by Clive Barker
"This place is a maze," Pie said, with a touch of the old unease creeping back into its voice. "I think we should stop and assess exactly what we're doing."
"Finding the Goddesses."
"And losing our transport while we do it. We're neither of us in any state to go much farther on foot."
"I don't feel so bad. Except for my hands." He raised them in front of his face, palm up. They were puffy and bruised, the lacerations livid. "I suppose I look like that all over. Did you hear the bells? They're just around the corner, I swear!"
"They've been just around the corner for the last three quarters of an hour. They're not getting any closer, Gentle. It's some kind of trick. We should go back for the animal before it's slaughtered."
"I don't think they'd shed blood in here," Gentle replied. The bells came again. "Listen to that. They are closer." He went to the next corner, sliding on the ice. "Pie. Come look."
Pie joined him at the corner. Ahead of them the passageway narrowed to a doorway.
"What did I tell you?" Gentle said, and headed on to the door and through it.
The sanctum on the other side wasn't vast—the size of a modest church, no more—but it had been hewn with such cunning it gave the impression of magnificence. It had sustained great damage, however. Despite its myriad pillars, chased by the finest craft, and its vaults of ice-sleek stone, its walls were pitted, its floor gouged. Nor did it take great wit to see that the objects that had been buried in the glacier had once been part of its furniture. The altar lay in hammered ruins at its center, and among the wreckage were fragments of blue stone, matching that of the statue the girl had carried. Now, more certainly than ever, they were standing in a place that carried the marks of Hapexa-mendios' passing.
"In His footsteps," Gentle murmured.
"Oh, yes," Pie murmured. "He was here."
"And so were the women," Gentle said. "But I don't think they ate men's balls. I think their ceremonies were more loving than that." He went down on his haunches, running his fingers over the carved fragments. "I wonder what they did? I'd like to have seen the rites."
"They'd have ripped you limb from limb."
"Why?"
"Because their devotions weren't for men's eyes."
"You could have got in, though, couldn't you?" Gentle said. "You would have been a perfect spy. You could have seen it."
"It's not the seeing," Pie said softly, "it's the feeling."
Gentle stood up, gazing at the mystif with new comprehension. "I think I envy you, Pie," he said. "You know what it feels like to be both, don't you? I never thought of that before. Will you tell me how it feels, one of these days?"
"You'd be better off finding out for yourself," Pie said.
"And how do I do that?"
"This isn't the time—"
"Tell me."
"Well, mystifs have their rites, just like men and women. Don't worry, I won't make you spy on me. You'll be invited, if that's what you want."
The remotest twinge of fear touched Gentle as he listened to this. He'd become almost blase about the many wonders they'd witnessed as they traveled, but the creature that had been at his side these many days remained, he realized, undiscovered. He had never seen it naked since that first encounter in New York; nor kissed it the way a lover might kiss; nor allowed himself to feel sexual towards it. Perhaps it was because he'd been thinking of the women here, and their secret rites, but now, like it or not, he was looking at Pie 'oh' pah and was aroused.
Pain diverted him from these thoughts, and he looked down at his hands to see that in his unease he'd made fists of them and reopened the cuts in his palms. Blood dropped onto the ice underfoot, shockingly red. With the sight of it came a memory he'd consigned to the back of his head.
"What's wrong?" Pie said.
But Gentle didn't have the breath to reply. He could hear the frozen river cracking beneath him, and the howl of the Unbeheld's agents wheeling overhead. He could feel his hand slamming, slamming, slamming against the glacier and the thorns of ice flying up into his face.
The mystif had come to his side. "Gentle," it said, anxious now. "Speak to me, will you? What's wrong?"
It put its arms around Gentle's shoulders, and at its touch Gentle drew breath.
"The women..." he said.
"What about them?"
"It was me who freed them.'1
"How?"
"Pneuma. How else?"
"You undid the Unbeheld's handiwork?" the mystif said, its voice barely audible. "For our sake I hope the women were the only witnesses."
"There were agents, just as you said there'd be. They almost killed me. But I hurt them back."
"This is bad news."
"Why? If I'm going to bleed, let Him bleed a little too."
"Hapexamendios doesn't bleed."
"Everything bleeds, Pie. Even God. Maybe especially God. Or else why did He hide Himself away?"
As he spoke the tinkling bells sounded again, closer than ever, and glancing over Gentle's shoulder Pie said, "She must have been waiting for that little heresy."
Gentle turned to see the beckoning woman standing halfway in shadow at the end of the sanctum. The ice that still clung to her body hadn't melted, suggesting that, like the walls, the flesh it was encrusted upon was still below zero. There were cobs of ice in her hair, and when she moved her head a little, as she did now, they struck each other and tinkled like tiny bells.
"I brought you out of the ice," Gentle said, stepping past Pie to approach her.
The woman said nothing.
"Do you understand me?" Gentle went on, "Will you lead us out of here? We want to find a way through the mountain."
The woman took a step backwards, retreating into the shadows.
"Don't be afraid of me," Gentle said. "Pie! Help me out here."
"How?"
"Maybe she doesn't understand English."
"She understands you well enough."
"Just talk to her, will you?" Gentle said.
Ever obedient, Pie began to speak in a tongue Gentle hadn't heard before, its musicality reassuring even if the words were unintelligible. But neither music nor sense seemed to impress the woman. She continued to retreat into the darkness, Gentle pursuing cautiously, fearful of startling her but more fearful still of losing her entirely. His additions to Pie's persuasions had dwindled to the basest bargaining.
"One favor deserves another," he said.
Pie was right, she did indeed understand. Even though she stood in shadow, he could see that a little smile was playing on her sealed lips. Damn her, he thought, why wouldn't she answer him? The bells still rang in her hair, however, and he kept following them even when the shadows became so heavy she was virtually lost among them. He glanced back towards the mystif, who had by now given up any attempt to communicate with the woman and instead addressed Gentle.
"Don't go any further," it said.
Though he was no more than fifty yards from where the mystif stood, its voice sounded unnaturally remote, as though another law besides that of distance and light held sway in the space between them.
"I'm still here. Can you see me?" he called back, and, gratified to hear the mystif reply that it could, he returned his gaze to the shadows.
The woman had disappeared however. Cursing, he plunged on towards the place where she'd last stood, his sense that this was equivocal terrain intensifying. The darkness had a nervous quality, like a bad liar attempting to shoo him off with shrugs. He wouldn't go. The more it trembled, the more eager he became to see what it was hiding. Sightless though he was, he wasn't blind to the risk he was taking. Minutes before he'd told Pie that everything was vulnerable. But nobody, not even the Unbeheld, could make darkness bleed. If it closed on him he could claw at it forever and not make a mark on its hideless back.
He heard Pie calling behind him now: "Where the hell are you?"
The mystif was following him into the shadows, he saw.
"Don't come any furt
her," he told it.
"Why not?"
"I may need a marker to find my way back."
"Just turn around."
"Not till I find her," Gentle said, forging on with his arms outstretched.
The floor was slick beneath him, and he had to proceed with extreme caution. But without the woman to guide them through the mountain, this maze might prove as fatal as the snows they'd escaped. He had to find her.
"Can you still hear me?" he called back to Pie.
The voice that told him yes was as faint as a long-distance call on a failing line.
"Keep talking," he yelled.
"What do you want me to say?"
"Anything. Sing a song."
"I'm tone deaf."
"Talk about food, then."
"All right," said Pie, "I already told you about the ugi-chee and the bellyful of eggs—"
"It's the foulest thing I ever heard," Gentle replied.
"You'll like it once you taste it."
"As the actress said to the bishop."
He heard Pie's muted laughter come his way. Then the mystif said, "You hated me almost as much as you hated fish, remember? And I converted you."
"I never hated you."
"In New York you did."
"Not even then. I was just confused. I'd never slept with a mystif before."
"How did you like it?"
"It's better than fish but not as good as chocolate."
"What did you say?"
"I said—"
"Gentle? I can hardly hear you."
"I'm still here!" he replied, shouting now. "I'd like to do it again sometime, Pie."
"Do what?"
"Sleep with you."
"I'll have to think about it."
"What do you want, a proposal of marriage?"
"That might do it."
"All right!" Gentle called back. "So marry me!"
There was silence behind him. He stopped and turned. Pie's form was a blurred shadow against the distant light of the sanctum.
"Did you hear me?" he yelled.
"I'm thinking it over."
Gentle laughed, despite the darkness and the unease it had wrung from him. "You can't take forever, Pie," he hollered. "I need an answer in—" He stopped as his outstretched fingers made contact with something frozen and solid. "Oh, shit"
"What's wrong?"
"It's a fucking dead end!" he said, stepping right up to the surface he'd encountered and running his palms over the ice. "Just a blank wall."
But that wasn't the whole story. The suspicion he'd had that this was nebulous territory was stronger than ever. There was something on the other side of this wall, if he could only reach it.
"Make your way back," he heard Pie entreating.
"Not yet," he said to himself, knowing the words wouldn't reach the mystif. He raised his hand to his mouth and snatched an expelled breath,
"Did you hear me, Gentle?" Pie called.
Without replying he slammed the pneuma against the wall, a technique his palm was now expert in. The sound of the blow was swallowed by the murk, but the force he unleashed shook a freezing hail down from the roof. He didn't wait for the reverberations to settle but delivered a second blow, and a third, each impact opening further the wounds in his hand, adding blood to the violence of his blows. Perhaps it fueled them. If his breath and spittle did such service, what power might his blood contain, or his semen?
As he stopped to draw a fresh lungful, he heard the mystif yelling, and turned to see it moving towards him across a gulf of frantic shadow. It wasn't just the wall and the roof above that was shaken by his assault: the very air was in a furor, shaking Pie's silhouette into fragments. As his eyes fought to fix the image, a vast spear of ice divided the space between them, hitting the ground and shattering. He had time to raise his arms over his face before the shards struck him, but their impact threw him back against the wall.
"You'll bring the whole place down!" he heard Pie yell as new spears fell.
"It's too late to change our minds!" Gentle replied. "Move, Pie!''
Light-footed, even on this lethal ground, the mystif dodged through the ice towards Gentle's voice. Before it was even at his side, he turned to attack the wall afresh, knowing that if it didn't capitulate very soon they'd be buried where they stood. Snatching another breath from his lips he delivered it against the wall, and this time the shadows failed to swallow the sound. It rang out like a thunderous bell. The shock wave would have pitched him to the floor had the mystif s arms not been there to catch him. "This is a passing place!" it yelled
"What does that mean?"
"Two breaths this time," was its reply. "Mine as well as yours, in one hand. Do you understand me?"
"Yes."
He couldn't see the mystif, but he felt it raise his hand to
its mouth.
"On a count of three," Pie said. "One."
Gentle drew a breathful of furious air.
"Two."
He drew again, deeper still.
"Three!"
And he expelled it, mingled with Pie's, into his hand. Human flesh wasn't designed to govern such force. Had Pie not been beside him to brace his shoulder and wrist, the power would have erupted from his palm and taken his hand with it. But they flung themselves forward in unison, and he opened his hand the instant before it struck the wall. The roar from above redoubled, but it was drowned out moments later by the havoc they'd wrought ahead of them. Had there been room to retreat they'd have done so, but the roof was pitching down a fusillade of stalactites, and all they could do was shield their bare heads and stand their ground as the wall stoned them for their crime, knocking them to their knees as it split and fell. The commotion went on for what seemed like minutes, the ground shuddering so violently they were thrown down yet again, this time to their faces. Then, by degrees, the convulsions slowed. The hail of stone and ice became a drizzle, and stopped, and a miraculous gust brought warm wind to their faces.
They looked up. The air was murky, but light was catching glints off the daggers they lay on, and its source was somewhere-up ahead. The mystif was first to its feet, hauling Gentle up beside it.
"A passing place," it said again.
It put its arm around Gentle's shoulders, and together they stumbled towards the warmth that had roused them. Though the gloom was still deep, they could make out the vague presence of the wall. For all the scale of the upheaval, the fissure they'd made was scarcely more than a man's height. On the other side it was foggy, but each step took them closer to the light. As they went, their feet sinking into a soft sand that was the color of the fog, they heard the ice bells again and looked back, expecting to see the women following. But the fog already obscured the fissure and the sanctum beyond, and when the bells stopped, as they did moments later, they lost all sense of its direction.
"We've come out into the Third Dominion," Pie said.
"No more mountains? No more snow?"
"Not unless you want to find" your way back to thank them."
Gentle peered ahead into the fog. "Is this the only way out of the Fourth?"
"Lord, no," said Pie. "If we'd gone the scenic route we'd have had the choice of a hundred places to cross. But this must have been their secret way, before the ice sealed it up."
The light showed Gentle the mystif s face now, and it bore a wide smile.
"You did fine work," Pie said. "I thought you'd gone crazy."
"I think I did, a little," Gentle replied. "I must have a destructive streak. Hapexamendios would be proud of me." He halted to give his body a moment's rest. "I hope there's more than fog in the Third."
"Oh, believe me, there is. It's the Dominion I've longed to see more than any other, while I've been in the Fifth. It's full of light and fertility. We'll rest, and we'll feed, and we'll get strong again. Maybe go to L'Himby and see my friend Scopique. We deserve to indulge ourselves for a few days before we head for the Second and join the Lenten Way."
"
Will that take us to Yzordderrex?"
"Indeed it will," Pie said, coaxing Gentle into motion again. "The Lenten Way's the longest road in the Tmajica, It must be the length of the Americas, and more."
"A map!" said Gentle. "I must start making that map."
The fog was beginning to thin, and with the growing light came plants: the first greenery they'd seen since the foothills of the Jokalaylau. They picked up their pace as the vegetation became lusher and scented, calling them on to the sun.
"Remember, Gentle," Pie said, when they'd gone a little way, "I accepted."
"Accepted what?" Gentle asked.
The fog was wispy now; they could see a warm new world awaiting them.
"You proposed, my friend, don't you remember?"
"I didn't hear you accept."
"But I did," the mystif replied, as the verdant landscape was unveiled before them. "If we do nothing else in this Dominion, we should at the very least get married!"
24
England saw an early spring that year, with the days becoming balmy at the end of February and, by the middle of March, warm enough to have coaxed April and May flowers forth. The pundits were opining that if no further frosts came along to kill the blooms and chill the chicks in their nests, there would be a surge of new life by May, as parents let their fledglings fly and set about a second brood for June. More pessimistic souls were already predicting drought, their divining dampened when, at the beginning of March, the heavens opened over the island.
When—on that first day of rain—Jude looked back over the weeks since she'd left the Godolphin estate with Oscar and Dowd, they seemed well occupied; but the details of what had filled that time were at best sketchy. She had been made welcome in the house from the beginning and was allowed to come and go whenever it pleased her to do so, which was not often. The sense of belonging she'd discovered when she'd set eyes on Oscar had not faded, though she had yet to uncover its true source. He was a generous host, to be sure, but she'd been treated well by many men and not felt the devotion she felt now. That devotion was not returned, at least not overtly, which was something of a fresh experience for her. There was a certain reserve in Oscar's manner—and a consequent formality in their exchanges—which merely intensified her feelings for him. When they were alone together she felt like a long-lost mistress miraculously returned to his side, each with sufficient knowledge of the other that overt expressions of affection were superfluous; when she was with him in company—at the theater or at dinner with his friends—she was mostly silent, and happily so. This too was odd for her. She was accustomed to volubility, to handing out opinions on whatever subject was at issue, whether said opinions were requested or even seriously held. But now it didn't trouble her not to speak. She listened to the tittle-tattle and the chat (politics, finance, social gossip) as to the dialogue of a play. It wasn't her drama. She had no drama, just the ease of being where she wanted to be. And with such contentment to be had from simply witnessing, there seemed little reason to demand more.
