“Leave de lug ’n get i’side de bird. And I mean pronto.”
“What about Crispijn?”
“He ain’t your concern no longer. Take de bird over. Now!”
With a sigh, Simon did as he was told. Bidding Crispijn’s kaba farewell — it was still turning feebly in circles — he quit the body and jumped into the swallow, brushing by the bolkh that was leaving it behind. It was like picking up a car from a valet, he imagined.
“Dat’s better.” Cletho spoke from a second swallow. “Let’s get started. De sooner we leave, de sooner we arrive.”
No sooner had he finished speaking than the mass of birds took flight, swallows, crows, starlings, thrushes, and a dozen other local species. Simon was near the head of them, with Cletho by his side. As the flock spiralled higher and higher, Simon watched the farmhouse and Crispijn grow smaller.
His hopes were shrinking just as quickly.
Chapter Seventeen
The sun was peeping over the horizon, casting a pale light over the water. The sea was in a tranquil mood and breaking playfully against the shore, depositing seashells and strands of seaweed. To Simon’s right lay the Mediterranean. To his left, miles distant, was the bruising Atlantic. Immediately below was a huge mass of stone, much of which was covered in gorse.
Two nights had passed since they’d left the farmhouse, and in that time the flock had covered lots of ground. Winging past Paris — Simon had spied the Eiffel Tower — they’d flown due south over a landscape of fields, forests, vineyards, towns, factories, rivers, lakes, and multiple highways. In Bordeaux they’d found fresh birds to fly in and travelled through the night, across the Pyrenees and into Spain. At dawn they’d stopped in Zaragoza and rustled up another contingent of birds — Simon had taken over a gull. They’d headed south again and reached the heart of Madrid. As the sun was setting they alighted in Seville. Switching birds one final time, the bolkhs had journeyed through the night to Cadiz, where, floating in a golden halo, a mosque and a cathedral stood side by side. After witnessing a second dawn, they were approaching a cave on the coast of Gibraltar.
They descended swiftly, a wave of heat rising up from the soil to greet them. The currents here were tricky and threatened to grab them and toss them out to sea. With a concerted burst of energy, and with Cletho in the lead, they just managed to conquer the winds and alight upon a series of rocks. A cave entrance lay a few metres away, but the group was too exhausted to pay it any notice. They needed time to catch their breath.
There was no rest for Simon.
A boy approached. He was eight, slim, and his eyes were badly swollen, as if he’d taken a terrible beating. To judge by his complexion and sharp-cut features, Simon guessed his shatl had been snatched in Morocco, a dozen miles south of Gibraltar.
“Where is the woplh?” he demanded, in a high-pitched voice.
“Over here,” Cletho screeched from inside a whiskered tern. He used a wing to point at Simon.
“I am Darthlo. Follow me,” the boy told Simon, as he ducked inside the cave.
Simon and Cletho followed close behind. They waddled a few metres into the cave and then stopped before a towering shelf of rock. Simon tried to gauge the cave’s depth, but the hollows in front of him were steeped in shadow. As far as he could tell, they ran on forever.
Darthlo pointed to the shelf without saying a word. Sprawled across it was a young boy’s body that looked exactly like Darthlo’s shatl, the difference being this kid was sleeping. A breeze from the sea stirred his tight black curls.
“Take him over,” Darthlo ordered Simon.
“You heard him,” Cletho prodded.
Simon broke loose of the gull he’d been riding, approached the body, and plunged inside. Settling in and seizing the controls, he wriggled the fingers and flexed the arms. The eyes didn’t respond at first but by focusing hard he got them to work.
“Wow,” Darthlo spoke.
“Wow’s right,” Cletho said, without his usual scorn.
Simon wondered what the big deal was. They still didn’t know that he’d mastered projection? Hadn’t Cletho seen him ride a series of vadhs and …
Then he understood. The shatl’s kaba wasn’t drunk or damaged or sleeping. It was stone-cold dead. It was sprawled out just below the liver and betrayed no glow or the slightest sign of motion.
He’d taken over a corpse.
Panic struck. He lost his grip. The limbs started wilting and the boy dropped to his knees. Aware that Simon wanted to bolt, Cletho flew at him and beat him with his wings.
“Stay dere!” he screeched. “Dose are Tarhlo’s orders! Dere’s nothin’ wrong wid de shatl you’re in. So de kaba ain’t alive — big deal.”
“Why have you forced me into a corpse?” Simon asked. He could hardly get these syllables out because to do so he had to use the dead boy’s tongue.
“It’s a test,” a voice boomed out. “Only Tarhlo’s son could project into a corpse. This is a gift that only Khalkon leaders possess. I am pleased to say that you have passed with flying colours and proven you truly are Krahl Tarhlo-tal.”
The voice was coming from inside the cave. Simon stared into the darkness then scrambled to his feet as someone emerged. The cave was maybe two metres high, yet this shatl’s head was almost grazing the ceiling. This person it belonged to also came from Morocco: the skin was dark, the build slender, and the eyes black and burning bright. It was dressed in a pale white burnoose and moved with the grace and grandeur of a king.
“Are you Tarhlo?” Simon asked.
“I am your father,” Tarhlo answered. “For sixteen years we’ve been kept apart. I can’t tell you how much I have yearned for this day.”
“And Emma, Clara, and Jenny? Where are they? You haven’t hurt them?”
“I will take you to them shortly. And why would I hurt them? Emma is my wife. Clara is my blood. I would lay my kaba down to protect them.”
“That’s because you need them in your war against the luras. That’s your plan, isn’t it? To destroy the luras?”
Cletho squawked and Darthlo gasped in horror. Bolkhs didn’t address their leader in this fashion, not if they wished to keep their kaba intact. And sure enough, Tarhlo glared at Simon fiercely, as if intent on punishing this show of defiance. Just as quickly his features softened and he smiled widely. His sudden radiance was as warm as the sun outside.
“You have been raised by luras all your life,” he said, chuckling, “yet still your Khalkon temper shines through. That makes my heart glow. Come with me. I will explain everything.”
He strode toward the mouth of the cave, moving smoothly and with perfect balance. They soon emerged on a stretch of rock that was drenched in light from the mounting sun. Striding past the hemindhs who’d escorted Simon, Tarhlo started on an upward path.
They climbed without speaking for the next fifteen minutes. The path was steep and required all their breath. The rocks and vegetation scratched their limbs and both were gasping and pouring sweat — Simon could taste blood at the back of his throat. His shatl didn’t like being pushed this hard. “I’m dead,” it seemed to say as he forced it upward. They continued without resting until Tarhlo surmounted a crest of rock from which the length and breadth of Gibraltar could be seen.
“Look,” Tarhlo panted, slick with perspiration. “We stand before two continents. There is Africa,” he said, motioning south, “and Europe beckons over there.” He pointed north.
Simon was dazzled. The entire world was on display, with vast lands unfolding to the north and south, and with the Atlantic and Mediterranean to his right and left. The sun was smiling and seemed to be saying, “Now you know what I see every day.”
“This northern land?” Tarhlo continued, opening his arms as if to embrace it. “It was ours. All of it belonged to the bolkhs. For ten thousand generations we were masters of its soil. All its beasts were ours to hunt, we fished its lakes and picked its fruits, helping ourselves as we saw fit. The rain and snow could treat
us with disdain, but we cowered before no living creature.”
He considered Simon. Tarhlo’s expression was serene. With a start, Simon realized that he was witnessing greatness. Never mind that Tarhlo was a force of destruction. Simon sensed his authoritative will.
There was a disturbance in the sky. An eagle was in hot pursuit of a dove. The dove was trying hard to escape, flapping frantically and twisting left and right, to no avail. Almost playfully the eagle stayed on its tail, turning when it turned and keeping up with ease. As the dove approached a face of rock and the lure of safety, the eagle swiftly ended the charade. With a burst of speed, it collided with the dove and, shooting out its talons, ripped its jugular apart. With a shriek of satisfaction, it carried the dove off.
The sight caused Tarhlo to glower.
“Then they came,” he spoke, motioning south. “The luras left Africa, strayed across our boundaries, and hunted what was ours. In the beginning we outnumbered them, a hundred to one. Over time, their size, their streamlined weapons, their cunning, speed, and overall wisdom raised them above us, high above us, and made them more successful than us. Our spoils became theirs. They fed better than we did and produced more children, season after season. Occasionally we fought and again they proved superior. Over time their numbers grew larger than ours. Bit by bit we retreated south. That land you travelled past when you flew from Paris? It belonged to us. The fields, forests, rivers, and lakes, once upon a time we controlled them all. But the luras took them. They took everything over. Even this rock, our very last preserve, they seized it too. In their arrogance and greed, they left us nothing. They watched us die without lifting a finger!”
Tarhlo’s rage was too terrible to contain. He emitted a bloodcurdling scream. The sound bounced across the rock and echoed out to sea. His mouth was open, his teeth were bared, and his eyes were wide with rage and sorrow — Simon thought of the skulls in the Natural History Museum.
Tarhlo regained control. Inhaling deeply, he pressed on. “I shouldn’t be angry. It was nature’s doing that we were beaten. That dove we saw the eagle destroy? Its wings are shorter, its beak is weak, and its talons are blunt and have no power. Nature made it so and that is why the eagle prevails. The same harsh reality applied to us. The luras were taller, wiser, stronger. Victory was justly theirs. But now we are favoured. We will outlast them. We will be incarnated and they will perish. It is sad that nature delights in competition, but we can’t be blamed if, like all living kabas, we fight and destroy to protect our own.”
Tarhlo seized Simon and drew him in close. Simon’s face was so near to his father’s that their noses were touching and Tarhlo’s breath was hot against his skin. Looking straight into his eyes, Simon spied his father’s kaba and almost reeled at the sight of the emotions it bared: longing, sorrow, humiliation, heartbreak, and, above all else, white-hot fury.
“Do you understand why I plot?” he murmured. “Perhaps you think I am violent and unjust. But survival is justice. Triumph is justice. Revenge is justice. If you measure me by nature’s rule, you will find that I am no less just than the passing seasons.”
He released his son and drew himself straight. Facing north, and moving off from Simon, he spoke in a tone that was threatening and tender. “I do not blame your mother for leaving and seeking refuge with the lura family. And I do not blame you for your feelings of confusion — these last few days your world has been upended. But you can’t return to the lura world. The family that nurtured you has their real son back. Your blood is different and you have no place among them. If they invited you over, in what body would you visit? What would you discuss? What future would you share? No, you are a bolkh, pure and simple. The sooner you accept this truth, the sooner you’ll fulfill the role that nature has devised for you.”
Without another word, Tarhlo started down the path. While his abrupt departure took Simon by surprise, he understood his father’s message: the time for speech was over and action counted now.
Simon considered the view. The air was still and the light was soft and golden. If anything, he was more confused than ever. Tarhlo’s words had stirred him deeply and turned his thinking inside out. His father — his father! — wasn’t a vicious killer, as he’d been thinking since he’d spied him at Koblansky’s. He was looking after his people’s interests. When the bolkhs recorded their history, he would be their Abraham Lincoln.
All this begged a difficult question. Whose side was Simon on?
“This day has been a thousand lifetimes in the making. In that time our enemy has enslaved the land, built cities, launched wars, created machines, and lorded over the skies. All of this, everything, has come at our expense. Their well-being has been a product of our exile. But this day, this moment, will redress the balance. From this day forward we will be incarnated. And once we are made flesh again, we will increase our numbers and spread our tribes across the soil!”
Tarhlo paused and a clamour arose. Five thousand creatures expressed cries of approval, birds, cats, dogs, sheep, goats, and others. They were gathered in the domh — a hollow at the core of the Rock of Gibraltar. It was large enough to put a stadium to shame and had a ceiling as high as St. Peter’s in Rome — it also bristled with stalactites that resembled teeth on an ogre.
The cavern’s strangest feature was the slabs at its centre. They had somehow fallen atop each other — unless they’d been dragged by the bolkhs themselves — to form a giant table-like structure. Tarhlo was addressing the crowd from this surface, like a priest addressing a church congregation.
The “table” impressed Simon for another reason. When he’d visited Clara back in Vancouver, he remembered her showing him a series of drawings. One had featured this very table, as if she’d known even then that events would lead them here.
Clara. She was standing next to Tarhlo and staring blankly at the crowd. An hour earlier she’d consumed a dark concoction. Within seconds she had fallen into a stupor and Tarhlo had led her to the tabletop, with Jenny and Emma poised close by. Clara looked helpless on the stone formation, especially since the crowd was eyeing her so ravenously. They were squirming with excitement and awaiting the signal to proceed.
“Some have complained that our triumph will be slow, that it will take at least three generations. In response I say the wait will be easy. After those three generations we will have power again. It took ten thousand winters for the luras to destroy us. Fifty winters later we will far surpass the luras. You must be patient, all of you, as we join our spears together and bring our quarry to bay. Then we will chant around the fire:
Sun glows always
Moon glows always
Stars glow always
They have no children.
Their eyes are clear,
Their hands are clean,
Their minds are pure,
They have no children.
We glow and die
Our hands are stained
Our minds are cruel
But we have children.
And they will bleed
And they will die
And they will kill
To have their children.
The crowd was swaying. To Simon’s surprise, he was swaying too. From the table Tarhlo caught his eye and grinned, as if to say, “You see? You do belong here.” His smile faded. The moment had come.
“But let us stall no longer. Defeat is behind us. In the distance stands a meadow of gold. Between this meadow and our triumph flows a river of blood. Who will wade through this to the lands that beckon? Who among the Khalkons, Stemhlons, Mastavars, Troglads Threedhs, and Khastrins will join their spears to mine and battle wind and rain and snow? Who is tired of meatless seasons? Who hates the fire that denies him warmth? Who craves water that will slake his thirst? Up, brothers! Up, sisters! Leave this barren flesh behind and enter our hamax, the engine of deliverance!”
He bellowed like a bull. This must have been a signal. There were barks, cheeps, mews, and growls as thousands of kabas aban
doned their vessels. A wind-like roar blew across the cavern, as if a storm had been unleashed, and Tarhlo kept bellowing and howling with laughter.
Even as the bolkhs left their vessels behind, Tarhlo’s henchmen herded them to the mouth of the cave, although the task wasn’t easy. The tumult in the chamber was overwhelming.
Simon kept his eyes on Clara. Her mouth was open, her nostrils flared. Her limbs were shaking spastically now, as if she were being riddled with bullets or stung by a million bees at once. Several times she jumped clear of the ground and her head twisted at an ugly angle. She was trying to scream but no sound would escape. She also tried to shield herself, but her hands and feet weren’t hers to control.
Simon tried to move in close, to help her through this torture. But as he strained against the shatls about him, Tarhlo nodded to the hemindhs, who cut him off.
And then it stopped. Clara’s limbs were still, her eyes were closed, and her features were composed, unnaturally so. Jenny and Emma looked terrified but Tarhlo was beaming. And why not? Over five thousand bolkhs were packed inside his daughter.
Simon was half-sick with fear. Clara looked pale and tiny in that cavern. How ironic, then, that she was deadlier by far than all the armies in the world combined.
The luras wouldn’t even know what hit them.
They were walking single file down a path. Their goal was a car on the road below. Tarhlo went first — he was guiding Clara. Behind her were Emma and Jenny, who were trailed by Simon and a number of goons. Simon had tried to stand next to Clara but Tarhlo and his agents had intervened. Cletho was bringing up the rear. They’d been walking for twenty minutes and the path was flattening out.
While the bolkhs were cheerful and joking with each other, Simon and the girls were down in the mouth. Clara was drugged and oblivious to everything, Emma was too frightened to speak, and Jenny was her taciturn self. They hadn’t said anything since they’d started on this walk. That’s why Simon was surprised when Jenny turned and murmured softly, “Remember: follow in my wake.”
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