Читать книгу Imajica - Clive Barker, Clive Barker - Страница 46

The streets of Beatrix weren’t as narrow as those of Vanaeph, but nor were they designed for motor vehicles. Pie parked the car close to the outskirts, and the two of them ambled into the village from there. The houses were unpretentious affairs raised of an ochre stone, and surrounded by stands of vegetation that were a cross between silver birches and bamboo. The lights Pie had spotted from a distance weren’t those that burned in the windows, but the lanterns that hung in these trees, throwing their mellow light across the streets. Just about every copse boasted its lantern-trimmer - shaggy-faced children like the herders - some squatting beneath the trees, others perched precariously in their branches. The doors of almost all the houses stood open, and music drifted from several, tunes caught by the lantern-trimmers, and danced to in the dapple. Asked to guess, Gentle would have said life was good here. Slow, perhaps, but good.

‘We can’t cheat these people,’ Gentle said. ‘It wouldn’t be honourable.’

‘Agreed,’ Pie replied.

‘So what do we do for money?’

‘Maybe they’ll agree to cannibalize the vehicle for a good meal, and a horse or two.’

‘I don’t see any horses.’

‘A doeki would be fine.’

‘They look slow.’

Pie directed Gentle’s gaze up the heights of the Jokalaylau. The last traces of day still lingered on the snow-fields, but for all their beauty the mountains were vast and vanishing.

‘Slow and certain is safer up there,’ Pie said. Gentle took Pie’s point. ‘I’m going to see if I can find somebody in charge,’ the mystif went on, and left Gentle’s side to go and question one of the lantern-trimmers.

Drawn by the sound of raucous laughter. Gentle wandered on a little further, and turning a corner he found two dozen of the villagers, mostly men and boys, standing in front of a marionette theatre that had been set up in the lee of one of the houses. The show they were watching contrasted violently with the benign atmosphere of the village. To judge by the spires painted on the backcloth the story was set in Patashoqua, and as Gentle joined the audience two characters, one a grossly fat woman, the other a man with the proportions of a foetus and the endowment of a donkey, were in the middle of a domestic tiff so frenzied the spires were shaking. The puppeteers, three slim young men with identical moustaches, were plainly visible above the booth, and provided both the raucous dialogue and the sound effects, the former larded with baroque obscenities. Now another character entered - this a hunchbacked sibling of Pulcinella’s - and summarily beheaded Donkey-Dick. The head flew to the ground, where the fat woman knelt to sob over it. As she did so, cherubic wings unfolded from behind its ears and it floated up into the sky, accompanied by a falsetto din from the puppeteers. This earned applause from the audience, during which Gentle caught sight of Pie in the street. At the mystif’s side was a jug-eared adolescent with hair down to the middle of his back. Gentle went to join them.

This is Efreet Splendid,’ Pie said. ‘He tells me - wait for this - he tells me his mother has dreams about white, furless men, and would like to meet you.’

The grin that broke through Efreet’s facial thatch was crooked but beguiling.

‘She’ll like you,’ he announced.

‘Are you sure?’ Gentle said.

‘Certainly!’

‘Will she feed us?’

‘For a furless whitey, anything,’ Efreet replied.

Gentle threw the mystif a doubtful glance. ‘I hope you know what we’re doing,’ he said.

Efreet led the way, chattering as he went, asking mostly about Patashoqua. It was, he said, his ambition to see the great city. Rather than disappoint the boy by admitting that he hadn’t stepped inside the gates, Gentle informed him that it was a place of untold magnificence.

‘Especially the Merrow Ti’ Ti’,’ he said.

The boy grinned, and said he’d tell everybody he knew that he’d met a hairless white man who’d seen the Merrow Ti’ Ti’. From such innocent lies, Gentle mused, legends came. At the door of the house, Efreet stood aside, in order that Gentle be the first over the threshold. He startled the woman inside with his appearance. She dropped the cat she was combing, and instantly fell to her knees. Embarrassed, Gentle asked her to stand, but it was only after much persuasion that she did so, and even then she kept her head bowed, watching him furtively from the corner of her small, dark eyes. She was short - barely taller than her son in fact - her face fine-boned beneath its down. Her name was Larumday, she said, and she would very happily extend to Gentle and his lady (as she assumed Pie to be) the hospitality of her house. Her younger son Emblem was coerced into helping her prepare food while Efreet talked about where they could find a buyer for the car. Nobody in the village had any use for such a vehicle, he said, but in the hills was a man who might. His name was Coaxial Tasko, and it came as a considerable shock to Efreet that neither Gentle nor Pie had heard of the man.

‘Everybody knows Wretched Tasko,’ he said. ‘He used to be a King in the Third Dominion, but his tribe’s extinct.’

‘Will you introduce me to him in the morning?’ Pie asked.

‘That’s a long time off,’ Efreet said.

‘Tonight then,’ Pie replied, and it was thus agreed between them.

The food, when it came, was simpler than the fare they’d been served along the Highway but no less tasty for that: doeki meat marinated in a root wine, accompanied by bread, a selection of pickled goods - including eggs the size of small loaves - and a broth which stung the throat like chili, bringing tears to Gentle’s eyes, much to Efreet’s undisguised amusement. While they ate and drank - the wine strong, but downed by the boys like water - Gentle asked about the marionette show he’d seen. Ever eager to parade his knowledge, Efreet explained that the puppeteers were on their way to Patashoqua ahead of the Autarch’s host, who were coming over the mountains in the next few days. The puppeteers were very famous in Yzordderrex, he said, at which point Larumday hushed him.

‘But, Mama -’ he began.

‘I said hush. I won’t have talk of that place in this house. Your father went there and never came back. Remember that.’

‘I want to go there when I’ve seen the Merrow Ti’ Ti’, like Mr Gentle,’ Efreet replied defiantly, and earned a sharp slap on the head for his troubles.

‘Enough,’ Larumday said. ‘We’ve had too much talk tonight. A little silence would be welcome.’

The conversation dwindled thereafter, and it wasn’t until the meal was finished, and Efreet was preparing to take Pie up the hill to meet Wretched Tasko, that the boy’s mood brightened and his spring of enthusiasms burst forth afresh. Gentle was ready to join them, but Efreet explained that his mother - who was presently out of the room - wanted him to stay.

‘You should accommodate her,’ Pie remarked when the boy had headed out. ‘If Tasko doesn’t want the car we may have to sell your body.’

‘I thought you were the expert on that, not me,’ Gentle replied.

‘Now, now,’ Pie said, with a grin. ‘I thought we’d agreed not to mention my dubious past.’

‘So go,’ Gentle said. ‘Leave me to her tender mercies. But you’ll have to pick the fluff from between my teeth.’

He found Mother Splendid in the kitchen, kneading dough for the morrow’s bread.

‘You’ve honoured our home, coming here and sharing our table,’ she said as she worked. ‘And please, don’t think badly of me for asking, but …’ Her voice became a frightened whisper. ‘What do you want?’

‘Nothing,’ Gentle replied. ‘You’ve already been more than generous.’

She looked at him balefully, as though he was being cruel teasing her in this fashion.

‘I’ve dreamt about somebody coming here,’ she said. ‘White and furless, like you. I wasn’t sure whether it was a man or a woman, but now you’re here sitting at the table, I know it was you.’

First Tick Raw, he thought, now Mother Splendid. What was it about his face that made people think they knew him? Did he have a doppelgänger wandering around the Fourth?

‘Who do you think I am?’ he said.

‘I don’t know,’ she replied. ‘But I knew that when you came everything would change.’

Her eyes suddenly filled with tears as she spoke, and they ran down the silky fur on her cheeks. The sight of her distress in turn distressed him, not least because he knew he was the cause of it, but he didn’t know why. Undoubtedly she had dreamt of him - the look of shocked recognition on her face when he’d first stepped over the threshold was ample evidence of that - but what did that fact signify? He and Pie were here by chance. They’d be gone again by morning, passing through the millpond of Beatrix leaving nary a ripple. He had no significance in the life of the Splendid household, except as a subject of conversation when he’d gone.

‘I hope your life doesn’t change,’ he said to her. ‘It seems very pleasant here.’

‘It is,’ she said, wiping the tears away. ‘This is a safe place. It’s good to raise children here. I know Efreet will leave soon. He wants to see Patashoqua and I won’t be able to stop him. But Emblem will stay. He likes the hills, and tending the doeki.’

‘And you’ll stay too?’

‘Oh yes. I’ve done my wandering,’ she said. ‘I lived in Yzordderrex, near the Oke T’Noon, when I was young. That’s where I met Eloign. We moved away as soon as we were married. It’s a terrible city, Mr Gentle.’

‘If it’s so bad, why did he go back there?’

‘His brother joined the Autarch’s army, and when Eloigh heard he went back to try and make him desert. He said it brought shame on the family to have a brother taking a wage from an orphan-maker.’

‘A man of principle.’

‘Oh yes,’ said Larumday, with fondness in her voice. ‘He’s a fine man. Quiet, like Emblem, but with Efreet’s curiosity. All the books in this house are his. There’s nothing he won’t read.’

‘How long has he been away?’

Too long,’ she said. ‘I’m afraid perhaps his brother’s killed him.’

‘A brother kill a brother?’ Gentle said. ‘No. I can’t believe that.’

‘Yzordderrex does strange things to people, Mr Gentle. Even good men lose their way.’

‘Only men?’ Gentle said.

‘It’s men who make this world,’ she said. ‘The Goddesses have gone, and men have their way everywhere.’

There was no accusation in this. She simply stated it as fact, and he had no evidence to contradict it with. She asked him if he’d like her to brew tea, but he declined, saying he wanted to go out and take the air, perhaps find Pie’oh’pah.

‘She’s very beautiful,’ Larumday said. ‘Is she wise as well?’

‘Oh yes,’ he said. ‘She’s wise.’

‘That’s not usually the way with beauties, is it?’ she said. ‘It’s strange that I didn’t dream her at the table too.’

‘Maybe you did, and you’ve forgotten.’

She shook her head. ‘Oh no, I’ve had the dream too many times, and it’s always the same. A white, furless someone sitting at my table, eating with me and my sons.’

‘I wish I could have been a more sparkling guest,’ he said.

‘But you’re just the beginning, aren’t you?’ she said. ‘What comes after?’

‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘Maybe your husband, home from Yzordderrex.’

She looked doubtful. ‘Something,’ she said. ‘Something that’ll change us all.’