battle. Tomorrow they’d exchange tales of their adventures, but for today they must behave as if they didn’t know each other, not even to exchange a smile. For today
they had to be utterly partisan, caring only for the
victory of their own city over the opposition.
Now the first leg of Popolac was erected, to the mutual
satisfaction of Metzinger and Vaslav. All the safety
checks had been meticulously made, and the leg left the
square, its shadow falling hugely across the face of the
Town Hall.
Vaslav sipped his sweet, sweet coffee and allowed
himself a little grunt of satisfaction. Such days, such
days. Days filled with glory, with snapping flags and high,
stomach-turning sights, enough to last a man a lifetime.
It was a golden foretaste of Heaven.
Let America have its simple pleasures, its cartoon
mice, its candy-coated castles, its cults and its technologies, he wanted none of it. The greatest wonder of the world was here, hidden in the hills.
Ah, such days.
In the main square of Podujevo the scene was no less
animated, and no less inspiring. Perhaps there was a
muted sense of sadness underlying this year’s celebration, but that was understandable. Nita Obrenovic, Podujevo’s loved and respected organizer, was no longer
living. The previous winter had claimed her at the age of
ninety-four, leaving the city bereft of her fierce opinions
and her fiercer proportions. For sixty years Nita had
worked with the citizens of Podujevo, always planning
for the next contest and improving on the designs, her
energies spent on making the next creation more ambitious and more lifelike than the last.
Now she was dead, and sorely missed. There was no
disorganization in the streets without her, the people
were far too disciplined for that, but they were already
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Clive Barker
falling behind schedule, and it was almost seven-twenty-
five. Nita’s daughter had taken over in her mother’s
stead, but she lacked Nita’s power to galvanize the
people into action. She was, in a word, too gentle for the
job in hand. It required a leader who was part prophet
and part ringmaster, to coax and bully and inspire the
citizens into their places. Maybe, after two or three
decades, and with a few' more contests under her belt,
Nita Obrenovic’s daughter would make the grade. But
for today Podujevo was behindhand; safety-checks were
being overlooked; nervous looks replaced the confidence
of earlier years.
Nevertheless, at six minutes before eight the first limb
of Podujevo made its way out of the city to the assembly
point, to wait for its fellow.
By that time the flanks were already lashed together in
Popolac, and armed contingents were awaiting orders in
the Town Square.
Mick woke promptly at seven, though there was no alarm
clock in their simply furnished room at the Hotel
Beograd. He lay in his bed and listened to Judd’s regular
breathing from the twin bed across the room. A dull
morning light whimpered through the thin curtains, not
encouraging an early departure. After a few minutes’
staring at the cracked paintwork on the ceiling, and a
while longer at the crudely carved crucifix on the opposite wall, Mick got up and went to the window. It was a dull day, as he had guessed. The sky was overcast, and
the roofs of Novi Pazar were grey and featureless in the
flat morning light. But beyond the roofs, to the east, he
could see the hills. There was sun there. He could see
shafts of light catching the blue-green of the forest,
inviting a visit to their slopes.
Today maybe they would go south to Kosovska
Mitrovica. There was a market there, wasn’t there, and a
museum? And they could drive down the valley of the
In The Hills, The Cities
33
Ibar, following the road beside the river, where the hills
rose wild and shining on either side. The hills, yes; today
he decided they would see the hills.
It was eight-fifteen.
By nine the main bodies of Popolac and Podujevo were
substantially assembled. In their allotted districts the
limbs of both cities were ready and waiting to join their
expectant torsos.
Vaslav Jelovsek capped his gloved hands over his eyes
and surveyed the sky. The cloud-base had risen in the
last hour, no doubt of it, and there were breaks in the
clouds to the west; even, on occasion, a few glimpses of
the sun. It wouldn’t be a perfect day for the contest
perhaps, but certainly adequate.
Mick and Judd breakfasted late on hemendeks— roughly
translated as ham and eggs— and several cups of good
black coffee. It was brightening up, even in Novi Pazar,
and their ambitions were set high. Kosovska Mitrovica
by lunchtime, and maybe a visit to the hill-castle of
Zvecan in the afternoon.
About nine-thirty they motored out of Novi Pazar and
took the Srbovac road south to the Ibar valley. Not a
good road, but the bumps and potholes couldn’t spoil the
new day.
The road was empty, except for the occasional pedestrian; and in place of the maize and com fields they’d passed on the previous day the road was flanked by
undulating hills, whose sides were thickly and darkly
forested. Apart from a few birds, they saw no wildlife.
Even their infrequent travelling companions petered out
altogether after a few miles, and the occasional farmhouse they drove by appeared locked and shuttered up.
Black pigs ran unattended in the yard, with no child to
feed them. Washing snapped and billowed on a sagging
line, with no washerwoman in sight.
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Clive Barker
At first this solitary journey through the hills was
refreshing in its lack of human contact, but as the
morning drew on, an uneasiness grew on them.
“Shouldn’t we have seen a signpost to Mitrovica,
Mick?”
He peered at the map.
“Maybe . . .”
“— we’ve taken the wrong road.”
“ If there’d been a sign, I’d have seen it. I think we
should try and get off this road, bear south a bit
more— meet the valley closer to Mitrovica than we’d
planned.”
“How do we get off this bloody road?”
“There’ve been a couple of turnings . . . ”
“Dirt-tracks.”
“Well it’s either that or going on the way we are.”
Judd pursed his lips.
“Cigarette?” he asked.
“Finished them miles back.”
In front of them, the hills formed an impenetrable
line. There was no sign of life ahead; no frail wisp of
chimney smoke, no sound of voice or vehicle.
“All right,” said Judd, “we take the next turning.
Anything’s better than this.”
They drove on. The road was deteriorating rapidly, the
potholes becoming craters, the hummocks feeling like
bodies beneath the wheels.
Then:
“There!�
��
A turning: a palpable turning. Not a major road,
certainly. In fact barely the dirt-track Judd had described the other roads as being, but it was an escape from the endless perspective of the road they were
trapped on.
“This is becoming a bloody safari,” said Judd as the
VW began to bump and grind its way along the doleful
little track.
In The Hills, The Cities
35
“Where’s your sense of adventure?”
“I forgot to pack it.”
They were beginning to climb now, as the track wound
its way up into the hills. The forest closed over them,
blotting out the sky, so a shifting patchwork of light and
shadow scooted over the bonnet as they drove. There
was birdsong suddenly, vacuous and optimistic, and a
smell of new pine and undug earth. A fox crossed the
track, up ahead, and watched a long moment as the car
grumbled up towards it. Then, with the leisurely stride of
a fearless prince, it sauntered away into the trees.
Wherever they were going, Mick thought, this was
better than the road they’d left. Soon maybe they’d stop,
and walk a while, to find a promontory from which they
could see the valley, even Novi Pazar, nestled behind
them.
The two men were still an hour’s drive from Popolac
when the head of the contingent at last marched out of
the Town Square and took up its position with the main
body.
This last exit left the city completely deserted. Not
even the sick or the old were neglected on this day; no
one was to be denied the spectacle and the triumph of the
contest. Every single citizen, however young or infirm,
the blind, the crippled, babes in arms, pregnant women
— all made their way up from their proud city to the
stamping ground. It was the law that they should attend:
but it needed no enforcing. No citizen of either city
would have missed the chance to see that sight— to
experience the thrill of that contest.
The confrontation had to be total, city against city.
This was the way it had always been.
So the cities went up into the hills. By noon they were
gathered, the citizens of Popolac and Podujevo, in the
secret well of the hills, hidden from civilized eyes, to do
ancient and ceremonial battle.
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Clive Barker
Tens of thousands of hearts beat faster. Tens of
thousands of bodies stretched and strained and sweated
as the twin cities took their positions. The shadows of
the bodies darkened tracts of land the size of small
towns; the weight of their feet trampled the grass to a
green milk; their movement killed animals, crushed
bushes and threw down trees. The earth literally reverberated with their passage, the hills echoing with the booming din of their steps.
In the towering body of Podujevo, a few technical
hitches were becoming apparent. A slight flaw in the
knitting of the left flank had resulted in a weakness there;
and there were consequent problems in the swivelling
mechanism of the hips. It was stiffer than it should be,
and the movements were not smooth. As a result there
was considerable strain being put upon that region of the
city. It was being dealt with bravely; after all, the contest
was intended to press the contestants to their limits. But
breaking point was closer than anyone would have dared
to admit. The citizens were not as resilient as they had
been in previous contests. A bad decade for crops had
produced bodies less well-nourished, spines less supple,
wills less resolute. The badly knitted flank might not
have caused an accident in itself, but further weakened
by the frailty of the competitors it set a scene for death
on an unprecedented scale.
They stopped the car.
“Hear that?”
Mick shook his head. His hearing hadn’t been good
since he was an adolescent. Too many rock shows had
blown his eardrums to hell.
Judd got out of the car.
The birds were quieter now. The noise he’d heard as
they drove came again. It wasn’t simply a noise: it was
almost a motion in the earth, a roar that seemed seated
in the substance of the hills.
In The Hills, The Cities
37
Thunder, was it?
No, too rhythmical. It came again, through the soles of
the feet—
Boom.
Mick heard it this time. He leaned out of the car
window.
“It’s up ahead somewhere. I hear it now.”
Judd nodded.
Boom.
The earth-thunder sounded again.
“What the hell is it?” said Mick.
“Whatever it is, I want to see it— ”
Judd got back into the Volkswagen, smiling.
“Sounds almost like guns,” he said, starting the car.
“ Big guns.”
Through his Russian-made binoculars Vaslav Jelovsek
watched the starting-official raise his pistol. He saw the
feather of white smoke rise from the barrel, and a second
later heard the sound of the shot across the valley.
The contest had begun.
He looked up at twin towers of Popolac and Podujevo.
Heads in the clouds—well almost. They practically
stretched to touch the sky. It was an awesome sight, a
breath-stopping, sleep-stabbing sight. Two cities swaying
and writhing and preparing to take their first steps
towards each other in this ritual battle.
Of the two, Podujevo seemed the less stable. There was
a slight hesitation as the city raised its left leg to begin its
march. Nothing serious, just a little difficulty in coordinating hip and thigh muscles. A couple of steps and the city would find its rhythm; a couple more and its
inhabitants would be moving as one creature, one perfect giant set to match its grace and power against its mirror-image.
The gunshot had sent flurries of birds up from the
trees that banked the hidden valley. They rose up in
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Clive Barker
celebration of the great contest, chattering their excitement as they swooped over the stamping-ground.
“Did you hear a shot?” asked Judd.
Mick nodded.
“Military exercises . . . ?” Judd’s smile had broadened. He could see the headlines already—exclusive reports of secret maneuvers in the depths of the Yugoslavian countryside. Russian tanks perhaps, tactical exercises being held out of the West’s prying sight. With luck, he would be the carrier of this news.
Boom.
Boom.
There were birds in the air. The thunder was louder
now.
It did sound like guns.
“It’s over the next ridge . . .” said Judd.
“I don’t think we should go any further.”
“I have to see.”
“I don’t. We’re not supposed to be here.”
“I don’t see any signs.”
“They’ll cart us away; deport us— I don’t know— I
just think— ”
Boom.
“ I’ve got to see.”
The words were scarcely out of his mouth
when the
screaming started.
Podujevo was screaming: a death-cry. Someone buried
in the weak flank had died of the strain, and had begun a
chain of decay in the system. One man loosed his
neighbor and that neighbor loosed his, spreading a
cancer of chaos through the body of the city. The
coherence of the towering structure deteriorated with
terrifying rapidity as the failure of one part of the
anatomy put unendurable pressure on the other.
The masterpiece that the good citizens of Podujevo
In The Hills, The Cities
39
had constructed of their own flesh and blood tottered
and then— a dynamited skyscraper, it began to fall.
The broken flank spewed citizens like a slashed artery
spitting blood. Then, with a graceful sloth that made the
agonies of the citizens all the more horrible, it bowed
towards the earth, all its limbs dissembling as it fell.
The huge head, that had brushed the clouds so recently, was flung back on its thick neck. Ten thousand mouths spoke a single scream for its vast mouth, a
wordless, infinitely pitiable appeal to the sky. A howl of
loss, a howl of anticipation, a howl of puzzlement. How,
that scream demanded, could the day of days end like
this, in a welter of falling bodies?
“Did you hear that?”
It was unmistakably human, though almost deafening-
ly loud. Judd’s stomach convulsed. He looked across at
Mick, who was as white as a sheet.
Judd stopped the car.
“No,” said Mick.
“Listen— for Christ’s sake— ”
The din of dying moans, appeals and imprecations
flooded the air. It was very close.
“We’ve got to go on now,” Mick implored.
Judd shook his head. He was prepared for some
military spectacle— all the Russian army massed over
the next hill— but that noise in his ears was the noise of
human flesh— too human for words. It reminded him of
his childhood imaginings of Hell; the endless, unspeakable torments his mother had threatened him with if he failed to embrace Christ. It was a terror he’d forgotten
for twenty years. But suddenly, here it was again, fresh-
faced. Maybe the pit itself gaped just over the next
horizon, with his mother standing at its lip, inviting him
to taste its punishments.
“ If you won’t drive, I will.”
Mick got out of the car and crossed in front of it,
Visions of Fear - Foundations of Fear III (1992) Page 5
