Imajica Part 26

"I'll be here," Pie told him. "Your body needs rest. Let it do what it needs to do."

The mystif had been warming Gentle's s.h.i.+rt in front of the fire, and now helped him put it on, a delicate business. Gentle's joints were already stiffening. He pulled on his trousers without Pie's help, however, up over limbs that were a ma.s.s of bruises and abrasions.

"Whatever I did out there I certainly made a mess of myself," he remarked.

"You heal quickly," Pie said. This was true, though Gentle couldn't remember sharing that information with the mystif. "Lie down. I'll wake you when it's light."

Gentle put his head on the small heap of hides Pie had made as a pillow and let the mystif pull his coat up over him.

"Dream of sleeping," Pie said, laying a hand on Gentle's face. "And wake whole."

When Pie shook him awake, what seemed mere minutes later, the sky visible between the rock faces was still dark, but it was the gloom of snow-bearing cloud rather than the purple black of a Jokalaylaurian night. He sat up feeling wretched, aching in every bone.

"I'd kill for coffee," he said, resisting the urge to torture his joints by stretching. "And warm pain au chocolat pain au chocolat."

"If they don't have it in Yzordderrex, we'll invent it," Pie said.

"Did you brew up?"

"There's nothing left to burn."

"And what's the weather like?"

"Don't ask."

"That bad?"

"We should get a move on. The thicker the snow gets, the more difficult it'll be to find the pa.s.s."

They roused the doeki, which made plain its disgruntlement at having to breakfast on words of encouragement rather than hay, and, with the meat Pie had prepared the day before loaded, left the shelter of the rock and headed out into the snow. There had been a short debate before they left as to whether they should ride or not, Pie insisting that Gentle should do so, given his present delicacy, but he'd argued that they might need the doeki's strength to carry them both if they got into worse difficulties, and they should preserve such energies as it still possessed for such an emergency. But he soon began to stumble in snow that was waist high in places, his body, though somewhat healed by sleep, not equal to the demands upon it.

"We'll go more quickly if you ride," Pie told him.

He needed little persuasion and mounted the doeki, his fatigue such that he could barely sit upright with the wind so strong, and instead slumped against the beast's neck. He only occasionally raised himself from that posture, and when he did the scene had scarcely changed.

"Shouldn't we be in the pa.s.s by now?" he murmured to Pie at one point, and the look on the mystif s face was answer enough. They were lost. Gentle pushed himself into an upright position and, squinting against the gale, looked for some sign of shelter, however small. The world was white in every direction but for them, and even they were being steadily erased as ice clogged the fur of their coats and the snow they were trudging through deepened. Until now, however arduous the journey had become, he hadn't countenanced the possibility of failure. He'd been his own best convert to the gospel of their indestructibility. But now such confidence seemed self-deception. The white world would strip all color from them, to get to the purity of their bones.

He reached to take hold of Pie's shoulder, but misjudged the distance and slid from the doeki's back. Relieved of its burden the beast slumped, its front legs buckling. Had Pie not been swift and pulled Gentle out of harm's way, he might have been crushed beneath the creature's bulk. Hauling back his hood and swiping the snow from the back of his neck, he got to his feet and found Pie's exhausted gaze there to meet him.

"I thought I was leading us right," the mystif said.

"Of course you did."

"But we've missed the pa.s.s somehow. The slope's getting steeper. I don't know where the f.u.c.k we are, Gentle."

"In trouble is where we are, and too tired to think our way out of it. We have to rest."

"Where?"

"Here," Gentle said. "This blizzard can't go on forever. There's only so much snow in the sky, and most of it's already fallen, right? Right Right? So if we can just hold on till the storm's over, and we can see where we are-"

"Suppose by that time it's night again? We'll freeze, my friend."

"Do we have any other choice?" Gentle said. "If we go on we'll kill the beast and probably ourselves. We could march right over a gorge and never know it. But if we stay here... together together... maybe we're in with a chance."

"I thought I knew our direction."

"Maybe you did. Maybe the storm'll blow over, and we'll find ourselves on the other side of the mountain." Gentle put his hands on Pie's shoulders, sliding them around the back of the mystif's neck. "We have no choice," he said slowly.

Pie nodded, and together they settled as best they could in the dubious shelter of the doeki's body. The beast was still breathing, but not, Gentle thought, for long. He tried to put from his mind what would happen if it died and the storm failed to abate, but what was the use of leaving such plans to the last? If death seemed inevitable, would it not be better for him and Pie to meet it together-to slit their wrists and bleed to death side by side-rather than slowly freeze, pretending to the end that survival was plausible? He was ready to voice that suggestion now, while he still had the energy and focus to do so, but as he turned to the mystif some tremor reached him that was not the wind's tirade but a voice beneath its harangue, calling him to stand up. He did so.

The gusts would have blown him over had Pie not stood up with him, and his eyes would have missed the figures in the drifts but that the mystif caught his arm and, putting its head close to Gentle's, said, "How the h.e.l.l did they get out?"

The women stood a hundred yards from them. Their feet were touching the snow but not impressing themselves upon it. Their bodies were wound with cloth brought from the ice, which billowed around them as the wind filled it. Some held treasures, claimed from the glacier: pieces of I their temple, and ark, and altar. One, the young girl whose corpse had moved Gentle so much, held in her arms the head of a G.o.ddess carved in blue stone. It had been badly vandalized. There were cracks in its cheeks, and parts of its nose, and an eye, were missing. But it found light from somewhere and gave off a serene radiance.

"What do they want?" Gentle said.

"You, maybe?" Pie ventured.

The woman standing closest to them, her hair rising half her height again above her head, courtesy of the wind, beckoned. "I think they want us both to go," Gentle said.

"That's the way it looks," Pie said, not moving a muscle.

"What are we waiting for?"

"I thought they were dead," the mystif said.

"Maybe they were."

"So we take the lead from phantoms? I'm not sure that's wise."

"They came to find us, Pie," Gentle said.

Having beckoned, the woman was turning slowly on her toe tips, like a mechanical Madonna that Clem had once given Gentle, which had played Ave Maria Ave Maria as it turned. as it turned.

"We're going to lose them if we don't hurry. What's your problem, Pie? You've talked with spirits before."

"Not like these," Pie said. "The G.o.ddesses weren't all forgiving mothers, you know. And their rites weren't all milk and honey. Some of them were cruel. They sacrificed men."

"You think that's why they want us?"

"It's possible."

"So we weigh that possibility against the absolute certainty of freezing to death where we stand," Gentle said.

"It's your decision."

"No, this one we make together. You've got fifty percent of the vote and fifty percent of the responsibility."

"What do you want to do?"

"There you go again. Make up your own mind for once."

Pie looked at the departing women, their forms already disappearing behind a veil of snow. Then at Gentle. Then at the doeki. Then back at Gentle. "I heard they eat men's b.a.l.l.s."

"So what are you worried about?"

"All right!" the mystif growled, "I vote we go."

"Then it's unanimous."

Pie started to haul the doeki to its feet. It didn't want to move, but the mystif had a fine turn of threat when pressed, and began to berate it ripely.

"Quick, or we'll lose them!" Gentle said.

The beast was up now, and tugging on its bridle Pie led it in pursuit of Gentle, who was forging ahead to keep their guides in sight. The snow obliterated the women completely at times, but he saw the beckoner glance back several times, and knew that she'd not let her foundlings get lost again. After a time, their destination came in sight. A rock face, slate-gray and sheer, loomed from the murk, its summit lost in mist.

"If they want us to climb, they can think again," Pie yelled through the wind.

"No, there's a door," Gentle shouted over his shoulder. "See it?"

The word rather flattered what was no more than a jagged crack, like a bolt of black lightning burned into the face of the cliff. But it represented some hope of shelter, if nothing else.

Gentle turned back to Pie. "Do you see it, Pie?"

"I see it," came the response. "But I don't see the women."

One sweeping glance along the rock face confirmed the mystifs observation. They'd either entered the cliff or floated up its face into the clouds. Whichever, they'd removed themselves quickly.

"Phantoms," Pie said, fretfully.

"What if they are?" Gentle replied. "They brought us to shelter."

He took the doeki's rein from Pie's hands and coaxed the animal on, saying, "See that hole in the wall? It's going to be warm inside. Remember warm?"

The snow thickened as they covered the last hundred yards, until it was almost waist deep again. But all three-man, animal, and mystif-made the crack alive. There was more than shelter inside; there was light. A narrow pa.s.sageway presented itself, its black walls encased in ice, with a fire flickering somewhere out of sight in the cavern's depths.

Gentle had let slip the doeki's reins, and the wise animal was already heading away down the pa.s.sage, the sound of its hooves echoing against the glittering walls. By the time Gentle and Pie caught up with it, a slight bend in the pa.s.sage had revealed the source of the light and warmth it was heading towards. A broad but shallow bowl of beaten bra.s.s was set in a place where the pa.s.sage widened, and the fire was burning vigorously in its center. There were two curiosities, however: one, that the flame was not gold but blue; two, that it burned without fuel, the flames hovering six inches above the bottom of the bowl. But oh, it was warm. The cobs of ice in Gentle's beard melted and dropped off; the snowflakes became beads on Pie's smooth brow and cheek. The warmth brought a whoop of pure pleasure to Gentle's lips, and he opened his aching arms to Pie'oh'pah.

"We're not going to die!" he said. "Didn't I tell you? We're not going to die!"

The mystif hugged him in return, its lips first pressed to Gentle's neck, then to his face.

"All right, I was wrong," it said. "There! I admit it!"

"So we go on and find the women, yes?"

"Yes!" it said.

A sound was waiting for them when the echoes of their enthusiasm died. A tinkling, as of ice bells.

"They're calling us," Gentle said.

The doeki had found a little paradise by the fire and was not about to move, for all Pie's attempts to tug it to its feet.

"Leave it awhile," Gentle said, before the mystif began a fresh round of profanities. "It's given good service. Let it rest. We can come back and fetch it later."

The pa.s.sage they now followed not only curved but divided many times, the routes all lit by fire bowls. They chose between them by listening for the sound of the bells, which didn't seem to be getting any closer. Each choice, of course, made the likelihood of finding their way back to the doeki more uncertain.

"This place is a maze," Pie said, with a touch of the old unease creeping back into its voice. "I think we should stop and a.s.sess exactly what we're doing."

"Finding the G.o.ddesses."

"And losing our transport while we do it. We're neither of us in any state to go much farther on foot."

"I don't feel so bad. Except for my hands." He raised them in front of his face, palm up. They were puffy and bruised, the lacerations livid. "I suppose I look like that all over. Did you hear the bells? They're just around the corner, I swear!"

"They've been just around the corner for the last three quarters of an hour. They're not getting any closer, Gentle. It's some kind of trick. We should go back for the animal before it's slaughtered."

"I don't think they'd shed blood in here," Gentle replied. The bells came again. "Listen to that. They are are closer." He went to the next corner, sliding on the ice. "Pie. Come look." closer." He went to the next corner, sliding on the ice. "Pie. Come look."

Pie joined him at the corner. Ahead of them the pa.s.sageway narrowed to a doorway.

"What did I tell you?" Gentle said, and headed on to the door and through it.

The sanctum on the other side wasn't vast-the size of a modest church, no more-but it had been hewn with such cunning it gave the impression of magnificence. It had sustained great damage, however. Despite its myriad pillars, chased by the finest craft, and its vaults of ice-sleek stone, its walls were pitted, its floor gouged. Nor did it take great wit to see that the objects that had been buried in the glacier had once been part of its furniture. The altar lay in hammered ruins at its center, and among the wreckage were fragments of blue stone, matching that of the statue the girl had carried. Now, more certainly than ever, they were standing in a place that carried the marks of Hapexamendios' pa.s.sing.

"In His footsteps," Gentle murmured.

"Oh, yes," Pie murmured. "He was here."

"And so were the women," Gentle said. "But I don't think they ate men's b.a.l.l.s. I think their ceremonies were more loving than that." He went down on his haunches, running his fingers over the carved fragments. "I wonder what they did? I'd like to have seen the rites."

"They'd have ripped you limb from limb."

"Why?"

"Because their devotions weren't for men's eyes."

"You could have got in, though, couldn't you?" Gentle said. "You would have been a perfect spy. You could have seen it."

"It's not the seeing," Pie said softly, "it's the feeling."

Gentle stood up, gazing at the mystif with new comprehension. "I think I envy you, Pie," he said. "You know what it feels like to be both, don't you? I never thought of that before. Will you tell me how it feels, one of these days?"

"You'd be better off finding out for yourself," Pie said.

"And how do I do that?"