by Glen Duncan
One of the Izul carried his message to the demon god, and eventually Amaz himself came to the threshold.
“I will do as you ask,” Amaz said, after Lehek-shi had told him what he wanted. “In return for what issues from your first coupling with the queen after the king’s death. Understand me. If there is a child, its soul must come down to me. Thereafter I will hold our pact fulfilled.”
Lehek-shi vowed inside himself that there would be no child—even in those days there were the ways and means to make the chances of new life slight, and they had only to avoid conception once—and so he agreed to Amaz’s terms. (And even if there is a child, he thought, Liku will relinquish it if our happiness is at stake.) With the bargain sealed, therefore, Lehek-shi’s spirit took its leave of Amaz and returned to his body in the Middle realm.
The lovers had to wait. Even with the dark god’s bargain sealed Edu’s murder must have no earthly witnesses. So Liku began to beguile her husband.
“I never have you to myself,” she complained, sweetly. “Even at night there are guards outside the tent, listening to us.”
Edu was puzzled. “They are for our safety,” he said. “They are spears and shields. They aren’t listening to us! And what if they are? They are servants!”
But Liku persisted. “But don’t you understand that sometimes I want you simply, as a man, as my husband, just the two of us, alone under the stars?”
For a while Edu made light of it, but eventually Liku’s pleading prevailed, and he agreed to spend one night with her away from the camp, alone, man and woman, husband and wife, together under the stars.
“The soul has understanding,” Lehek-shi had warned Liku. “If it senses death near it will rush up into the head to be ready for the Kamu’s kiss. Therefore we must surprise the soul. You must keep the soul distracted.”
Liku kept the soul distracted. She even had thought for the approach of Lehek-shi’s shadow, and made Edu lie on his back with the low full moon in front of him so Lehek-shi, approaching with the long, sharpened flint stone from behind the king’s head, would make no change in the light.
Edu’s soul, at the moment of joy, knew nothing of what fell.
Lehek-shi struck hard and fast, and in three blows severed Edu’s head from his shoulders.
Amaz, the lord of the Lower realm, sent one of the Izul to claim the king’s soul. Not from the mouth, into which the soul in its ignorant bliss had had no chance to flee, but from the mouth between the buttocks, the speaker of filth. The soul had no choice. It could not remain in the body after death. It could not resist the indrawn breath of the Izul. The Izul swallowed it and carried it down to Amaz.
One moon later, the lovers were married. Imut was too young to take up the throne, so Liku ruled as queen until he should come of age. Lehek-shi was her consort.
But in the Lower realm, the soul of Edu would not cease its lamentations.
When Lehek-shi told Liku of the price of the bargain, she was not very afraid. She knew her monthly bleed well enough, and when the chances of conceiving were slim. She and Lehek-shi waited. And when they did come together the first time after Edu’s death, Lehek-shi made an offering in the fire to Nendai, the god of prudence, and wore on his manhood the dried skin of pig-gut to prevent any seed from entering Liku’s womb.
But a splinter from the wood he’d cut for the burning lodged under Lehek-shi’s thumbnail, and tore a small hole in the minnan—and though the lovers willed it not, Liku was made with child.
In the Lower realm, the demon god Amaz felt the new life stir.
When Liku realised what had happened, she was afraid. By the third moon without her bleed she could feel love wrapped around the child inside her. Lehek-shi knew he would never get her to relinquish their baby of her own free will. Nor, as her belly grew bigger and she put his hands on her to feel the first kicks of life, could he bear the thought of sending his son or daughter down to the kingdom of Amaz. The lovers had murdered together and bargained with a demon god—and the passion and understanding between them was stronger than ever.
The Maru numbered little over two thousand, and among that number were some dozen women at the same stage of their carrying as Liku. But all the women gave birth before the queen, despite the drugs and songs of the wise women, and between Liku’s baby—a boy, whom they named Tahek—and the latest born to the tribe was almost one whole moon.
Nonetheless, the substitution was made, the mother bribed (Lehek-shi would deal with her if she made trouble) and the replacement child—rubbed in the blood and birth fluids of Liku for disguise—beheaded in Tahek’s place.
The Izul came up and sucked out the soul from the tiny mouth between the buttocks and carried it down to Amaz.
Three years passed. Liku and Lehek-shi believed their trick had worked. Their son Tahek grew strong and healthy. The Maru moved north, but the cold weather stayed close behind them.
One day a great snowstorm caught them. The winds blew and a noon darkness fell. Liku and Lehek-shi became separated from the tribe. In the gloom, they heard the howling of wolves.
They seemed to be in nothingness. There were no trees, no rocks. The division of land and sky had vanished. The snow drove hard and plied deep. The wind was cruel. Liku’s fur tore from her and went up into the sky. They tried to catch it—but it was gone. Lehek-shi made her wear his.
For hours they could not count, for a time that might have been days they struggled through the storm, with no knowledge of where they were going, only with the hope of finding shelter. Lehek-shi grew very weak from the cold. At last, exhausted, he fell.
When Liku knelt to try to warm him, she gave a cry. There, not twenty paces away, was the edge of a forest.
With what little strength that remained to her she dragged Lehek-shi into the shelter of the trees. The wind died, suddenly. For a few moments the lovers lay together, unable to move. Darkness came over them.
“Come with me,” a voice said. “If you do not get warmth and food, you will both die.”
Liku opened her eyes.
Standing over her was a dark-eyed man, great in height, wrapped in the skin of a wolf. He bore a bloody spear and around his neck a long loop of animal teeth. A red birth mark stained half his face.
“Come,” he repeated. “I will carry him. Be swift. He has not much time.”
Not knowing if she was awake or dreaming, Liku followed the man, who bore Lehek-shi over his shoulder as though his weight were no more than a child’s. She was near death herself, from hunger and cold.
“Here,” the man said. “I have food and warmth for you both.”
Under two mighty trees lay the body of a giant wolf, slain. The beast was bigger than three men. It had been slit from its throat to its loins and its innards cleanly removed.
“I have not means to make the fire,” the man said, “but if you are willing to pay my small price you can eat of the animal’s meat and shelter in his skin, and in the morning the storm will have passed, and your people will find you. They are coming this way, but will not get here before the sun rises.”
Liku, frozen and starving and weak, reached for the animal’s hide—but the stranger stopped her.
“You have not agreed, freely, to pay my small price,” he said.
“What is your price?” Liku asked. “I am a leader of my people. I can give you all that I have!”
The stranger shook his head. “I ask very little,” he said. “A drop of blood from each of you, and the animal’s warmth and meat is yours. Give me this courtesy offering freely, and you will live to see the sunrise.”
At that moment the clouds tore a little, and the full moon sailed free on a field of black.
Liku’s heart misgave her, but she knew that without food and shelter the stranger’s words would be proved true before morning. “Very well,” she gasped. “A drop from each of us. But hurry! I feel death near me!”
The stranger took one of the teeth from around his neck and gave it to Liku. “Do it freely,�
�� he repeated. “Because your life and the life of your beloved is precious to you.”
Liku took the tooth and saw that it was sharp. Quickly, too cold to feel the pain, she made a tiny cut on her thumb and did the same for Lehek-shi.
“Very well,” the stranger said, and lifting open the belly of the wolf, he cut several pieces of the animal’s flesh. Liku, driven by her need, ate, and fed Lehek-shi, though Lehek-shi could barely open his eyes, and seemed still to be wandering in death’s country. The meat tasted sweet and tender, and Liku was surprised.
“Now hurry,” the stranger said. “Into the beast. There is a second storm coming from which the trees will not be shelter enough.”
Liku dragged herself and Lehek-shi into the warmth of the wolf’s body while the stranger watched. Again Liku was surprised that there was no smell of death in the animal, only the feeling of warmth and succour. The stranger watched, and, when the lovers were settled, he smiled and spoke:
“I bring you greetings from Amaz, god of the Lower Realm,” he said. “The meat you have eaten was human flesh, and your blood is mingled with the blood of the beast. Now every time the moon is full, the wolf will take shelter in you, and your craving for that same human flesh will be more than you can bear. Those who survive your bite will carry the same curse. You do not cheat my master and go unrepaid. Farewell!”
And with that, the stranger walked away and was swallowed by the darkness.
So it was that the races of wolves and men were mixed. In the years that followed many tried to free themselves from the Curse, but it was not until people returned to the banks of Iteru that
I stopped reading. I didn’t have a choice. The remainder of the page had been torn away, along with all the other remaining pages.
… but it was not until people returned to the banks of Iteru that
The implication—Olek’s editorial implication—was clear: someone, eventually, had found a cure.
16
WALKER FINISHED READING and laid the book down on the nightstand. We were in the bedroom. Bed unmade (love unmade, my nasty inner voice said), each of the two big windows full of afternoon sunlight. Across the hall, the twins were trying to wake Cloquet up. Cloquet wasn’t enjoying the experience.
“So?” I said.
I was sitting on the floor by the open door across from him, smoking a Camel filter. Last night’s hangover had talked itself into wanting another drink. My copy of Byron’s Don Juan was open face down on the floor by Walker’s foot. I remembered exactly where I’d stopped reading last night. Before we’d had the sex that had felt like an argument:
There’s doubtless something in domestic doings,/Which forms, in fact, true love’s antithesis.
He shook his head. “What do you want me to say?”
Wait. Count to five. Don’t snap at him.
“Well, do you think it’s genuine, for starters?” I said.
“Do you mean do I think this is really Quinn’s journal, or do I think this story has any basis in fact?”
Count to five again. Pointless, since my irritation contained was just as visible as it would have been let out.
“Okay,” he said, exhaling, seeing it. “I think there’s every chance the journal’s the real deal. As for the story …” he laughed. Shook his head again. No.
“Just like that,” I said. “Amazing.”
“Jesus Christ,” he said. “Lu, are you serious? Gods of the Lower Realm? Are you fucking kidding me?”
“I’m aware of what it sounds like.”
“Apparently not, if you’re taking it seriously. Who knew demons could suck some poor bastard’s soul out of his ass!”
My face was hot. Because of course he was right. Of course. Of course.
“Please,” he said. “Please tell me you’re not …” He couldn’t finish. Incredulity was getting the better of him.
“Doesn’t something resonate?” I asked. “I mean not the details, necessarily. I mean the … I don’t know.”
Across the hall, Cloquet said: “Zoë, mon ange, that is really annoying. I am not well.”
Delighted giggles from the twins. Zoë had a funny little old lady laugh.
“No,” Walker said, with his own forced calm. “Nothing resonates. It’s a fairy story, for Christ’s sake.”
“What are we, then?” I asked him. “We’re a fucking fairy story.”
Awkward silence. For the two readings of that sentence. I’d meant we, werewolves, are a fairy story. But the opportunist subconscious never sleeps. He’d heard we as in me and him, we were a fairy story. A relationship not to be believed in.
“Mes enfants,” Cloquet groaned. “There is going to be violence here if you keep doing that.”
More fiendish cackling from the twins. I wondered how long we’d have before Lorcan’s next rage, or nightmare, or worrying trick of picking an adult and staring expressionlessly at them until they got mad.
“You know what you’re pissed about?” Walker said. “You’re pissed because it doesn’t resonate. You were expecting some big revelation. Instead you get this horseshit. It’s just another story. I mean why stop here? If a story’s all we need let’s have the little baby Jesus and the Tooth Fairy and fucking Santa Claus.”
I didn’t say anything. Because again, he was right. He got up from the bed, went to the window and looked down into the softly blazing garden, hands in his back pockets. I thought how much I’d loved the shape of him. Lean, economically muscled. The pretty profile. Loved. Past tense. What happened? What happens?
A vampire comes to call.
“Let me ask you one thing,” I said. “If there was a cure, would you take it?”
This, I knew, was also what had vexed him. The suggestion of return. Which brought the absence of anything to return to.
He didn’t answer straight away. His face was calm and golden in the sunlight.
“There’s no going back,” he said. “Not for me.”
At which moment my phone rang. Again.
17
“FORGIVE MY IMPATIENCE,” Olek said, “but I’m on tenterhooks here. Have you read Quinn’s journal?”
I got to my feet and stepped out onto the landing. Walker turned and watched, but didn’t follow. Through the door opposite I could see into Cloquet’s room. The twins had found an assortment of hats and gloves and shoes in the downstairs closet. They were putting them on Cloquet, who was still half asleep. He was currently wearing a bicycle helmet, an oven mitt and a pair of battered dress shoes much too big for him.
“Yes,” I said. “So what?”
“So what, Miss Talulla, is that I know what the people who returned to the banks of Iteru—or the Nile as we now call it—knew. I know the way out of the Curse.”
“I repeat,” I said: “So what?”
If you can hear a smile, I heard his.
“I knew you were going to say that.”
“Who the fuck are you?”
“Who am I? I’ve told you. My name is Olek. I’m a vampire. I have an interest in science. And I repeat: I have a proposition of potential benefit to us both.”
“Not if I don’t want what you’re offering.”
“You might not want it for yourself,” he said. “But you’ll want it for your children. Do you have access to a computer?”
For your children. It sounded like a threat. Then I thought of Lorcan’s problems around full moon. Could the vampire know about that?
“Yes,” I said. I could feel more of what there was between me and Walker tearing. He hadn’t moved from the window. Was letting himself imagine the future without me.
“Stay on the line. Go to your computer. Open your web browser.”
The laptop was in the en suite, half-buried under a pile of laundry. Lycanthropy hadn’t made me any tidier. I went back through the bedroom—Walker gave me a now what? look to which I raised a hand: Hang on. I sat down on the bathroom floor and powered-up the laptop.
“Okay,” I said. “I’m online.”
An inbox opened, with one mail item.
“Open the email and click on the link,” Olek said. “It’s secure, I promise you. When the link page opens, it’ll ask you for another password. You there?”
“Yes. Page open.”
More numbers and letters.
I hit enter.
“What you’re about to see is a real event,” Olek said. “I’ll stay on the line. Just watch. I’ll explain when it’s run.”
Video clip. Very high resolution. No sound. Timecode in the bottom left corner. Another sequence of numbers on the right.
Blue sky. Sunshine. A long line of what appeared to be Chinese people filing into a solitary low-lying white building with no windows set in manicured grounds. Heavily armed military everywhere.
Cut to inside.
Processing. Desks with more military personnel. People one by one presenting driver’s licences, passports, documents—and being issued in return with numbered paper wristbands of the kind used at music festivals.
Cut to: An overhead shot of a room the size of a soccer pitch, divided into rows of concrete cubicles, several hundred, each with a set of steel bars down one side and another set across the roof.
The people in the holding cells, looking scared shitless. Some of them in tears. Families incarcerated together, single people alone. One armed soldier per three or four cells. Men and women in civilian dress with iPads and walkie-talkies.