Imajica. Clive Barker

and flurry of Vanaeph.

      ‘Strange thing to say,’ Gentle observed as they trudged away from Tick Raw’s hut. ‘May everything be as it seems.’

      ‘It’s the profoundest curse a sway-worker knows,’ Pie replied.

      ‘I see.’

      ‘On the contrary,’ Pie said, ‘I don’t think you see very much.’

      There was a note of accusation in Pie’s words which Gentle rose to.

      ‘I certainly saw what you were up to,’ he said. ‘You had half a mind to stay with him. Batting your eyes like a—’ He stopped himself.

      ‘Go on,’ Pie replied. ‘Say it. Like a whore.’

      ‘That wasn’t what I meant.’

      ‘No, please,’ Pie went on, bitterly. ‘You can lay on the insults. Why not? It can be very arousing.’

      Gentle shot Pie a look of disgust.

      ‘You said you wanted education, Gentle. Well let’s start with may everything be as it seems. It’s a curse, because if that were the case we’d all be living just to die, and mud would be King of the Dominions.’

      ‘I get it,’ Gentle said. ‘And you’d be just a whore.’

      ‘And you’d be a just a faker, working for-’

      Before the rest of the sentence was out of his mouth a pack of animals ran out between two of the dwellings, squealing like pigs, though they looked more like tiny llamas. Gentle looked in the direction from which they’d come, and saw, advancing between the shanties, a sight to bring shudders.

      ‘The Nullianac!’

      ‘I see it!’ Pie said.

      As the executioner approached, the praying hands of its head opened and closed, as though kindling the energies between the palms to a lethal heat. There were cries of alarm from the houses around. Doors slammed. Shutters closed. A child was snatched from a step, bawling as it went. Gentle had time to see the executioner draw two weapons, with blades that caught the livid light of the arcs, then he was obeying Pie’s instruction to run, the mystif leading the way.

      The street they’d been on was no more than a narrow gutter, but it was a well-lit highway by comparison with the narrow alley they ducked into. Pie was light-footed; Gentle was not. Twice the mystif made a turn and Gentle overshot it. The second time he lost Pie entirely in the murk and dirt, and was about to retrace his steps when he heard the executioner’s blade slice through something behind him and glanced back to see one of the frailer houses folding up in a cloud of dust and screams, its demolisher’s shape, lightning-headed, appearing from the chaos and fixing its gaze upon him. Its target sighted, it advanced with a sudden speed, and Gentle darted for cover at the first turn, a route that took him into a swamp of sewage which he barely crossed without falling, and thence into even narrower passages.

      It would only be a matter of time before he chanced upon a cul-de-sac, he knew. When he did the game would be up. He felt an itch at the nape of his neck, as though the blades were already there. This wasn’t right! He’d barely been out of the Fifth an hour and he was seconds from death. He glanced back. The Nullianac had closed the distance between them. He picked up his pace, pitching himself around a corner, and into a tunnel of corrugated iron, with no way out at the other end.

      ‘Shite!’ he said, taking Tick Raw’s favourite word for his complaint. ‘Furie, you’ve killed yourself!’

      The walls of the cul-de-sac were slick with filth, and high. Knowing he’d never scale them, he ran to the far end and threw himself against the wall there, hoping it might crack. But its builders (damn them!) had been better craftsmen than most in the vicinity. The wall rocked, and pieces of its foetid mortar fell about him, but all his efforts did was bring the Nullianac straight to him, drawn by the sound of his effort.

      Seeing his executioner approaching, Gentle pitched his body against the wall afresh, hoping for some last-minute reprieve. But all he got was bruises. The itch at his nape was an ache now, but through its pain he formed the despairing thought that this was surely the most ignominious of deaths, to be sliced up amongst sewage. What had he done to deserve it, he asked aloud.

      ‘What have I done? What the fuck have I done?’

      The question went unanswered; or did it? As his yells ceased he found himself raising his hand to his face, not knowing - even as he did so - why. There was simply an inner compulsion to open his palm and spit upon it. The spittle felt cold, or else his palm was hot. Now a yard away, the Nullianac raised its twin blades above its head. Gentle made a fist, lightly, and put it to his mouth. As the blades reached the top of their arc, he exhaled.

      He felt his breath blaze against his palm, and in the instant before the blades reached his head the pneuma went from his fist like a bullet. It struck the Nullianac in the neck with such force it was thrown backwards, a livid spurt of energy breaking from the gap in its head, and rising like Earth-born lightning into the sky. The creature fell in the filth, its hands dropping the blades to reach for the wound. They never touched the place. Its life went out of it in a spasm, and its prayerful head was permanently silenced.

      At least as shaken by the other’s death as the proximity of his own, Gentle got to his feet, his gaze going from the body in the dirt to his fist. He opened it. The spittle had gone; transformed into some lethal dart. There was a seam of discolouration that ran from the ball of his thumb to the other side of his hand. That was the only sign of the pneuma’s passing.

      ‘Holy shite,’ he said.

      A small crowd had already gathered at the end of the cul-de-sac, and heads appeared over the wall behind him. From every side came an agitated buzz that wouldn’t, he guessed, take long to reach Hammeryock and Pontiff Farrow. It would be naïve to suppose they ruled Vanaeph with only one executioner in their squad. There’d be others; and here, soon. He stepped over the body, not caring to look too closely at the damage he’d done, but aware with only a passing glance that it was substantial.

      The crowd, seeing the conquerer approach, parted. Some bowed, others fled. One said, bravo!, and tried to kiss his hand. He pressed his admirer away, and scanned the alleys in every direction, hoping for some sign of Pie’oh’pah. Finding none, he debated his options. Where would Pie go? Not to the top of the Mount. Though that was a visible rendezvous, their enemies would spot them there. Where else? The gates of Patashoqua, perhaps, that the mystif had pointed out when they’d first arrived? It was as good a place as any, he thought, and started off, down through teeming Vanaeph towards the glorious city.

      His worst expectations - that news of his crime had reached the Pontiff and her league - were soon confirmed. He was almost at the edge of the township, and within sight of the open ground that lay between its borders and the walls of Patashoqua, when a hue and cry from the streets behind announced a pursuing party. In his Fifth Dominion garb, jeans and shirt, he would be easily recognized if he started towards the gates, but if he attempted to stay within the confines of Vanaeph it would be only a matter of time before he was hunted down. Better to take the chance of running now, he decided, while he still had a lead. Even if he didn’t make it to the gates before they came after him, they surely wouldn’t dispatch him within sight of Patashoqua’s gleaming walls.

      He put on a fair turn of speed, and was out of the township in less than a minute, the commotion behind him gathering volume. Though it was difficult to judge the distance to the gates in a light that lent such iridescence to the ground between, it was certainly no less than a mile; perhaps twice that. He’d not got far when the first of his pursuers appeared from the outskirts of Vanaeph, runners fresher and lither than he, who rapidly closed the distance between them. There were plenty of travellers coming and going along the straight road to the gates. Some pedestrians, most in groups, and dressed like pilgrims; other, finer figures, mounted on horses whose flanks and heads were painted with gaudy designs; still others riding on shaggy derivatives of the mule. Most envied, however, and most rare, were those in motor vehicles,