groin. “I could feed a family of five on that.”
“I think this conversation’s at an end, don’t you?”
“I certainly feel much better about things,” the fox replied, as though they were two belligerent neighbors who’d just had a heart to heart.
Will got to his feet. “Does that mean I can stop dreaming now?” he said.
“You’re not dreaming,” the fox replied. “You’ve been wide awake for the last half-hour—”
“Not true,” Will said, evenly.
“I’m afraid so,” the fox replied. “You opened up a little hole in your head that night with Steep, and now the wind can get in. The same wind that blows through his head comes whistling through that shack of yours—”
Will had heard more than enough. “That’s it!” he said, starting toward the door. “You’re not going to start playing mind games with me.”
Raising his paws in mock surrender, Lord Fox stood aside, and Will strode out into the hallway. The fox followed, his claws tap-tapping on the boards.
“Ah, Will,” he whined, “we were doing so well—”
“I’m dreaming.”
“No, you’re not.”
“I’m dreaming.”
“No!”
At the bottom of the stairs, Will reeled around and yelled back, “Okay, I’m not! I’m crazy! I’m completely fucking ga-ga!”
“Good,” the fox said calmly, “we’re getting somewhere.”
“You want me to go up against Steep in a straitjacket, is that it?”
“No. I just want you to let go of some of your saner suppositions.”
“For instance?”
“I want you to accept the notion that you, William Rabjohns, and I, a semimythical fox, can and do coexist.”
“If I accepted that I’d be certifiable.”
“All right, try it this way: you recall the Russian dolls?”
“Don’t start with them—”
“No, it’s very simple. Everything fits inside everything else—”
“Oh, Christ …,” Will murmured to himself. The thought was now creeping upon him that if this was indeed a dream—and it was, it had to be—then maybe all that had gone before, back to his waking, was also a dream; that he never woke, but was still comatose in a bed in Winnipeg —
His body began to tremble.
“What’s wrong?” the fox said.
“Just shut up!” he yelled, and started to stumble up the stairs. The animal pursued him. “You’ve gone very pale. Are you sick? Get yourself some peppermint tea. It’ll settle your stomach.”
Did he tell the beast to shut up again? He wasn’t sure. His senses were phasing in and out. One moment he was falling up the stairs, then he was practically crawling across the landing, then he was in the bathroom, puking, while the fox yattered on behind him about how he should take care, because he was in a very delicate frame of mind (as if he didn’t know) and all manner of lunacies could creep up on him.
Then he was in the shower, his hand, ridiculously remote from him, struggling to grasp the handle. His fingers were as weak as an infant’s; then the handle turned suddenly and he was struck by a deluge of icy water. At least his nerve-endings were fully operational, even if his wits weren’t. In two heartbeats his body was solid goose flesh, his scalp throbbing with the cold.
Despite his panic, or perhaps because of it, his mind was uncannily agile, leaping instantly to the places where he’d felt such numbing cold before. In Balthazar, of course, as he lay wounded on the ice; and on the hill above Burnt Yarley, lost in the bitter rain. And on the banks of the River Neva, in the winter of the ice-palace —
Wait he thought. That isn’t my memory.
— the birds dropping dead out of the sky —
That’s a piece of Steep’s life, not mine.
— the river like a rock, and Eropkin—poor, doomed Eropkin — building his masterwork out of ice and light —
He shook his head violently to dislodge these trespassers. But they wouldn’t go. Frozen into immobility by the icy water, all he could do was stand there while Steep’s unwanted memories came flooding into his head.
From Cabal
SUN AND SHADE
The sky was cloudless over Midian, the air effervescent. All the fretfulness she’d felt during her first visit here had disappeared. Though this was still the town where Boone had died, she could not hate it for that. Rather the reverse: she and it were allies, both marked by the man’s passing.
It was not the town itself she’d come to visit, however; it was the graveyard, and it did not disappoint her. The sun gleamed on the mausoleums, the sharp shadows flattering their elaborate decor. Even the grass that sprouted between the tombs was a more brilliant green today. There was no wind from any quarter, no breath of the dream storms, bringing the dead. Within the high walls there was an extraordinary stillness, as if the outside world no longer existed. Here was a place sacred to the dead, who were not the living ceased, but almost another species, requiring rites and prayers that belonged uniquely to them. She was surrounded on every side by such signs: epitaphs in English, French, Polish, and Russian, images of veiled women and shattered urns, saints whose martyrdom she could only guess at, stone dogs sleeping upon their masters’ tombs—all the symbolism that accompanied this other people. And the more she explored, the more she found herself asking the question she’d posed the day before: why was the cemetery so big? And why, as became apparent the more tombs she studied, were there so many nationalities laid here? She thought of her dream, of the wind that had come from all quarters of the earth. It was as if there’d been something prophetic in it. The thought didn’t worry her. If that was the way the world worked—by omens and prophecies—then it was at least a system, and she had lived too long without one. Love had failed her; perhaps this would not.
It took her an hour, wandering down the hushed avenues, to reach the back wall of the cemetery, against which she found a row of animals’ graves—cats interred beside birds, dogs beside cats, at peace with each other as common clay. It was an odd sight. Though she knew of other animal cemeteries, she’d never heard of pets being laid in the same consecrated ground as their owners. But then should she be surprised at anything here? The place was a law unto itself, built far from any who would care or condemn.
; Turning from the back wall, she could see no sign of the front gate, nor could she remember which of the avenues led back there. It didn’t matter. She felt secure in the emptiness of the place, and there was a good deal she wanted to see: sepulchers whose architecture, towering over their fellows, invited admiration. Choosing a route that would take in half a dozen of the most promising, she began an idling return journey. The sun was warmer by the minute now, as it climbed toward noon. Though her pace was slow she broke out into a sweat and her throat became steadily drier. It would be no short drive to find somewhere to quench her thirst. But parched throat or no, she didn’t hurry. She knew she’d never come here again. She intended to leave with her memories well stocked.
Along the way were several tombs that had been virtually overtaken by saplings planted in front of them. Evergreens mostly, reminders of the life eternal, the trees flourished in the seclusion of the walls, fed well on rich soil. In some cases their spreading roots had cracked the very memorials they’d been planted to offer shade and protection. These scenes of verdancy and ruin she found particularly poignant. She was lingering at one when the perfect silence was broken.
Hidden in the foliage somebody, or something, was panting. She automatically stepped out of the tree’s shadow and into the hot sun. Shock made her heart beat furiously, its thump deafening her to the sound that had excited it. She had to wait a few moments and listen hard to be sure she’d not imagined the sound. There was no error. Something was in hiding beneath the branches of the tree, which were so weighed by their burden of leaves they almost touched the ground. The sound, now that she listened more carefully, was not human; nor was it healthy. Its roughness and raggedness suggested a dying animal.
She stood in the heat of the sun for a minute or more, just staring into the mass of foliage and shadow, trying to catch some sight of the creature. Occasionally there was a movement: a body vainly trying to right itself, a desperate pawing at the ground as the creature tried to rise. Its helplessness touched her. If she failed to do what she could for it the animal would certainly perish, knowing—this was the thought that moved her to action — that someone had heard its agony and passed it by.
She stepped back into the shadow. For a moment the panting stopped completely. Perhaps the creature was fearful of her and, reading her approach as aggression, preparing some final act of defense. Readying herself to retreat before claws and teeth, she parted the outer twigs and peered through the mesh of branches. Her first impression was not one of sight or sound but of smell: a bittersweet scent that was not unpleasant, its source the pale-flanked creature she now made out in the murk, gazing at her wide-eyed. It was a young animal, she guessed, but of no species she could name. A wild cat of some kind, perhaps, but the skin resembled deer hide rather than fur. It watched her warily, its neck barely able to support the weight of its delicately marked head. Even as she returned its gaze it seemed to give up on life. Its eyes closed and its head sank to the ground.
The resilience of the branches defied any further approach. Rather than attempting to bend them aside, she began to break them in order to get to the failing creature. They were living wood, and fought back. Halfway through the thicket a particularly truculent branch snapped back in her face with such stinging force it brought a shout of pain from her. She put her hand to her cheek. The skin to the right of her mouth was broken. Dabbing the blood away she attacked the branch with fresh vigor, at last coming within reach of the animal. It was almost beyond responding to her touch, its eyes momentarily fluttering open as she stroked its flank, then closing again. There was no sign that she could see of a wound, but the body beneath her hand was feverish and full of tremors.
As she struggled to pick the animal up it began to urinate, wetting her hands and blouse, but she drew it to her nevertheless, a dead weight in her arms. Beyond the spasms that ran through its nervous system there was no power left in its muscles. Its limbs hung limply, its head the same. Only the smell she’d first encountered had any strength, intensifying as the creature’s final moments approached.
Something like a sob reached her ears. She froze.
Again, the sound. Off to her left, some way, and barely suppressed. She stepped back, out of the shadow of the tree, bringing the dying animal with her. As the sunlight fell on the creature it responded with a violence that utterly belied its apparent frailty, its limbs jerking madly. She stepped back into the shade, instinct telling her the brightness was responsible. Only then did she look again in the direction from which the sob had come.
The door of one of the mausoleums farther down the avenue—a massive structure of cracked marble—stood ajar, and in the column of darkness beyond she could vaguely make out a human figure. Vaguely, because it was dressed in black and seemed to be veiled.
She could make no sense of this scenario. The dying animal tormented by light, the sobbing woman—surely a woman—in the doorway, dressed for mourning.
“Who are you?” she called out.
The mourner seemed to shrink back into the shadows as she was addressed, then regretted the move and approached the open door again, but so very tentatively the connection between animal and woman became clear.
She’s afraid of the sun too, Lori thought. They belonged together, animal and mourner, the woman sobbing for the creature Lori had in her arms.
She looked at the pavement that lay between where she stood and the mausoleum. Could she get to the door of the tomb without having to step back into the sun, and so hasten the creature’s demise? Perhaps, with care. Planning her route before she moved, she started to cross toward the mausoleum, using the shadows like stepping-stones. She didn’t look up at the door—her attention was wholly focused on keeping the animal from the light—but she could feel the mourner’s presence, willing her on. Once the woman gave voice, not with a word but with a soft sound, a cradle-side sound, addressed not to Lori but to the dying animal.
With the mausoleum door three or four yards from her, Lori dared to look up. The woman in the door could be patient no longer. She reached out from her refuge, her arms bared as the garment she wore rode back, her flesh exposed to the sunlight. The skin was white—as ice, as paper—but only for an instant. As the fingers stretched to relieve Lori of her burden, they darkened and swelled as though instantly bruised. The mourner made a cry of pain and almost fell back into the tomb as she withdrew her arms, but not before the skin broke and trails of dust—yellowish, like pollen—burst from her fingers and fell through the sunlight onto the patio.
Seconds later, Lori was at the door, then through it into the safety of the darkness beyond. The room was no more than an antechamber. Two doors led from it: one into a chapel of some sort, the other below ground. The woman in mourning was standing at this second door, which was open, as far from the wounding light as she could get. In her haste, her veil had fallen. The face beneath was fine-boned, and thin almost to the point of being wasted, lending additional force to her eyes, which caught, even in the darkest corner of the room, some trace of light from the open door, so that they seemed almost to glow.
Lori felt no trace of fear. It was the other woman who trembled as she nursed her sunstruck hands, her gaze moving from Lori’s bewildered face to the animal.
“I’m afraid it’s dead,” Lori said, not knowing what disease afflicted this woman, but recognizing her grief from all too recent memory.
“No …,” the woman said with quiet conviction, “she can’t die.”
Her words were statement not entreaty, but the stillness in Lori’s arms contradicted such certainty. If the creature wasn’t yet dead it was surely beyond recall.
“Will you bring her to me?” the woman asked.
Lori hesitated. Though the weight of the body was making her arms ache, and she wanted the duty done, she didn’t want to cross the chamber.
“Please,” the woman said, reaching out with wounded hands.
Relenting, Lori left the comfort of the door and the sunlit patio be
yond. She’d taken only two or three steps, however, when she heard the sound of whispering. There could only be one source: the stairs. There were people in the crypt. She stopped walking, childhood superstitions rising up in her. Fear of tombs, fear of stairs descending, fear of the Underworld.
“It’s nobody,” the woman said, her face pained. “Please, bring me Babette.”
As if to further reassure Lori, she took a step away from the stairs, murmuring to the animal she’d called Babette. Either the words, or the woman’s proximity, or perhaps the cool darkness of the chamber, won a response from the creature: a tremor ran down its spine like an electric charge, so strong Lori almost lost hold of it. The woman’s murmurs grew louder, as if she were chiding the dying thing, her anxiety to claim it suddenly urgent. But there was an impasse. Lori was no more willing to approach the entrance to the crypt than the woman was to come another step toward the outer door, and in the seconds of stasis the animal found new life. One of its claws seized Lori’s breast as it began to writhe in her embrace.
The chiding became a shout—
“Babette!”
But if the creature heard, it didn’t care to listen. Its motion became more violent: a mingling of fit and sensuality. One moment it shuddered as though tortured, the next it moved like a snake sloughing off its skin.
“Don’t look, don’t look!” she heard the woman say, but Lori wasn’t about to take her eyes off this horrendous dance. Nor could she give the creature over to the woman’s charge; while the claw gripped her so tightly any attempt to separate them would draw blood.
But that Dorff look! had purpose. Now it was Lori’s turn to raise her voice in panic, as she realized that what was taking place in her arms defied all reason.
“Jesus God!”
The animal was changing before her eyes. In the luxury of slough and spasm it was losing its bestiality, not by reordering its anatomy but by liquefying its whole self—through to the bone—until what had been solid was a tumble of matter. Here was the origin of the bittersweet scent she’d met beneath the tree: the stuff of the beast’s dissolution. In the moment it lost its coherence, the matter was ready to be out of her grasp, but somehow the essence of the thing—its will, perhaps, perhaps its soul—drew it back for the business of remaking. The last part of the beast to melt was the claw, its disintegration sending a throb of pleasure through Lori’s body. It did not distract her from the fact that she was released. Horrified, she couldn’t get what she held from her embrace fast enough, tipping it into the mourner’s outstretched arms like so much excrement.
