Parting (Imajica illustration)

At this, the mystif writhed like a fish on a hook, no longer able to keep itself from being hauled in by the fisherman in the First. It started to scrabble at the air, as if it might gain another moment in this Dominion by catching hold of a mote. But the power that had sent such furies in pursuit of it had too strong a hold, and the spirit was drawn back towards the Erasure. Instinctively Gentle reached up towards it, hearing and ignoring a cry of alarm from the man at his side. The mystif reached for his hand, extending its shadowy substance to do so, and curling grotesquely long fingers around Gentle’s. The contact sent such a convulsion through his system he would have been thrown to the ground but that his protector took hold of him. As it was his marrow seemed to burn in his bones, and he smelled the stench of rot off his skin, as though death were coming upon him inside and out. It was hard, in that agony, to hold on to the mystif, much less to the words it was trying to say. But he fought the urge to let go, struggling for the sense of the few syllables he was able to grasp.
(Clive Barker, Imajica vol.2)

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Gentle, seeing his lover Pie, a mystif, for the last time. The mystif has broken through the border between the Dominions, to tell him something needed to complete Gentle's grand task, the Reconciliation of Dominions. It could not be with Gentle till the end, but that one last thing it could do for him.

(Yet, after the Reconcilliation was finished, all the borders were gone and they were reunited after all.)

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I'm using author's pronoun "it", minding the mystif, because they were a special kind, changing their appearance (including gender), depending on what the other person wished to see. The main hero claims to have seen men, women and even himself in it, but at some point that was just Pie's face he would see there - the face he loved.

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