by Clive Barker
“What do they want?” Gentle said.
“You, maybe?” Pie ventured.
The woman standing closest to them, her hair rising half her height again above her head, courtesy of the wind, beckoned.
“I think they want us both to go,” Gentle said.
“That’s the way it looks,” Pie said, not moving a muscle.
“What are we waiting for?”
“I thought they were dead,” the mystif said.
“Maybe they were.”
“So we take the lead from phantoms? I’m not sure that’s wise.”
“They came to find us, Pie,” Gentle said.
Having beckoned, the woman was turning slowly on her toe tips, like a mechanical Madonna that Clem had once given Gentle, which had played “Ave Maria” as it turned.
“We’re going to lose them if we don’t hurry. What’s your problem, Pie? You’ve talked with spirits before.”
“Not like these,” Pie said. “The Goddesses weren’t all forgiving mothers, you know. And their rites weren’t all milk and honey. Some of them were cruel. They sacrificed men.”
“You think that’s why they want us?”
“It’s possible.”
“So we weigh that possibility against the absolute certainty of freezing to death where we stand,” Gentle said.
“It’s your decision.”
“No, this one we make together. You’ve got fifty percent of the vote and fifty percent of the responsibility.”
“What do you want to do?”
“There you go again. Make up your own mind for once.”
Pie looked at the departing women, their forms already disappearing behind a veil of snow. Then at Gentle. Then at the doeki. Then back at Gentle. “I heard they eat men’s balls.”
“So what are you worried about?”
“All right!” the mystif growled, “I vote we go.”
“Then it’s unanimous.”
Pie started to haul the doeki to its feet. It didn’t want to move, but the mystif had a fine turn of threat when pressed, and began to berate it ripely.
“Quick, or we’ll lose them!” Gentle said.
The beast was up now, and tugging on its bridle Pie led it in pursuit of Gentle, who was forging ahead to keep their guides in sight. The snow obliterated the women completely at times, but he saw the beckoner glance back several times, and knew that she’d not let her foundlings get lost again. After a time, their destination came in sight. A rock face, slate-gray and sheer, loomed from the murk, its summit lost in mist.
“If they want us to climb, they can think again,” Pie yelled through the wind.
“No, there’s a door,” Gentle shouted over his shoulder. “See it?”
The word rather flattered what was no more than a jagged crack, like a bolt of black lightning burned into the face of the cliff. But it represented some hope of shelter, if nothing else.
Gentle turned back to Pie. “Do you see it, Pie?”
“I see it,” came the response. “But I don’t see the women.”
One sweeping glance along the rock face confirmed the mystif’s observation. They’d either entered the cliff or floated up its face into the clouds. Whichever, they’d removed themselves quickly.
“Phantoms,” Pie said, fretfully.
“What if they are?” Gentle replied. “They brought us to shelter.”
He took the doeki’s rein from Pie’s hands and coaxed the animal on, saying, “See that hole in the wall? It’s going to be warm inside. Remember warm?”
The snow thickened as they covered the last hundred yards, until it was almost waist deep again. But all three—man, animal, and mystif—made the crack alive. There was more than shelter inside; there was light. A narrow passageway presented itself, its black walls encased in ice, with a fire flickering somewhere out of sight in the cavern’s depths.
Gentle had let slip the doeki’s reins, and the wise animal was already heading away down the passage, the sound of its hooves echoing against the glittering walls. By the time Gentle and Pie caught up with it, a slight bend in the passage had revealed the source of the light and warmth it was heading towards. A broad but shallow bowl of beaten brass was set in a place where the passage widened, and the fire was burning vigorously in its center. There were two curiosities, however: one, that the flame was not gold but blue; two, that it burned without fuel, the flames hovering six inches above the bottom of the bowl. But oh, it was warm. The cobs of ice in Gentle’s beard melted and dropped off; the snowflakes became beads on Pie’s smooth brow and cheek. The warmth brought a whoop of pure pleasure to Gentle’s lips, and he opened his aching arms to Pie ‘oh’ pah.
“We’re not going to die!” he said. “Didn’t I tell you? We’re not going to die!”
The mystif hugged him in return, its lips first pressed to Gentle’s neck, then to his face.
“All right, I was wrong,” it said. “There! I admit it!”
“So we go on and find the women, yes?”
“Yes!” it said.
A sound was waiting for them when the echoes of their enthusiasm died. A tinkling, as of ice bells.
“They’re calling us,” Gentle said.
The doeki had found a little paradise by the fire and was not about to move, for all Pie’s attempts to tug it to its feet.
“Leave it awhile,” Gentle said, before the mystif began a fresh round of profanities. “It’s given good service. Let it rest. We can come back and fetch it later.”
The passage they now followed not only curved but divided many times, the routes all lit by fire bowls. They chose between them by listening for the sound of the bells, which didn’t seem to be getting any closer. Each choice, of course, made the likelihood of finding their way back to the doeki more uncertain.
“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 Hapexamendios’ 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 blasé 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.”
“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 further,” 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 ugichee 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.”
“Wha
t 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.