Imajica

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.’

3

Efreet had said the climb would be easy, and measuring it in terms of incline, so it was. But the darkness made an easy route difficult, even for one as light-footed as Pie’oh’pah. Efreet was an accommodating guide, however, slowing his pace when he realized Pie was lagging behind, and warning him of places where the ground was uncertain. After a time they were high above the village, with the snow-clad peaks of the Jokalaylau visible above the backs of the hills in which Beatrix slept. High and majestic as those mountains were, the lower slopes of peaks yet more monumental were visible beyond them, their heads lost in cumulus. Not far now, the boy said, and this time his promises were good. Within a few yards Pie spotted a building silhouetted against the sky, with a light burning on its porch.

‘Hey, Wretched!’ Efreet started to call. ‘Someone to see you! Someone to see you!’

There was no reply forthcoming, however, and when they reached the house itself the only living occupant was the flame in the lamp. The door stood open; there was food on the table. But of Wretched Tasko there was no sign. Efreet went out to search around, leaving Pie on the porch. Animals corralled behind the house stamped and muttered in the darkness; there was a palpable unease. Efreet came back moments later, and said:

‘I see him up the hill! He’s almost at the top.’

‘What’s he doing there?’ Pie asked.

‘Watching the sky maybe. We’ll go up. He won’t mind.’

They continued to climb, their presence now noticed by the figure standing on the hill’s higher reaches. ‘Who is this?’ he called down.

‘It’s only Efreet, Mr Tasko. I’m with a friend.’

‘Your voice is too loud, boy,’ the man returned. ‘Keep it low, will you?’

‘He wants us to keep quiet,’ Efreet whispered.

‘I understand.’

There was a wind blowing on these heights, and its chill put Pie in mind of the fact that neither Gentle or itself had clothes appropriate to the journey that lay ahead of them. Coaxial clearly climbed here regularly; he was wearing a shaggy coat, and a hat with fur ear-warmers. He was very clearly not a local man. It would have taken three of the villagers to equal his mass or strength, and his skin was almost as dark as Pie’s.

‘This is my friend Pie’oh’pah,’ Efreet whispered to him when they were at his side.

‘Mystif,’ Tasko said instantly.

‘Yes.’

‘Ah. So, you’re a stranger?’

‘Yes.’

‘From Yzordderrex?’

‘No.’

That’s to the good, at least. But so many strangers, and all on the same night. What are we to make of it?’

‘Are there others?’ said Efreet.

‘Listen …’ Tasko said, casting his gaze over the valley to the darkened slopes beyond. ‘Don’t you hear the machines?’

‘No. Just the wind.’

Tasko’s response was to pick the boy up and physically point him in the direction of the sound.

‘Now listen!’ he said fiercely.

The wind carried a low rumble that might have been distant thunder, but that it was unbroken. Its source was certainly not the village below, nor did it seem likely there were earthworks in the hills. This was the sound of engines, moving through the night.

They’re coming towards the valley.’

Efreet made a whoop of pleasure, which was cut short by Tasko slapping his hand over the boy’s mouth.

‘Why so happy, child?’ he said. ‘Have you never learned fear? No, I don’t suppose you have. Well, learn it now.’ He held Efreet so tightly the boy struggled to be free. Those machines are from Yzordderrex. From the Autarch. Do you understand?’

Growling his displeasure he let go, and Efreet backed away from him, at least as nervous of Tasko now as of the distant machines. The man hawked up a wad of phlegm, and spat it in the direction of the sound.

‘Maybe they’ll pass us by,’ he said. There are other valleys they could choose. They may not come through ours.’ He spat again. ‘Ach, well, there’s no purpose in staying up here. If they come, they come.’ He turned to Efreet. ‘I’m sorry if I was rough, boy,’ he said. ‘But I’ve heard these machines before. They’re the same that killed my people. Take it from me, they’re nothing to whoop about. Do you understand?’

‘Yes,’ Efreet said, though Pie doubted he did. The pros-pea of a visitation from these thundering things held no horror for him, only exhilaration.

‘So tell me what you want, mystif,’ Tasko said as he started back down the hill. ‘You didn’t climb all the way up here to watch the stars. Or maybe you did. Are you in love?’

Efreet tittered in the darkness behind them. ‘If I were I wouldn’t talk about it,’ Pie replied.

‘So what, then?’

‘I came here with a friend, from … some considerable distance, and our vehicle’s nearly defunct. We need to trade it in for animals.’

‘Where are you heading?’

‘Up into the mountains.’

‘Are you prepared for that journey?’

‘No. But it has to be taken.’

‘The faster you’re out of the valley the safer we’ll be, I think. Strangers attract strangers.’

‘Will you help us?’

‘Here’s my offer,’ Tasko said. ‘If you leave Beatrix now, I’ll see they give you supplies and two doeki. But you must be quick, mystif.’

‘I understand.’

‘If you go now, maybe the machines will pass us by.’

4

Without anyone to lead him, Gentle had soon lost his way on the dark hill. But rather than turning round and heading back to await Pie in Beatrix, he continued to climb, drawn by the promise of a view from the heights, and a wind to clear his head. Both took his breath away. The wind with its chill, the panorama with its sweep. Ahead, range upon range receded into mist and distance, the furthest heights so vast he doubted the Fifth Dominion could boast their equal. Behind him, just visible between the softer silhouettes of the foothills, the forests which they’d driven through.

Once again, he wished he had a map of the territory, so that he could begin to grasp the scale of the journey they were undertaking. He tried to lay the landscape out on a page in his mind, like a sketch for a painting with this vista of mountains, hills and plain as the subject. But the fact of the scene before him overwhelmed his attempt to make symbols of it; to reduce it, and set it down. He let the problem go, and turned his eyes back towards the Jokalaylau. Before his gaze reached its destination, it came to rest on the hill slopes directly across from him. He was suddenly aware of the valley’s symmetry, hills rising to the same height, left and right. He studied the slopes opposite. It was a nonsensical quest, seeking a sign of life at such a distance, but the more he squinted at the hill’s face the more certain he became that it was a dark mirror, and that somebody as yet unseen was studying the shadows in which he stood, looking for some sign of him as he in his turn searched for them. The notion intrigued him at first, but then it began to make him afraid. The chill in his skin worked its way into his innards. He began to shiver inside, afraid to move for fear that this other, whoever or whatever it was, would see him, and in the seeing, bring calamity. He remained motionless for a long time, the wind coming in frigid gusts, and bringing with it sounds he hadn’t heard until now. The rumble of machinery; the complaint of unfed animals; sobbing. The sounds and the seeker on the mirror hill belonged together, he knew. This other had not come alone. It had engines, and beasts. It brought tears.

As the cold reached his marrow, he heard Pie’oh’pah calling his name, way down the hill. He prayed the wind wouldn’t veer, and carry the call, and thus his whereabouts, in the direction of the watcher. Pie continued to call for him, the voice getting nearer as the mystif climbed through the darkness. He endured five terrible minutes of this, his system racked by contrary desires: part of him desperately wanting Pie here with him, embracing him, telling him that the fear upon him was ridiculous; the other part in terror that Pie would find him and thus reveal his whereabouts to the creature on the other hill. At last, the mystif gave up on its search, and retraced its steps down into the secure streets of Beatrix.

Gentle didn’t break cover, however. He waited another quarter of an hour until his aching eyes discovered a motion on the opposite slope. The watcher was giving up his post, it seemed, moving around the back of the hill. Gentle caught a glimpse of his silhouette as he disappeared over the brow, just enough to confirm that the other had indeed been human, at least in shape if not in spirit. He waited another minute, then started down the slope. His extremities were numb, his teeth chattering, his torso rigid with cold, but he went quickly, falling and descending several yards on his buttocks, much to the startlement of dozing doeki. Pie was below, waiting at the door of Mother Splendid’s house. Two saddled and bridled beasts stood in the street, one being fed a palmful of fodder by Efreet.

‘Where did you go?’ Pie wanted to know. ‘I came looking for you.’

‘Later,’ Gentle said. ‘I have to get warm.’

‘No time,’ Pie replied. The deal is we get the doeki, food and coats if we go immediately.’

They’re very eager to get rid of us suddenly.’

‘Yes we are,’ said a voice from beneath the trees opposite the house. A black man with pale, mesmeric eyes stepped into view.

‘You’re Zacharias?’

‘I am.’

‘I’m Coaxial Tasko, called the Wretched. The doeki are yours. I’ve given the mystif some supplies to set you on your way, but please … tell nobody you’ve been here.’

‘He thinks we’re bad luck,’ Pie said.

‘He could be right,’ said Gentle. ‘Am I allowed to shake your hand, Mr Tasko, or is that bad luck too?’

‘You may shake my hand,’ the man said.

Thank you for the transport. I swear we’ll tell nobody we were here. But I may want to mention you in my memoirs.’

A smile broke over Tasko’s stern features.

‘You may do that too,’ he said, shaking Gentle’s hand. ‘But not till I’m dead, huh? I don’t like scrutiny.’

That’s fair.’

‘Now, please … the sooner you’re gone the sooner we can pretend we never saw you.’

Efreet came forward, bearing a coat, which Gentle put on. It reached to his shins, and smelt strongly of the animal who’d been born in it, but it was welcome.

‘Mother says goodbye,’ the boy told Gentle. ‘She won’t come out and see you.’ He lowered his voice to an embarrassed whisper. ‘She’s crying a lot.’

Gentle made a move towards the door, but Tasko checked him. ‘Please, Mr Zacharias, no delays,’ he said. ‘Go now, with our blessing, or not at all.’

‘He means it,’ Pie said, climbing up on to his doeki, the animal casting a backward glance at its rider as it was mounted. ‘We have to go.’

‘Don’t we even discuss the route?’

‘Tasko has given me a compass and directions,’ the mystif said. ‘That’s the way we take,’ it said, pointing to a narrow trail that led up out of the village.

Reluctantly, Gentle put his foot in the doeki’s leather stirrup and hoisted himself into the saddle. Only Efreet managed a goodbye, daring Tasko’s wrath to press his hand into Gentle’s.

‘I’ll see you in Patashoqua one day,’ he said.

‘I hope so,’ Gentle replied.

That being the full sum of their farewells, Gentle was left with the sense of an exchange broken in mid-sentence, and now permanently unfinished. But they were at least going on from the village better equipped for the terrain ahead than they’d been when they’d entered.

‘What was all that about?’ Gentle asked Pie, when they were on the ridge above Beatrix, and the trail was about to turn and take its tranquil, lamplit streets from sight.

‘A battalion of the Autarch’s army is passing through the hills, on its way to Patashoqua. Tasko was afraid the presence of strangers in the village would give the soldiers an excuse for marauding.’

‘So that’s what I heard on the hill.’

‘That’s what you heard.’

‘And I saw somebody on the other hill. I swear he was looking for me. No, that’s not right. Not me, but somebody. That’s why I didn’t answer you when you came looking for me.’

‘Any idea who it was?’

Gentle shook his head. ‘I just felt his stare. Then I got a glimpse of somebody, on the ridge. Who knows? It sounds absurd now I say it.’

‘There was nothing absurd about the noises I heard. The best thing we can do is get out of this region as fast as possible.’

‘Agreed.’

Tasko said there was a place to the north-east of here, where the border of the Third reaches into this Dominion a good distance - maybe a thousand miles. We could shorten our journey if we made for it.’

That sounds good.’

‘But it means taking the High Pass.’

‘That sounds bad.’

‘It’ll be faster.’

‘It’ll be fatal,’ Gentle said. ‘I want to see Yzordderrex, I don’t want to die frozen stiff in the Jokalaylau.’

‘Then we go the long way?’

‘That’s my vote.’

‘It’ll add two or three weeks to the journey.’

‘And years to our lives,’ Gentle replied. ‘As if we haven’t lived long enough,’ Pie remarked.

‘I’ve always held to the belief,’ Gentle said, ‘that you can never live too long, or love too many women.’

5

The doeki were obedient and surefooted mounts, negotiating the track whether it was churned mud or dust and pebbles, seemingly indifferent to the ravines that gaped inches from their hooves at one moment, and the white waters that wound beside them the next. All this in the dark, for although the hours passed, and it seemed dawn should have crept up over the hills, the peacock sky hid its glory in a starless gloom.

‘Is it possible the nights are longer up here than they were down on the Highway?’ Gentle wondered.

‘It seems so,’ Pie said. ‘My bowels tell me the sun should have been up hours ago.’