Ariadne
‘Asterius’ greatest secret is that he is entirely unnecessary. He is an incorruptible guard, guarding that which he himself has created against that which he himself has created. For all the severity of his visage and magnificence of his station, all that is created by him, yea and his own self, is pure superfluity, the empty play of mind, a counterfeit golden flourish on the border of the void. And therefore, when within this nothingness set in a richly ornamented frame the menace of necessity suddenly raises its head or implacable battle is joined for the triumph of true values, there arises a spectacle fit to induce laughter unto tears, because in truth all of this from the beginning to the end is entirely pointless …’
Monstradamus
What’s that sound? Can anyone else hear it?
Ariadne
‘But one must laugh quietly or Asterius will take offence. He does not know that in reality he does not exist, but sometimes he begins to suspect it and this scares and angers him greatly. The means by which for many millennia he has attempted to make himself real are terrible and foolish, like all the mysteries of his world. Although he does not exist, he ends up drenched in sweat and blood, which also do not exist. Though this does not make him any more real, it does mean there is no one left to tell him so – no one is left at his side but servant dwarves, drenching him in blood and screaming that vengeance will follow for the blood that has been spilled …’
IsoldA
I can hear it too. It’s terrifying.
Ariadne
‘Asterius should not be feared. If you fear him, it means that you are wearing the helmet of horror and he is master of your world. But once you have removed the helmet, then Asterius disappears, and nothing remains at which to laugh. It is a grave error either to wear the helmet or to remove it. One should do absolutely nothing with it, if only because in reality it does not exist…’
UGLI 666
Closer and closer, and still this stupid cow just won’t …
Ariadne
‘You are free, and your freedom lies in the fact that the mind has no body, no matter what dwarves in strange hats may tell you. Even the body has no body, and therefore there is nothing on which to set the helmet of horror. But until you have understood this, Asterius is all that you see, feel, think and know. And the crude mechanical farce which the parts of the helmet play out for each other in the transparent void of the mind becomes your entire life. If you are wearing the helmet of horror, it seems that this is for all eternity. But no eternity lasts longer than a fleeting moment. And it is known beforehand what will be when that moment is past – you will recall who you truly are and see that the helmet of horror is merely a toy of your own devising …’
Nutscracker
What’s happening? Help! I think that idiot Romeo …
Monstradamus
What’s going on? What’s that rumbling sound?
Nutscracker
I think he really has found me. If it’s him. Someone’s hammering like hell on the door from the outside. Or it …
Romeo-y-Cohiba
It’s not me. The same thing’s happening here. Blows of terrifying power …
Organizm(-:
The door’s giving way.
UGLI 666
The final hour has come! Repent! I adjure you in the sign of the cross!
Nutscracker
Would that be the one at the centre of the separator labyrinth?
UGLI 666
Do not waste your final moments in blasphemy!
Sartrik
What the hell’s going on out there? Stop it!
IsoldA
Romeo! Goodbye, you bastard!
Ariadne
My door’s getting hot. Are yours?
Nutscracker
I’m stifling. Something …
Monstradamus
It’s him.
Theseus
MINOTAURUS!
Monstradamus: Ah?
IsoldA: Ah?
Nutscracker: Ah?
Organizm(-: Ah?
Theseus: Ah?
Ariadne: Ah?
UGLI 666: Ah?
Romeo-y-Cohiba: Ah?
TheZeus
Fuck U
Monstradamus: MOOOOOO!
IsoldA: MOOOOOO!
Nutscracker: MOOOOOO!
Organizm )-: MOOOOOO!
Theseus: MOOOOOO!
Ariadne: MOOOOOO!
UGLI 666: MOOOOOO!
Romeo-y-Cohiba: MOOOOOO!
Organizm(-:
Ladies and gents, I don’t get it – what was that?
Nutscracker
I think it’s getting cooler. And the noise has stopped.
IsoldA
What, don’t you understand? It’s Theseus!
Romeo-y-Cohiba
Theseus! How we’ve longed for you to come!
Monstradamus
Theseus. At last. Where are you? What do you see around you?
UGLI 666
Hmmm.
Organizm(-:
Theseus, answer!
Nutscracker
UGLI 666
He’s given us the slip.
Monstradamus
Has he really gone?
Nutscracker
Yes.
IsoldA
But of course …
UGLI 666
There is no more Minotaur.
Ariadne
Hang on, papa.
Monstradamus: My son!
IsoldA: My son!
Nutscracker: My son!
Organizm(-: My son!
Sartrik: My son(-:
:-(((((
Organizm(-:
Why don’t we look for him? Maybe he still believes?
Monstradamus
In what?
Organizm(-:
Well, in the whole pile of xxx. That he has a body. And it’s in a room.
Ariadne
He never did believe in that.
Romeo-y-Cohiba
You could say he saved us. He could have just killed us all once he’d seen us.
Nutscracker
No he couldn’t. Then he’d never have got the helmet off. He isn’t kind, he just knew.
Ariadne
What I’ve heard is that if anyone knows then it’s precisely because he is kind.
Nutscracker
And what I’ve heard is that if anyone’s kind then it’s precisely because he knows.
Organizm(-:
What difference does it make to us? How did we give ourselves away?
UGLI 666
We get distracted. Make too much fuss. Talk off the point, all this stuff about Versailles and Mona Lisa.
IsoldA
Ugly, you don’t mind us living here, do you?
UGLI 666
This time it was Ariadne who blurted everything out. That’s why he gave us the slip.
Monstradamus
What do you suggest?
UGLI 666
Not to tell him anything.
Nutscracker
That’s going too far. Then how will he find out he’s wearing a helmet? We can’t put something that doesn’t exist on his head just like that. We have to explain. And it’s best to start from childhood. Not so he understands everything, though, just enough for him to do it all to himself. Ariadne’s our best guide round the labyrinth. She’s very skilful at it.
UGLI 666
Nutcracker, you’re talking about what she ought to do. I’m talking about what she’s already done. And anyway, I beg your pardon, but what has skill got to do with it? The labyrinth is any route the Helmholz has been led along.
Monstradamus
That’s right, any route. But it seems like a very long time since anyone walked round your route, Ugly.
Sartrik
What … What route is that?
Monstradamus
Back with us again, hero? Ladies and gents, a joke. Imagine Sartrik wakes up with a massive ha
ngover. He can’t remember anything about the previous day. There’s a pool of blood beside him. He’s surrounded by a labyrinth. But there’s no Minotaur anywhere. Sartrik raises his eyes to the ceiling and whispers in horror: ‘I killed him … Killed him and ate him …’
IsoldA
What’s funny about that? That’s exactly how it happened.
UGLI 666
Your joke’s older than the labyrinth, Monstradamus. Let’s discuss the serious situation we’re in. Some day Ariadne will be the death of us.
IsoldA
Stop stirring things up, Ugly. It’s not Ariadne’s fault at all. Sartrik blurted it all out in a drunken stupor.
Sartrik
You always blame everything on Sartrik.
IsoldA
You should be xxx to xxx. Why did you butt in? What for? Lousy drunk.
Monstradamus
But how did he actually find out the Name?
UGLI 666
Ariadne gave away the whole thing to him in so many words.
Nutscracker
Then why hasn’t he dissolved the lot of us if he knows the Name?
Monstradamus
UGLI 666
Ariadne, maybe you can explain what made you like him more than us?
Ariadne
Oh, go to hell. You can lead him round the labyrinth instead of me.
UGLI 666
I’ll come back to you about this. I’ll show you up for what you are.
Romeo-y-Cohiba
I don’t understand – who’s responsible? Ariadne or Sartrik?
UGLI 666
Ariadne’s to blame. She was beside Theseus in the MINOTAUR and they got too cosy.
Ariadne
You be careful who you go yapping at. Or you’ll wind up lost forever in that cathedral of yours, get it? You’re here on my thread. And there isn’t any other.
UGLI 666
Did you all hear that? Did you hear it? Papa, have you thought where we’ll all end up when she goes running off to that snake?
Nutscracker
Don’t be such a Cassandra.
Organizm(-:
What are we going to do here now?
Monstradamus
What are we going to do? Carry on with the discourse.
Nutscracker
I know that. But in what capacity?
Monstradamus
You’ve only got the capacity for doing one thing, Nutcracker. Staring into that screen, like Pavlov’s bitch gazing into Tarkovsky’s mirror.
Nutscracker
I mean, who are we going to be?
Ariadne
Papa will tell us that now.
Nutscracker
How …
Monstradamus: PRE PARSIPHAE HUM HUM MINOSAUR
IsoldA: PRE PARSIPHAE HUM HUM MINOSAUR
Nutscracker: PRE PARSIPHAE HUM HUM MINOSAUR
Organizm(-: PRE PARSIPHAE HUM HUM MINOSAUR
Sartrik: PRE PARSIPHAE HUM HUM MINOSAUR
Monstradamus
No, anything but that! No!
Nutscracker
What? What? No I don’t want that either. Nobody does. But why? Why?
UGLI 666
Stay calm.
Romeo-y-Cohiba
Don’t panic.
Organizm(-:
Stay calm …
Monstradamus
Please, no!
UGLI 666
Just relax. You’re our head, and that goes through first.
Monstradamus: Wha-a-a! Wha-a-a! Wha-a-a!
IsoldA: Wha-a-a! Wha-a-a! Wha-a-a!
Nutscracker: Wha-a-a! Wha-a-a! Wha-a-a!
Organizm(-: Wha-a-a! Wha-a-a! Wha-a-a!
Sartrik: Wha-a-a! Wha-a-a! Wha-a-a!
Ariadne: Wha-a-a! Wha-a-a! Wha-a-a!
UGLI 666: Wha-a-a! Wha-a-a! Wha-a-a!
Romeo-y-Cohiba: Wha-a-a! Wha-a-a! Wha-a-a!
Ariadne
Hi, little brother. My, but you’re ugly.
Organizm(-:
So what, now we’ll be the Minosaur. The ancient serpent.
UGLI 666
We always were, heh-heh. That human stuff was nothing but a nuisance. And all that bovine stuff too.
Organizm(-:
We’ll be a dragon. We’ll fly up to the clouds and dive down to the bottom of the sea. Maybe now things really will be easier.
Monstradamus
Easier? But we’ve got Sartrik stuck right in the middle of us. Now we’ll feel like puking all the time. Constantly. No matter how deep we dive, no matter who we pretend to be. Even Lolita, even a Rolls-Royce.
Romeo-y-Cohiba
But what if Sartrik hits the drink so hard that he slips the hook too?
Nutscracker
Let’s not have any gloom and doom. The helmet isn’t coming off.
Organizm(-:
But Theseus took it off.
Nutscracker
Maybe he never even put it on. Otherwise where could he have got to? There’s no way out of there. There’s nothing but jeeps, surf and sunshine. And horror, of course. And I’m not just guessing, I’m speaking as a professional.
IsoldA
But where is he now?
Nutscracker
What does it matter to us? There’s no stopping him now.
Monstradamus: I feel sick, xxx.
IsoldA: I feel sick, xxx.
Nutscracker: I feel sick, xxx.
Organizm(-: I feel sick, xxx.
Sartrik: I feel sick, xxx.
Ariadne: I feel sick, xxx. It’s time to get out of here …
UGLI 666: I feel sick, xxx.
Romeo-y-Cohiba: I feel sick, xxx.
Sartrik
And my stomach’s rumbling, xxx. Listen, Monstradamus. There’s one thing I still don’t get. Where did all this happen?
Monstradamus
Are you really that stupid or can you just not sober up? In the helmet of horror.
Sartriks
Oh. And who to?
Monstradamus
You.
*
Disclaimer: Not a single fictitious Ancient Greek youth or maiden was killed during the creation of this text.
About the Author
THE HELMET OF HORROR
VICTOR PELEVIN has established a reputation as
one of the most interesting of the younger generation
of RWussian writers. He has degrees from
Moscow’s Gorky Institute of Literature and has
written for the New York Times Magazine, Granta and
Open City. He was selected by the New Yorker as one
of the ‘Best European riters Under 35’ and by the
Observer as one of the ‘21 Writers for the 21st
Century’. His novel, Numbers, won the Grigoriev
Prize from the Russian Academy of Critics 2004.
ANDREW BROMFIELD is a regular translator from
the Russian, and has translated works by Boris
Akunin, Vladimir Voinovich and Irina Denezhkina,
as well as other titles by Victor Pelevin.
Myths are universal and timeless stories that reflect and shape our lives – they explore our desires, our fears, our longings, and provide narratives that remind us what it means to be human. The Myths series brings together some of the world’s finest writers, each of whom has retold a myth in a contemporary and memorable way. Authors in the series include: Chinua Achebe, Margaret Atwood, Karen Armstrong, AS Byatt, David Grossman, Milton Hatoum, Natsuo Kirino, Alexander McCall Smith, Tomàs Eloy Martínez, Victor Pelevin, Ali Smith, Donna Tartt, Su Tong, Dubravka Ugresic, Salley Vickers and Jeanette Winterson.
Also by Victor Pelevin
Novels
Homo Zapiens (2002)
Buddha’s Little Finger (2000)
Babylon (2000)
The Clay Machine Gun (1998)
Omon Ra (1998)
The Life of Insects (1996)
The Yellow Arrow (1996)
Short Stories
4 by Pelevin (2001)
A Werewolf Problem in Central Russia (1998)
The Blue Lantern (1998)
Copyright
First published in Great Britain in 2000 by
Canongate Books Ltd, 14 High Street,
Edinburgh, EH1 1TE
This digital edition first published in 2009 by Canongate Books
Copyright © Victor Pelevin, 2006
Translation copyright © Andrew Bromfield, 2006
The right of Victor Pelevin and Andrew Bromfield to be
identified as respectively the author and translator of the
work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright,
Designs and Patents Act 1988
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available on
request from the British Library
ISBN 978 1 84767 626 9
www.meetatthegate.com