The Essential Clive Barker

by Clive Barker

  In the last week of January, with Christmas bills still outstanding and too little money to pay them with, he sold the pigeons, with the exception of 33 and his mate. This pair he kept, though the reason why was harder and harder to remember; and by the end of the following month had been forgotten entirely.

  THIRTEEN

  ART

  The sentence that opens the final excerpt of this chapter, Nothing ever begins, was at one point going to be the opening of the book itself. But it seemed better placed here, a happy admission that all that’s gone before has been rooted in something else: a legend, a rumor, a memory.

  Two of the excerpts here are concerned with the making of images. In the excerpt from Everville, Harry D’Amour visits an exhibition and finds that one of the paintings is a portrait of himself, battling the Devil. The passage was written at a time when I was regularly exhibiting my paintings in New York, and had the scars to prove it. The second piece is from Imajica, and conjures, I hope, a little of the power painting can have in an unlikely setting. There was a period in the seventies when it was quite the thing in London to paint the walls of derelict buildings with elaborate and often hallucinatory murals. The vogue has largely passed, regrettably. Now if a wall is covered with an image, it’s likely to be selling us something.

  The selection from Weaveworld which opens this section tells a self-contained tale: one in which storytelling becomes a means of revelation. Two characters, the heroine Suzanne and a villain called Hobart, enter—by force of their animosity—the pages of a book of fairy tales. There they discover the true nature of their relationship with each other, which powerfully impacts the Weaveworld itself.

  Stories within stories, worlds within worlds.

  From Weaveworld

  The Law had come to Nonesuch. It had come to root out dissension: it had found none. It had come with truncheons, riot shields, and bullets, prepared for armed rebellion: it had found no whisper of that either. All it had found was a warren of shadowy streets, most of them deserted, and a few pedestrians who bowed their heads at the first sign of a uniform.

  Hobart had immediately ordered a house-to-house search. It had been greeted with a few sour looks, but little more than that. He was disappointed; it would have been gratifying to have found something to sharpen his authority upon. All too easy, he knew, to be lulled into a false sense of security, especially when an anticipated confrontation had failed to materialize. Vigilance was the key word now; unending vigilance.

  That was why he’d occupied a house with a good view of the township from its upper stories, where he could take up residence for the night. Tomorrow would bring the big push on the Gyre, which could surely not go unopposed. And yet, who could be certain with these people? They were so docile; like animals, rolling over at the first sign of a greater power.

  The house he’d commandeered had little to recommend it, beyond its view. A maze of rooms; a collection of faded murals, which he didn’t care to study too closely; spare and creaking furniture. The discomfort of the place didn’t bother him: he liked spartan living. But the atmosphere did; the sense he had that the ousted tenants were still here, just out of sight. If he’d been a man who believed in ghosts, he’d have said the house was haunted. He wasn’t, so he kept his fears to himself, where they multiplied.

  Evening had fallen, and the streets below were dark. He could see little from his high window now, but he could hear laughter drifting up from below. He’d given his men the evening to enjoy themselves, warning them never to forget that the township was enemy territory. The laughter grew more riotous, then faded down the street. Let them indulge themselves, he thought. Tomorrow the crusade would take them onto ground the people here thought of as sacred: if they were going to show any resistance, it would be then. He’d seen the same happen in the world outside: a man who wouldn’t lift a finger if his house were burned down throwing a fit if someone touched a trinket he called holy. Tomorrow promised to be a busy day, and a bloody one too.

  Richardson had declined the opportunity to take the night off, preferring to stay in the house, and make a report of the day’s events for his personal records. He kept a ledger of his every move, set down in a tiny, meticulous hand. He worked on it now, as Hobart listened to the laughter disappearing below.

  Finally, he put down his pen.

  “Sir?”

  “What is it?”

  “These people, sir. It seems to me—” Richardson halted, unsure of how best to voice a question that had been vexing him since they’d arrived, “it seems to me they don’t look quite human.”

  Hobart studied the man. His hair was immaculately cut, his cheeks immaculately shaved, his uniform immaculately pressed.

  “You may be right,” he said.

  A flicker of distress crossed Richardson’s face.

  “I don’t understand … sir.”

  “While you’re here, you should believe nothing you see.” “Nothing, sir?”

  “Nothing at all,” Hobart said. He put his fingers to the glass. It was cold; his body heat lent the tips misty haloes. “The whole place is a mass of illusions. Tricks and traps. None of it’s to be trusted.”

  “It’s not real?” Richardson said.

  Hobart stared across the roofs of this little nowhere, and turned the question over. Real was a word he’d once had no problem using. Real was what made the world go round, what was solid and true. And its flip side, unreal, that was what some lunatic in a cell shouted at four in the morning; unreal was dreams of power without the flesh to give them weight.

  But his view of these matters had subtly changed since his first encounter with Suzanna. He had wanted her capture as he’d wanted no other, and his pursuit of her had led from one strangeness to another, until he was so fatigued he scarcely knew right from left. Real? What was real? Perhaps (this thought would have been unthinkable before Suzanna) real was merely what he said was real. He was the general, and the soldier needed an answer, for his sanity’s sake. A plain answer, that would let him sleep soundly.

  He gave it:

  “Only the Law’s real here,” he said. “We have to hang on to that. All of us. Do you understand?”

  Richardson nodded. “Yes, sir.”

  There was a long pause, during which somebody outside began whooping like a drunken Cherokee. Richardson closed his ledger, and went to the second window.

  “I wonder …,” he said.

  “Yes?”

  “Perhaps I should go out. Just for a while. To see these illusions face to face.”

  “Maybe.”

  “Now that I know it’s all a lie—” he said, “I’m safe, aren’t I?” “As safe as you’re ever going to be,” said Hobart. “Then, if you don’t mind …” “Go on. See for yourself.”

  Richardson was away in seconds, and down the stairs. A few moments later Hobart caught sight of his shadowy form moving away down the street.

  The Inspector stretched. He was tired to the marrow. There was a mattress in the next room, but he was determined not to avail himself of it. Laying his head on a pillow would offer the rumors of occupancy here an easy victim.

  Instead he sat down in one of the plain chairs and took the book of fairy tales from his pocket. It had not left his presence since its confiscation; he’d lost count of the times he’d scanned its pages. Now he did the same again. But the lines of prose grew steadily hazier in front of him, and though he tried to check himself, his lids became heavier and heavier.

  Long before Richardson had found himself an illusion to call his own, the Law that had come to Nonesuch had fallen asleep.

  Suzanna didn’t find it so difficult to avoid Hobart’s men when she stepped back into the township. Though they swarmed through the alleyways the shadows had become unnaturally dense there, and she was always able to stay a few steps ahead of the enemy. Getting access to Hobart was another matter, however. Though she wanted to be finished with her work here as quickly as possible there was no use in risking arrest. She
’d escaped custody twice; three times might be pressing her luck. Though impatience gnawed at her, she decided to wait until the light faded. The days were still short this early in the year; it would only be a few hours.

  She found herself an empty house—availing herself of some plain food that the owners had left there—and wandered around the echoing rooms until the light outside began to dwindle. Her thoughts turned back, and back again, to Jerichau, and the circumstances of his death. She tried to remember the way he looked, and had some success with his eyes and hands, but couldn’t create anything like a complete portrait. Her failure depressed her. He was so soon gone.

  She had just about decided that it was dark enough to risk venturing out when she heard voices. She went to the bottom of the stairs, and peered through to the front of the house. There were two silhouetted figures on the threshold.

  “Not here …,” she heard a girl’s voice whisper.

  “Why not?” said her male companion, his words slurred. One of Hobart’s company, no doubt. “Why not? It’s as good as any.”

  “There’s somebody here already,” said the girl, staring into the mystery of the house.

  The man laughed. “Dirty fuckers!” he called. Then he took the woman roughly by the arm. “Let’s find somewhere else,” he said. They moved away, into the street.

  Suzanna wondered if Hobart had sanctioned such fraternization. She couldn’t believe he had.

  It was time she put an end to stalking him in her imagination; time to find him and get her business with him done. She slipped through the house, scanned the street, then stepped out into the night.

  The air was balmy, and with so few lights burning in the houses, and those that did burn mere candle flames, the sky was bright above, the stars like dewdrops on velvet. She walked a little way with her face turned skyward, entranced by the sight. But not so entranced she didn’t sense Hobart’s proximity. He was somewhere near. But where? She could still waste precious hours going from house to house, trying to find him.

  When in doubt, ask a policeman. It had been one of her mother’s favorite saws, and never more apt. A few yards from where she stood one of Hobart’s horde was pissing against a wall, singing a ragged rendition of “Land of Hope and Glory” to accompany the flood.

  Trusting that his inebriation would keep him from recognizing her, she asked Hobart’s whereabouts.

  “You don’t need him,” the man said. “Come on in. We’ve got a party going.”

  “Maybe later. I’ve got to see the Inspector.”

  “If you must,” the man said. “He’s in the big house with the white walls.” He pointed back the way she’d come, splashing his feet as he did so. “Somewhere off to the right,” he said.

  The instructions, despite the provider’s condition, were good. Off to the right was a street of silent dwellings, and at the corner of the next intersection a sizable house, its walls pale in the starlight. There was nobody standing sentry at the door; the guards had presumably succumbed to whatever pleasures Nonesuch could offer. She pushed the door open and stepped inside unchallenged.

  There were riot-shields propped against the wall of the room she’d entered, but she needed no confirmation that this was indeed the house. Her gut already knew that Hobart was in one of the upper rooms.

  She started up the stairs, not certain what she would do when she confronted him. His pursuit of her had made her life a nightmare, and she wanted to make him regret it. But she couldn’t kill him. Dispatching the Magdalene had been terrible enough; killing a human being was more than her conscience would allow. Best just to claim her book, and go.

  At the top of the stairs was a corridor, at the end of which a door stood ajar. She went to it, and pushed it open. He was there, her enemy; alone, slumped in a chair, his eyes closed. In his lap lay the book of fairy tales. The very sight of it made her nerves flutter. She didn’t hesitate in the doorway, but crossed the bare boards to where he slumbered.

  In his sleep, Hobart was floating in a misty place. Moths flew around his head, and beat their dusty wings against his eyes, but he couldn’t raise his arms to brush them away. Somewhere near he sensed danger, but from which direction would it come?

  The mist moved to his left, then to his right.

  “Who …?” he murmured.

  The word he spoke froze Suzanna in her tracks. She was a yard from the chair, no more. He muttered something else; words she couldn’t comprehend. But he didn’t wake.

  Behind his eyelids Hobart glimpsed an unfixable form in the mist. He struggled to be free of the lethargy that weighed him down; fought to waken, and defend himself.

  Suzanna took another step toward the sleeper.

  He moaned again.

  She reached for the book, her fingers trembling. As they closed around it, his eyes sprang wide open. Before she could snatch the book away from him, his grip on it tightened. He stood up.

  “No!” he shouted.

  The shock of his waking almost made her lose her hold, but she wasn’t going to give her prize up now: the book was her property. There was a moment of struggle between them, as they fought for possession of the volume.

  Then—without warning—a veil of darkness rose from their hands, or more correctly from the book they held between them.

  She looked up into Hobart’s eyes. He was sharing her shock at the power that was suddenly released from between their woven fingers. The darkness rose between them like smoke, and blossomed against the ceiling, immediately tumbling down again, enclosing them both in a night within a night.

  She heard Hobart loose a yell of fear. The next moment words seemed to rise from the book, white forms against the smoke, and as they rose they became what they meant. Either that or she and Hobart were falling, and becoming symbols as the book opened to receive them. Whichever; or both; it was all one in the end.

  Rising or falling, as language or life, they were delivered into storyland.

  …

  It was dark in the state they’d entered; dark, and full of rumor. Suzanna could see nothing in front of her, not even her fingertips, but she could hear soft whispers, carried to her on a warm, pine-scented wind. Both touched her face, whispers and wind; both excited her. They knew she was here, the people that inhabited the stories in Mimi’s book: for it was there, in the hook, that she and Hobart now existed.

  Somehow, in the act of struggling, they’d been transformed—or at least their thoughts had. They’d entered the common life of words.

  Standing in the darkness, and listening to the whispers all around her, she didn’t find the notion so difficult to comprehend. After all hadn’t the author of this book turned his thoughts into words, in the act of writing it, knowing his readers would decode them as they read, making thoughts of them again? More: making an imagined life. So here was she now, living that life. Lost in Geschichten der Geheimen Orte; or found there.

  There were hints of light moving to either side of her she now realized; or was it she that was moving: running perhaps, or flying? Anything was possible here: this was fairy land. She concentrated, to get a better grasp of what these flashes of light and darkness meant, and realized all at once that she was traveling at speed through avenues of trees, vast primeval trees, and the light between them was growing brighter.

  Somewhere up ahead, Hobart was waiting for her, or for the thing she’d become as she flew through the pages.

  For she was not Suzanna here; or rather, not simply Suzanna. She could not simply be herself here, any more than he could be simply Hobart. They were grown mythical in this absolute forest. They had drawn to themselves the dreams that this state celebrated: the desires and faiths that filled the nursery stories, and so shaped all subsequent desires and faiths.

  There were countless characters to choose from, wandering in the Wild Woods; sooner or later every story had a scene played here. This was the place orphaned children were left to find either their deaths or their destinies: where virgins went in fear of wolve
s, and lovers in fear of their hearts. Here birds talked, and frogs aspired to the throne, and every grove had its pool and well, and every tree a door to the Netherworld.

  What, among these, was she? The Maiden, of course. Since childhood she’d been the Maiden. She felt the Wild Woods grow more luminous at this thought, as though she’d ignited the air with it.

  I’m the Maiden …

  she murmured,

  … and he’s the Dragon.

  Oh yes. That was it; of course that was it.

  The speed of her flight increased; the pages flipped over and over. And now ahead she saw a metallic brightness between the trees, and there the Great Worm was, its gleaming coils wrapped around the roots of a Noahic tree, its vast, flat-snouted head laid on a bed of blood-red poppies as it bided its terrible time.

  Yet, perfect as it was, in every scaly detail, she saw Hobart there too. He was woven with the pattern of light and shade, and so—most oddly—was the word Dragon. All three occupied the same space in her head: a living text of man, word, and monster.

  The Great Worm Hobart opened its one good eye. A broken arrow protruded from its twin, the work of some hero or other no doubt, who’d gone his tasseled and shining way in the belief that he’d dispatched the beast. It was not so easily destroyed. It lived still, its coils no less tremendous for the scars they bore, its glamour untarnished. And the living eye? It held enough malice for a tribe of dragons.

  It saw her, and raised its head a little. Molten stone seethed between its lips, and murdered the poppies.

  Her flight toward it faltered. She felt its glance pierce her. Her body began to tremble in response. She tumbled toward the dark earth like a swatted moth. The ground beneath her was strewn with words; or were they bones? Whichever, she fell among them, shards of nonsense thrown up in all directions by her flailing arms.