Клайв Баркер – Weaveworld (страница 6)
At the thought of them, and the place he’d left behind, he heard their voices – and in that moment the wind that had swept up from the world below, keeping him aloft, faltered.
He felt the horror in his stomach first, and then his bowels: he was going to fall.
The tumult of the birds grew louder, crowing their delight at his descent. He, the usurper of their element; he, who had snatched a glimpse of a miracle, would now be dashed to death upon it.
He started to yell, but the speed of his fall stole the cry from his tongue. The air roared in his ears and tore at his hair. He tried to spread his arms to slow his descent but the attempt instead threw him head over heels, and over again, until he no longer knew earth from sky. There was some mercy in this, he dimly thought. At least he’d be blind to death’s proximity. Just tumbling and tumbling until –
– the world went out.
He fell through a darkness unrelieved by stars, the birds still loud in his ears, and hit the ground, hard.
It hurt, and went on hurting, which struck him as odd. Oblivion, he’d always assumed, would be a painless condition. And soundless too. But there were voices.
‘Say something …’ one of them demanded, ‘… if it’s only goodbye.’
There was laughter now.
He opened his eyes a hair’s breadth. The sun was blindingly bright, until Gideon’s bulk eclipsed it.
‘Have you broken anything?’ the man wanted to know.
Cal opened his eyes a fraction wider.
‘Say something, man.’
He raised his head a few inches, and looked about him. He was lying in the yard, on the carpet.
‘What happened?’
‘You fell off the wall,’ said Shane.
‘Must have missed your footing,’ Gideon suggested.
‘Fell,’ Cal said, pulling himself up into a sitting position. He felt nauseous.
‘Don’t think you’ve done much damage,’ said Gideon. ‘A few scrapes, that’s all.’
Cal looked down at himself, verifying the man’s remark. He’d taken skin off his right arm from wrist to elbow, and there was tenderness down his body where he’d hit the ground, but there were no sharp pains. The only real harm was to his dignity, and that was seldom fatal.
He got to his feet, wincing, eyes to the ground. The weave was playing dumb. There was no tell-tale tremor in the rows of knots, no sign that hidden heights and depths were about to make themselves known. Nor was there any sign from the others that they’d seen anything miraculous. To all intents and purposes the carpet beneath his feet was simply that: a carpet.
He hobbled towards the yard gate, offering a muttered thanks to Gideon. As he stepped out into the alley, Bazo said:
‘Yer bird flew off.’
Cal gave a small shrug and went on his way.
What had he just experienced? An hallucination, brought on by too much sun or too little breakfast? If so, it had been startlingly real. He looked up at the birds, still circling overhead.
All, in sum, that he could be certain of was his bruising. That, and the fact that though he was standing no more than two miles from his father’s house, in the city in which he’d spent his entire life, he felt as homesick as a lost child.
Shadwell was swiftly out of the car, and opening the door, but his passenger shook her head.
‘Too bright,’ she murmured, and stumbled back through the swing-doors into the vestibule of the hotel. It was deserted. Shadwell came in swift pursuit, to find Immacolata standing as far from the door as her legs would carry her. The wraith-sisters were guarding her – their presences distressing the stale air – but he couldn’t prevent himself from snatching the opportunity, in the guise of legitimate concern, to reach and touch the woman. Such contact was anathema to her, and a joy to him made more potent because she forbade it. He was obliged therefore to exploit any occasion when he might pass such contact off as accidental.
The ghosts chilled his skin with their disapproval, but Immacolata was quite able to protect her inviolability. She turned, her eyes raging at his presumption. He immediately removed his hand from her arm, his fingers tingling. He would count the minutes until he had a private moment in which to put them to his lips.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I was concerned.’
A voice intervened. The receptionist had emerged from his room, a copy of
‘Can I be of help?’ he offered.
‘No, no …’ said Shadwell.
The receptionist’s eyes were not on him, however, but on Immacolata.
‘Touch of heat stroke, is it?’ he said.
‘Maybe,’ said Shadwell. Immacolata had moved to the bottom of the stairs, out of the receptionist’s enquiring gaze. ‘Thank you for your concern –’
The receptionist made a face, and returned to his armchair. Shadwell went to Immacolata. She had found the shadows; or the shadows had found her.
‘What happened?’ he said. ‘Was it just the sun?’
She didn’t look at him, but she deigned to speak.
‘I felt the Fugue …’ she said, so softly he had to hold his breath to catch her words ‘… then something else.’
He waited for further news from her, but none came. Then, as he was about to break the silence, she said:
‘At the back of my throat …’ She swallowed, as if to dislodge some remembered bitterness ‘… the Scourge …’
The Scourge? Had he heard her correctly?
Either Immacolata sensed his doubt, or shared it, for she said:
‘It was
and when she spoke even her extraordinary self-control couldn’t quite tame the flutter in her voice.
‘Surely you’re mistaken.’
She made a tiny shake of her head.
‘It’s dead and gone,’ he said.
Her face could have been chiselled from stone. Only her lips moved, and he longed for them, despite the thoughts they shaped.
‘A power like that doesn’t die.’ she said. ‘It can’t ever die. It sleeps. It waits.’
‘What for?
‘Till the Fugue wakes, maybe,’ she said.
Her eyes had lost their gold; become silvery. Motes of the menstruum, turning like dust in a sun-beam, dropped from her lashes and evaporated inches from his face. He’d never seen her like this before, so close to exposing her feelings. The spectacle of her vulnerability aroused him beyond words. His prick was so hard it ached. She was apparently dead to his arousal however; or else chose to ignore it. The Magdalene, the blind sister, was not so indifferent. She, Shadwell knew, had an appetite for what a man might spill, and horrid purposes to put it to. Even now he saw her form coagulating in a recess in the wall, one hunger from scalp to sole.
‘I saw a wilderness,’ Immacolata said, calling Shadwell’s attention from the Magdalene’s advances. ‘Bright sun.
‘And that’s where the Scourge is now?’
She nodded. ‘It’s sleeping. I think … it’s forgotten itself.’
‘It’ll stay that way, then, won’t it?’ Shadwell replied. ‘Who the hell’s going to wake it?’
His words failed to convince even himself.
‘Look –’ he said, ‘– we’ll find the Fugue and sell it before the Scourge can so much as roll over. We haven’t come so far to stop now.’
Immacolata said nothing. Her eyes were still fixed on that nowhere she’d sighted, or tasted – or both – minutes earlier.
Only very dimly did Shadwell comprehend what forces were at work here. Finally, he was only a Cuckoo – a human being – and that limited his vision; for which fact, as now, he was sometimes grateful.
One thing he