Clive Barker - Weave World

Shadwell was puzzling at this when a further cry issued from the depths. It was Ibn Talaq's voice this time; and it rose in a steep curve to a shriek. He followed it. The ground was soft beneath his feet, which slowed his progress, but the shriek went on, broken only by sobbing breaths. Shadwell ran, calling the man's name. There was no fear left in him; only an overwhelming hunger to see the Maker of this enigma face to face.

As he advanced down one of the shadowy boulevards, its pathway strewn with the same colourless plant-life, Ibn Talaq's cry stopped dead. Shadwell was momentarily disoriented. He halted, and scanned the foliage for some sign of movement. There was none. The breeze did not stir a single frond; nor - to further compound the mystery - was there a hint of perfume, however subtle, from the mass of blossoms.

Behind him, Hobart muttered a cautionary word. Shadwell turned, and was about to condemn the man's lack of curiosity when he caught sight of the trail his own footsteps had made. In the Gyre, his heels had brought forth life. Here, they'd destroyed it. Wherever he'd set foot the plants had simply crumbled away.

He stared at the blank ground where there'd previously been grasses and flowers, and the explanation for this extraordinary growth became apparent. Ignoring Hobart now, he walked towards the nearest of the bushes, the blooms of which hung like censers from their branches. Tentatively, he touched his fingers to one of the flowers. Upon this lightest of contacts the blossom fell apart, dropping from the branch in a shower of sand. He brushed its companion with his thumb: it too fell away, and with it the branch, and the exquisite leaves it bore; all returned to sand at a touch.

The dunes hadn't disappeared in the night, to make way for this garden. They had become the garden; risen up at some unthinkable command to create this sterile illusion. What had at first sight seemed a miracle of fecundity was a mockery. It was sand. Scentless, colourless, lifeless: a dead garden.

A sudden disgust gripped him. This trick was all too like the work of the Seerkind: some deceitful rapture. He flung himself into the midst of the shrubbery, flailing to right and left of him in his fury, destroying the bushes in stinging clouds. A tree, brushed by his hand, collapsed like an extinguished fountain. The most elaborate blossoms fell apart at his merest touch. But he wasn't satisfied. He flailed on until he'd cleared a small grove amid the press of foliage.

‘Raptures!' he kept yelling, as the sand rained down on him. ‘Raptures!'

He might have gone on to more ambitious destruction, but that the Scourge's howl - the same he'd first heard days before, as he'd squatted in shit - began. That voice had brought him through desolation and emptiness; and to what? More desolation, more emptiness. His anger unassuaged by the damage he'd done, he turned to Hobart.

‘Which way's it coming from?'

‘I don't know,' said Hobart, stumbling back a few steps. ‘Everywhere.'

‘Where are you?' Shadwell demanded, yelling into the depths of the illusion. ‘Show yourself!'

‘Don't - ‘ said Hobart, his voice full of dread.

‘This is your DragonI Shadwell said. ‘We have to see it.'

Hobart shook his head. The power that had made this place was not one he wanted sight of. Before he could retreat, however, Shadwell had hold of him.

‘We meet it together,' he said. ‘It's cheated us both.'

Hobart struggled to be free of Shadwell's grip, but his violence ceased as his panicked eyes caught sight of the form that now appeared at the far end of the avenue.

It was as tall as the canopy; twenty-five feet or more, its long, bone-white head brushing the branches, sand-petals spiralling down.

Though it still howled, it lacked a mouth, or indeed any feature on its face but eyes, which it had in terrifying numbers, twin rows of lidless, lashless slits which ran down each side of its head. There were perhaps a hundred eyes in all, but staring an age at it would not have revealed their true number, for the thing, despite its solidity, defied fixing. Were those wheels that moved at its heart, tied with lines of liquid fire to a hundred other geometries which informed the air it occupied? Did innumerable wings beat at its perimeters, and light burn in its bowels, as though it had swallowed stars?

Nothing was certain. In one breath it seemed to be enclosed in a matrix of darting light, like scaffolding struck by lightning; in the next the pattern became flame confetti, which swarmed at its extremities before it was snatched away. One moment, ether; the next, juggernaut.

And then, as suddenly as it had begun, the wail it was unleashing died away.

The Scourge stopped moving.

Shadwell released Hobart, as the stench of shit rose from the man's trousers. Hobart fell to the ground, making small sobbing sounds. Shadwell left him where he lay, as the Scourge's head, mazed in geometries, located the creatures that had trespassed in its garden.

He didn't retreat. What use was retreat? In every direction from this place lay thousands of square miles of wasteland. There was nowhere to run to. All he could do was stand his ground and share with this terror the news he brought.

But before he could utter a word, the sand at his feet began to move. For an instant he thought the Scourge intended to bury him alive, as the ground liquified. But instead the sand drew back like a sheet, and sprawled on the bed below - a few feet from where Shadwell stood - was the corpse of Ibn Talaq. The man was naked, and appalling torments had been visited upon him. Both his hands had been burned from his arms, leaving blackened stumps from which cracked bone protruded. His genitals had been similarly destroyed, and the eyes seared from his head. There was no use pretending the wounds had been delivered after death: his mouth still shaped his dying scream.

Shadwell was revolted, and averted his eyes, but the Scourge had more to show him. The sand moved again, to his right, and another body was uncovered. This time, Jabir, lying on his belly, his buttocks burned down to the bone, his neck broken and his head twisted round so that he stared up at the sky. His mouth was burned out.

‘Why?' was the word on Shadwell's lips.

The Scourge's gaze made his bowels ache to empty themselves, but he still delivered the question.

‘Why? We mean no harm here.'

The Scourge made no sign that it had even heard the words. Had it perhaps lost the power of communication after an age here in the wilderness, its only response to the pain of being, that howl?

Then - somewhere amid the legion eyes - a skittering light, which was snatched by the burning wheels and spat towards Shadwell. In the breath before it struck him he had time to hope his death would be quick; then the light was on him. The agony of its touch was blinding; at its caress his body folded up beneath him. He struck the ground, his skull ready to split. But death didn't come. Instead the pain dropped away suddenly, and the burning wheel appeared in his mind's eye. The Scourge was in his head, its power circling in his skull.

Then the wheel went out, and in its place a vision, lent him by his possessor:

he was floating through the garden; high up in the trees. This is the Scourge's sight, he realized: he was sitting behind its eyes. Their shared gaze caught a motion on the ground below, and moved towards it.

There on the sand was Jabir - naked, and on all fours -with Ibn Talaq impaling him, grunting as he worked his flesh into the boy. To Shadwell's eyes the act looked uncomfortable, but harmless enough. He'd seen worse in his time; done worse, indeed. But it wasn't just sight he was sharing with the Scourge; its thoughts came too: and the creature saw a crime in this rutting, and judged it punishable by death.