Imajica

by Clive Barker

  “You went down into the Cradle?” she said.

  “Yes, I did,” Gentle replied, coming to the bed on which she sat, her arms wrapped around her knees.

  “Did you see the Cradle Lady?” the girl said.

  “See who?” Aping started to hush her, but Gentle waved him into silence. “See who?” he said again.

  “She lives in the sea,” Huzzah said. “I dream about her—and I hear her sometimes—but I haven’t seen her yet. I want to see her.”

  “Does she have a name?” Gentle asked.

  “Tishalullé,” Huzzah replied, pronouncing the run of the syllables without hesitation. “That’s the sound the waves made when she was born,” she explained. “Tishalullé.”

  “That’s a lovely name.”

  “I think so,” the girl said gravely. “Better than Huzzah.”

  “Huzzah’s pretty too,” Gentle replied. “Where I come from, Huzzah’s the noise people make when they’re happy.”

  She looked at him as though the idea of happiness was utterly alien to her, which Gentle could believe. Now he saw Aping in his daughter’s presence, he better understood the paradox of the man’s response to her. He was frightened of the girl. Her illegal powers upset him for his reputation’s sake, certainly, but they also reminded him of a power he had no real mastery over. The man painted Huzzah’s fragile face over and over as an act of perverse devotion, perhaps, but also of exorcism. Nor was the child much better served by her gift. Her dreams condemned her to this cell and filled her with obscure longings. She was more their victim than their celebrant.

  Gentle did his best to draw from her a little more information on this woman Tishalullé, but she either knew very little or was unprepared to vouchsafe further insights in her father’s presence. Gentle suspected the latter. As he left, however, she asked him quietly if he would come and visit her again, and he said he would.

  He found Pie in their cell, with a guard on the door. The mystif looked grim.

  “N’ashap’s revenge,” it said, nodding towards the guard. “I think we’ve outstayed our welcome.”

  Gentle recounted his conversation with Aping and the meeting with Huzzah.

  “So the law prohibits prophetics, does it? That’s a piece of legislation I hadn’t heard about.”

  “The way she talked about the Cradle Lady—”

  “Her mother, presumably.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “She’s frightened and she wants her mother. Who can blame her? And what’s a Cradle Lady if not a mother?”

  “I hadn’t thought of it that way,” Gentle said. “I’d supposed there might be some literal truth to what she was saying.”

  “I doubt it.”

  “Are we going to take her with us or not?”

  “It’s your choice, of course, but I say absolutely not.”

  “Aping said he’d help us if we took her.”

  “What’s his help worth, if we’re burdened with a child? Remember, we’re not going alone. We’ve got to get Scopique out too, and he’s confined to his cell the way we are. N’ashap has ordered a general clamp-down.”

  “He must be pining for you.”

  Pie made a sour face. “I’m certain our descriptions are on their way to his headquarters even now. And when he gets an answer he’s going to be a very happy Oethac, knowing he’s got a couple of desperadoes under lock and key. We’ll never get out once he knows who we are.”

  “So we have to escape before he realizes. I just thank God the telephone never made it to this Dominion.”

  “Maybe the Autarch banned it. The less people talk, the less they can plot. You know, I think maybe I should try and get access to N’ashap. I’m sure I could persuade him to give us a freer rein, if I could just talk with him for a few minutes.”

  “He’s not interested in conversation, Pie,” Gentle said. “He’d prefer to keep your mouth busy some other way.”

  “So you simply want to fight your way out?” Pie replied. “Use pneuma against N’ashap’s men?”

  Gentle paused to think this option through. “I don’t think that’d be too clever,” he said. “Not with me still weak. In a couple of days, maybe we could take them on. But not yet.”

  “We don’t have that long.”

  “I realize that.”

  “And even if we did, we’d be better avoiding a face-to-face conflict. N’ashap’s troops may be lethargic, but there’s a good number of them.”

  “Perhaps you should see him, then, and try to mellow him a little. I’ll talk to Aping and praise his pictures some more.”

  “Is he any good?”

  “Put it this way: As a painter he makes a damn fine father. But he trusts me, with us being fellow artists and all.”

  The mystif got up and called to the guard, requesting a private interview with Captain N’ashap. The man mumbled something smutty and left his post, having first beaten the bolts on the door with his rifle butt to be certain they were firmly in place. The sound drove Gentle to the window, to stare out at the open air. There was a brightness in the cloud layer that suggested the suns might be on their way through. The mystif joined him, slipping its arms around his neck.

  “What are you thinking?” it said.

  “Remember Efreet’s mother, in Beatrix?”

  “Of course.”

  “She told me she’d dreamt about me coming to sit at her table, though she wasn’t certain whether I’d be a man or a woman.”

  “Naturally you were deeply offended.”

  “I would have been once,” Gentle said. “But it didn’t mean that much when she said it. After a few weeks with you, I didn’t give a shit what sex I was. See how you’ve corrupted me?”

  “My pleasure. Is there any more to this story, or is that it?”

  “No, there’s more. She started talking about Goddesses, I remember. About how they were hidden away. . . .”

  “And you think Huzzah’s found one?”

  “We saw acolytes in the mountains, didn’t we? Why not a Deity? Maybe Huzzah did go dreaming for her mother . . .”

  “. . . but instead she found a Goddess.”

  “Yes. Tishalullé, out there in the Cradle, waiting to rise.”

  “You like the idea, don’t you?”

  “Of hidden Goddesses? Oh, yes. Maybe it’s just the woman-chaser in me. Or maybe I’m like Huzzah, waiting for someone I can’t remember, wanting to see some face or other, come to fetch me away.”

  “I’m already here,” Pie said, kissing the back of Gentle’s neck. “Every face you ever wanted.”

  “Even a Goddess?”

  “Ah—”

  The sound of the bolts being drawn aside silenced them. The guard had returned with the news that Captain N’ashap had consented to see the mystif.

  “If you see Aping,” Gentle said as it left, “will you tell him I’d love to sit and talk painting with him?”

  “I’ll do that.”

  They parted, and Gentle returned to the window. The clouds had thickened their defenses against the suns, and the Cradle lay still and empty again beneath their blanket. Gentle said again the name Huzzah had shared with him, the word that was shaped like a breaking wave.

  “Tishalullé.”

  The sea remained motionless. Goddesses didn’t come at a call. At least, not his.

  He was just estimating the time that Pie had been away—and deciding it was an hour or more—when Aping appeared at the cell door, dismissing the guard from his post while he talked.

  “Since when have you been under lock and key?” he asked Gentle.

  “Since this morning.”

  “But why? I understood from the captain that you and the mystif were guests, after a fashion.”

  “We were.”

  A twitch of anxiety passed over Aping’s features. “If you’re a prisoner here,” he said stiffly, “then of course the situation’s changed.”

  “You mean we won’t be able to debate painting?”

&
nbsp; “I mean you won’t be leaving.”

  “What about your daughter?”

  “That’s academic now.”

  “You’ll let her languish, will you? You’ll let her die?”

  “She won’t die.”

  “I think she will.”

  Aping turned his back on his tempter. “The law is the law,” he said.

  “I understand,” Gentle replied softly. “Even artists have to bow to that master, I suppose.”

  “I understand what you’re doing,” Aping said. “Don’t think I don’t.”

  “She’s a child, Aping.”

  “Yes. I know. But I’ll have to tend to her as best I can.”

  “Why don’t you ask her whether she’s seen her own death?”

  “Oh, Jesu,” Aping said, stricken. He began to shake his head. “Why must this happen to me?”

  “It needn’t. You can save her.”

  “It isn’t so clear-cut,” Aping said, giving Gentle a harried look. “I have my duty.”

  He took a handkerchief from his trouser pocket and wiped hard at his mouth, back and forth, as though a residue of guilt clung there and he was afraid it would give him away.

  “I have to think,” he said, going back to the door. “It seemed so easy. But now . . . I have to think.”

  The guard was at his post again when the door opened, and Gentle was obliged to let the sergeant go without having the chance to broach the subject of Scopique.

  There was further frustration when Pie returned. N’ashap had kept the mystif waiting two hours and had finally decided not to grant the promised interview.

  “I heard him even if I didn’t see him,” Pie said. “He sounded to be roaring drunk.”

  “So both of us were out of luck. I don’t think Aping’s going to help us. If the choice is between his daughter and his duty he’ll choose his duty.”

  “So we’re stuck here.”

  “Until we plot another plot.”

  “Shit.”

  II

  Night fell without the suns appearing again, the only sound throughout the building that of the guards proceeding up and down the corridors, bringing food to the cells, then slamming and locking the doors until dawn. Not a single voice was raised to protest the fact that the privileges of the evening—games of Horsebone, recitations of scenes from Quexos, and Malbaker’s Numbubo, works many here knew by heart—had been withdrawn. There was a universal reluctance to make a peep, as if each man, alone in his cell, was prepared to forgo every comfort, even that of praying aloud, to keep themselves from being noticed.

  “N’ashap must be dangerous when drunk,” Pie said, by way of explanation for this breathless hush.

  “Maybe he’s fond of midnight executions.”

  “I’d take a bet on who’s top of his list.”

  “I wish I felt stronger. If they come for us, we’ll fight, right?”

  “Of course,” Pie said. “But until they do, why don’t you sleep for a while?”

  “You must be kidding.”

  “At least stop pacing about.”

  “I’ve never been locked up by anybody before. It makes me claustrophobic.”

  “One pneuma and you could be out of here,” Pie reminded him.

  “Maybe that’s what we should be doing.”

  “If we’re pressed. But we’re not yet. For Christ’s sake, lie down.”

  Reluctantly, Gentle did so, and despite the anxieties that lay down beside him to whisper in his ear, his body was more interested in rest than their company, and he quickly fell asleep.

  He was woken by Pie, who murmured, “You’ve got a visitor.”

  He sat up. The cell’s light had been turned off, and had it not been for the smell of oil paint he’d not have known the identity of the man at the door.

  “Zacharias. I need your help.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Huzzah is . . . I think she’s going crazy. You’ve got to come.” His whispering voice trembled. So did the hand he laid on Gentle’s arm. “I think she’s dying,” he said.

  “If I go, Pie comes too.”

  “No, I can’t take that risk.”

  “And I can’t take the risk of leaving my friend here,” Gentle said.

  “And I can’t take the risk of being found out. If there isn’t somebody in the cell when the guard passes—”

  “He’s right,” said Pie. “Go on. Help the child.”

  “Is that wise?”

  “Compassion’s always wise.”

  “All right. But stay awake. We haven’t said our prayers yet. We need both our breaths for that.”

  “I understand.”

  Gentle slipped out into the passage with Aping, who winced at every click the key made as he locked the door. So did Gentle. The thought of leaving Pie alone in the cell sickened him. But there seemed to be no other choice.

  “We may need a doctor’s help,” Gentle said as they crept down the darkened corridors. “I suggest you fetch Scopique from his cell.”

  “Is he a doctor?”

  “He certainly is.”

  “It’s you she’s asking for,” Aping said. “I don’t know why. She just woke up, sobbing and begging me to fetch you. She’s so cold!”

  With Aping’s knowledge of how regularly each floor and passageway was patrolled to aid them, they reached Huzzah’s cell without encountering a single guard. The girl wasn’t lying on her bed, as Gentle had expected, but was crouched on the floor, with her head and hands pressed against one of the walls. A single wick burned in a bowl in the middle of the cell, her face unwarmed by its light. Though she registered their appearance with a glance, she didn’t move from the wall, so Gentle went to where she was crouching and did the same. Shudders passed through her body, though her bangs were plastered to her brow with sweat.

  “What can you hear?” Gentle asked her.

  “She’s not in my dreams any more, Mr. Zacharias,” she said, pronouncing his name with precision, as though the proper naming of the forces around her would offer her some little control over them.

  “Where is she?” Gentle inquired.

  “She’s outside. I can hear her. Listen.”

  He put his head to the wall. There was indeed a murmur in the stone, though he guessed its source was either the asylum’s generator or its furnace rather than the Cradle Lady.

  “Do you hear?”

  “Yes, I hear.”

  “She wants to come in,” Huzzah said. “She tried to come in through my dreams, but she couldn’t, so now she’s coming through the wall.”

  “Maybe . . . we should move away then,” Gentle said, reaching to put his hand on the girl’s shoulder. She was icy. “Come on, let me take you back to bed. You’re cold.”

  “I was in the sea,” she said, allowing Gentle to put his arms around her and draw her to her feet.

  He looked towards Aping and mouthed the word Scopique. Seeing his daughter’s frailty, the sergeant went from the door as obediently as a dog, leaving his Huzzah clinging to Gentle. He set her down on the bed and wrapped a blanket around her.

  “The Cradle Lady knows you’re here,” Huzzah said.

  “Does she?”

  “She told me she almost drowned you, but you wouldn’t let her.”

  “Why would she want to do that?”

  “I don’t know. You’ll have to ask her, when she comes in.”

  “You’re not afraid of her?”

  “Oh, no. Are you?”

  “Well, if she tried to drown me—”

  “She won’t do that again, if you stay with me. She likes me, and if she knows I like you she won’t hurt you.”

  “That’s good to know,” Gentle said. “What would she think if we were to leave here tonight?”

  “We can’t do that.”

  “Why not?”

  “I don’t want to go up there,” she said. “I don’t like it.”

  “Everybody’s asleep,” he said. “We could just tiptoe away. You and me and my
friends. That wouldn’t be so bad, would it?” She looked unpersuaded. “I think your papa would like us to go to Yzordderrex. Have you ever been there?”

  “When I was very little.”

  “We could go again.”

  Huzzah shook her head. “The Cradle Lady won’t let us,” she said.

  “She might, if she knew that was what you wanted. Why don’t we go up and have a look?”

  Huzzah glanced back towards the wall, as if she was expecting Tishalullé’s tide to crack the stone there and then. When nothing happened, she said, “Yzordderrex is a very long way, isn’t it?”

  “It’s quite a journey, yes.”

  “I’ve read about it in my books.”

  “Why don’t you put on some warm clothes?” Gentle said.

  Her doubts banished by the tacit approval of the Goddess, Huzzah got up and went to select some clothes from her meager wardrobe, which hung from hooks on the opposite wall. Gentle took the opportunity to glance through the small stack of books at the end of the bed. Several were entertainments for children, keepsakes, perhaps, of happier times; one was a hefty encyclopedia by someone called Maybellome, which might have made informative reading under other circumstances but was too densely printed to be skimmed and too heavy to be taken along. There was a volume of poems that read like nonsense rhymes, and what appeared to be a novel, Huzzah’s place in it marked with a slip of paper. He pocketed it when her back was turned, as much for himself as her, then went to the door in the hope that Aping and Scopique were within sighting distance. There was no sign. Huzzah had meanwhile finished dressing.

  “I’m ready,” she said. “Shall we go? Papa will find us.”

  “I hope so,” Gentle replied.

  Certainly remaining in the cell was a waste of valuable time. Huzzah asked if she could take Gentle’s hand, to which he said of course, and together they began to thread their way through the passageways, all of which looked bewilderingly alike in the semi-darkness. Their progress was halted several times when the sound of boots on stone announced the proximity of guards, but Huzzah was as alive to their danger as Gentle and twice saved them from discovery.

  And then, as they climbed the final flight of stairs that would bring them out into the open air, a din erupted not far from them. They both froze, drawing back into the shadows, but they weren’t the cause of the commotion. It was N’ashap’s voice that came echoing along the corridor, accompanied by a dreadful hammering. Gentle’s first thought was of Pie, and before common sense could intervene he’d broken cover and was heading towards the source of the sound, glancing back once to signal that Huzzah should stay where she was, only to find that she was already on his heels. He recognized the passageway ahead. The open door twenty yards from where he stood was the door of the cell he’d left Pie in. And it was from there that the sound of N’ashap’s voice emerged, a garbled stream of insults and accusations that was already bringing guards running. Gentle drew a deep breath, preparing for the violence that was surely inevitable now.