‘Joseph, the thing that murdered Bethany … You said it was a…’
‘A were-creature, called a theriope. You’re asking me this because you know the magus was there that night? I suspected he might be involved because he foretold that I would lose something dear to me.’
‘He did?’
‘Something along those lines.’
She followed the insects as they made their illuminate way up from the reeds and mingled with the stars above them. ‘What do you think now?’
‘That he’s as accurate as he is mysterious.’ He smiled at her. ‘But he’s not a theriope. I can smell these things. Let’s move on in the morning, all right? It’s dangerous around here.’
‘I can’t just abandon the rules I’ve set for myself.’
‘Rowan, you’re not living with the priest now. You can make your own rules.’
A nod, followed by another glimpse upward at the bright nebulous cloud of lilac-hued insects. They swam mindlessly for a few minutes, before taking off along the path of the river and blinking out, one by one.
‘If that’s what you want,’ she said.
~
They set off an hour before sunrise, again keeping close to the riverbank and following it west toward the town of Pirene. The magus described the place to Rowan with such vivid detail that she felt that the picture in her head was more a real memory than her imagination: a town powered by water wheels that turned steam to energy, and made up of single-story houses clustered around a bomb crater; a sunken remnant of the war.
After the fighting had stopped, grass sprang up around the inside of the basin, and in the very centre a tree had grown. It hit the height of seven feet, and then abruptly stopped growing. Its springy boughs turned to inanimate stone. Its petrified branches remained forever bare. The soon-to-be founder of the town had stumbled across this spectacle, and Pirene was built around it.
Rowan was halfway through pointing out that the people of the town were living in sin, praying to a false idol, when Gabel asked brusquely for silence. Together they waited quietly amongst the trees as he stood, still as a winter lake, listening.
‘I can’t hear anything,’ Rowan whispered.
‘A noise like insects,’ said the magus. ‘Hornets?’
‘Not quite,’ Gabel whispered back.
‘Music,’ said the magus suddenly. ‘But this far into the forest?’
He got no reply from the factotum, who was listening patiently. Slowly he began walking once more, and Rowan saw his fingertips flex, itching to stroke the trigger of his pistol.
The other two followed nervously. As they got closer it did almost sound like music, but it was distant and they had the trees to listen through. Before any of the three could make a decision, the sound stopped.
Voices tinkled in the still air as they proceeded cautiously into the forest.
They stopped at a wide junction in the footpath paved with wood-chippings, and in the centre of the fork lay another fallen tree. Leaning against its mossy bark were two young women, dressed in rural clothing in hues of cream and brown. They stopped talking and watched as the travellers approached, their faces instantly bright with recognition.
‘Our old friend the magus!’ cried one, and she danced down the path and put her arms around the old man’s neck, kissing him lightly on the cheek. Gabel saw a hardwood violin in her left hand.
Rowan stepped forward. She managed a hello, realising how ill she must look beside these two sprightly young women who were scarcely much older than her, yet so much more full of life.
The two girls stepped lightly toward each other. They stood side by side and bowed elegantly before the party, introducing themselves as Maeia and Taeia.
It was with this bow that Rowan noticed how each woman was the antithesis of the other; Maeia young and left handed, and Taeia older and right handed. Both wore the same outfit in design – a heavy frock and apron, and, Rowan gauged, a tight corset beneath each – but each was the other’s opposite in colour: where Maeia’s was cream, Taeia’s was brown, and vice-versa.
Again they curtsied, grins showing bright teeth. The magus seemed to beam with pride at the girls, and clapped. ‘And how are people finding your music? Your skills seem to grow with each meeting.’
‘You see them around often?’ Gabel asked.
‘We travel,’ Maeia informed them. Then she asked the magus, ‘Who’s this?’
‘Joseph Gabel, a factotum I hired.’
Rowan noticed the unguarded look that Maeia shot Gabel. It was a look of barely concealed disgust: a factotum! How revolting.
Meanwhile, Taeia was saying, ‘We go from town to town to share our talent!’
‘Just this summer we played in Asunción,’ Taeia announced excitedly. ‘For an inn in the city centre.’
‘And it went down well,’ Maeia rebounded. ‘I believe they loved us.’
‘I believe they loved us!’ Taeia grinned back.
Gabel touched Rowan on the shoulder as the magus moved to talk to them quietly for a moment. ‘Are you well?’
‘I’m fine,’ she said, and smiled. She looked exhausted from the unexpected excitement.
The magus approached them. ‘The girls are heading our way toward Pirene. Perhaps they could travel with us for a while.’
‘I’d like that, Joseph,’ said Rowan.
‘You don’t need my permission,’ he growled. They set off once more, as the afternoon heat began to mount underneath the leaves.
The two girls chattered like chipmunks, but to Gabel their voices were melodic. He found their energy astonishing in such a dark and dangerous place and, though their presence made the others feel too much at ease, he had no struggle in keeping himself alert.
Twice that afternoon he urged them into silence as light footsteps were heard behind them, then later beside them, across the river. An hour before dusk he heard rustling in the branches of the trees on the opposite bank, and in the overhanging boughs that reached over the water like bridges. After he stopped for the third time the noises disappeared.
‘Is it anything, factotum?’ Maeia asked.
Gabel ignored her and turned to the magus. ‘We should find somewhere to camp for the night. If we set off early tomorrow we may reach Pirene by late the next day.’
‘The next day?’ asked Taeia with surprise. ‘Mister Gabel, we must be closer than you think; we’re but an hour away.’
‘An hour?’ said the old magus, who glanced briefly at the hunter.
‘Let’s hurry, then,’ said Gabel. He scowled and shucked his satchel higher onto his shoulder, then pushed on through the forest.
Rowan felt herself frown as well. Just for a divided second she thought she had seen the hunter’s eyes flash, as if someone inside him had flicked a switch and made red light bulbs blink behind his darkened face.
*
Three
ISAAC CAPTURED
A cloud of bats screamed and weaved their way through the sun-bleached canopy. Their screeches, though out of the running man’s range of hearing, gave him a headache. Though the day was not yet over, light streaming between the boughs and vines that formed a vivid green net above him, the nocturnal wildlife was out in force.
Other dark, bulky monsters chased him through the dense rainforest, herding him the west. As these snarling animals, big as horses, tore their way after him, he ran – a young man frightened – and though he was fit and healthy he knew the things were gaining on him.
Wiry muscles creaked beneath soaking clothes, as stiff as if someone had coated his sinews with concrete. As he vaulted the fallen trees and wove between clawing branches, the young man gradually felt the burning in his throat return. It was as if he had swallowed sun-roasted sand, and with this fierce burning came the pop of his leg muscles, resigned once more.
His pursuers were far enough away to grant him a moment’s stop. His teeth and eyes were like torches compared to his dark skin. His forehead poured with sweat, his ears had an insist
ent pressure behind them, and even surrounded by all this dripping green vegetation his tongue was thick and dry against the roof of his mouth.
Bats and bats. A few hours previously, a spiralling fog of insects had drilled its way through the trees, and Isaac wondered if the sky-rodents were chasing food.
The pursuers had been following him a long time. They’d chased him even over the baked Sinh-ha plains to the east, but then they had only been a few black shapes against the shifting disc of the dawn sun. Now he dared not sleep, nor stop too long to rest, because with the sounds of those fearful animals he could also hear angry voices from time to time; angry at being forced to chase him for this long, through the rainforest and then the plains, and back again.
He had been confused in the desert. He’d turned around almost entirely, too tired to follow the sun properly, and limbs exhausted from the constant abuse he gave them. It had been an entire week since he had last heard his sweet Sarai’s voice, telling him to not worry, Isaac, everything will be fine. He had gotten up by the light of the fire one night, pulled his satchel over his chest and left – he was the reason, he’d realised, that they were being chased.
Isaac spotted a tunnel in the thick foliage, a wet green hideaway that he crawled through. Tiny insects buzzed around him. Prickly, tufty caterpillars wandered across his knuckles as he waited on all fours, listening as the voices of the hired forest nomads surrounded him, then disappeared. He realised he was free, for the time being. Pulling back a thorny veil of vines, he stepped back out into the thick atmosphere of the rainforest.
He sat for a while, throat deathly dry. He could feel the cracks as they broke their laborious way through the once-phlegmy membrane. Restless but exhausted beyond words, Isaac attempted to settle in the leaves. Water seeped into his tattered trousers, making him uncomfortable as he rubbed his ankles.
He didn’t see the creature drop silently behind him, clawed feet leaving no impression on the wet plant-life. The talons were around his neck in a second. He felt his feet part from the ground, and he choked off a torrent of hot breath as a decidedly feline countenance barked just an inch from his face. It drew back its yellow lips to show teeth of iron; Isaac managed a scream as the sanguilac twisted for his throat but caught his shoulder instead. After a blissful numb second, he felt sudden ferocious pain down his arm and up his spine, exploding in his skull.
His feet buckled as he was dropped and, landing on his knees, he felt cool air on his neck once more.
He heard rapid footsteps, barely audible, running away from him, and the sound of branches whipping as the sanguilac disappeared.
Whilst rubbing his bruised throat, he gingerly touched his savaged shoulder, mildly curious as to what frightened the beast.
Pain in his neck, and then he knew.
~
Awakening, Isaac stretched out with his hands, running his palms over the hard surface he was lying on. A tiled floor. He opened his lead-heavy eyes and saw a dirty wall of semi-transparent plastiplex: it was thick and had slits in the top and bottom for air. Dreary light put emphasis on the streaks of dirt and grime, each single scratch shining brightly. The door was locked.
He sat up, touched his neck and felt a tiny puncture mark where the somnadart had hit. Dried blood crusted on his shoulder.
Where the hell was he?
A reasonably small room, about seven metres each way. A mattress in the corner. Toilet, dirty – by the side of a small sink, dirtier. There was a strange earthy smell to the place.
A breeze licked him through the plastiplex wall, and so he stood and moved over, held his hands to the holes. Outside the cell was a corridor, poorly-lit with a trail of windows running along its length. Dried mud caked the outside, piled up against each one. Small green vines and earthy roots snaked through the cracks, and a few sprinkles of soil were mounted on the hard tiles beneath. There were streaks of mould and rot underneath the frames. One window was cracked from one corner to another, and water trickled in and puddled on the floor.
Closer to the plastiplex, he could smell the rainforest. And wet earth.
Captured, he thought. Captured at last.
Isaac inhaled deeply and slumped against the floor. He closed his eyes listened intently. There was the ever-present cacophony of the rain on the leaves, and little else.
*
Four
BULLETS AND BLADES
The hustle before sunset took them into forest much less dense; they began to see shafts of warm dusk-red light sieved through the trees, churning with dust. The bark of the trees looked as though it was on fire with the light, and that fire spread to the river as it turned upon itself until they arrived at the outskirts of Pirene.
It was different to how Rowan had imagined. The houses were taller. The road was cobbled, and some of the buildings had decking in front made of trampled but sturdy-looking wood. Ropes were cast in a broad polygon around the petrified, held up by wooden staffs that dug into the very edges of a large crater.
The sun set behind the trees on the other side of the town, and they turned darker until they were nothing more than a crowd of jagged silhouettes. Maeia and Taeia clapped their hands as soon as they stepped on the first cobbles, gazing out over the town.
‘We haven’t played here yet,’ the older said.
‘We’ve been staying here for the past few days,’ said Taeia to the magus. ‘We’ll show you to our inn, if you like. We’re performing there tonight.’
As the two girls galloped off, Rowan turned to Gabel and asked if they might hear them play.
‘We need somewhere to spend the night,’ the hunter replied. ‘It may as well be somewhere entertaining.’
Rowan smiled tiredly and wandered toward the petrified tree enclosure. It stood a foot and a half taller than her, but the tallest branches were so thin that it didn’t seem so high. She wondered how the brittle-looking boughs didn’t break in strong winds.
The magus, keeping an eye on Rowan, stood close to Gabel. He said in a hushed voice, ‘We have another member of our party to employ.’
‘Don’t have enough hangers-on already?’
‘Three is a pitiful number for a travelling group, Mister Gabel.’
Gabel looked across at Rowan, who was quietly studying the petrified tree. She was an adolescent, a brittle blade disguised by a weathered sheath. She had seen the world and then forgotten it; her amnesia had robbed her of all she’d experienced.
‘There’s an old saying that ends, “three’s a crowd,”’ Gabel said. ‘We don’t need any more companions.’
‘This last one is important,’ said the magus. But he wouldn’t elaborate no matter how persistently the hunter urged.
They found the inside of the inn warm with candles and bodies, and pleasantly dark. Crowds of people pushed their way around them, between the many tables and the thick pillars that supported the low ceiling. It was night outside, and the draught from the doorway was enough to make Rowan shiver.
They chose a table in a secluded corner and sat waiting for the innkeeper to take their orders. The magus noticed the two violinists setting up on the small stage to the right of the bar. Both waved in greeting, then went back to cleaning their instruments and uning their strings.
The innkeeper came to them. His eyes, sunken in rosy flesh, sparkled with either mirth or moonshine. ‘What’ll it be?’
They ordered their food, and then sat in silence as most of the candles were blown out. The stage was now the only place lit, and on it Maeia and Taeia stood side by side. The innkeeper yelled for silence, and the girls smiled thanks at him.
Maeia put bow to strings and from them drifted into a slow, resolute adagio. After a subtle two verses, in joined Taeia, drawing the horsehair with a tap of her toe and swaying of her head; the two tunes bled into one another, a pair of fountains flowing into the same glistening pool, where they acknowledged and accentuated each other, frothing to an ending that excited the gathered audience.
Maeia and Taeia bo
wed and took the applause gratefully, always appreciative of a compliment. They settled back down and began to alter the strings of their instruments once more. Slowly the chatter was reborn amongst the patrons of the inn, and the spell was relaxed.
~
The snaking rain on the crude, misshapen windows of the inn was projected inside by the moonlight. The floor and walls seemed alive with luminescent worms, and these shimmering lines slid down the face of the barkeep as he and Gabel talked quietly to each other.
Rowan sat with the two musicians, congratulating them on their performances. Maeia and Taeia both seemed happy with the way the inn crowd had responded to their playing, and talked animatedly with the occasional slap of delight on the surface of the table, laughing uproariously.
When Maeia and Taeia retired for the night, Gabel and the barkeep came to show Rowan to their room.
‘Here you are,’ the barkeep said, opening a wooden door from the upstairs landing. ‘Small, but big enough for two, I think.’
Rowan looked around the small, sparsely-furnished room. ‘But there’s only one bed.’
‘I’ll sleep on the floor,’ the hunter told her. He turned to the barkeep. ‘If it would not be out of the question to ask for a mattress…’
‘I’ve one to spare, though it’s a little on the filthy side. I think you would fare better with blankets, though the mattress isn’t all that bad, if you’re not picky.’
‘Springs or cloth, I don’t mind.’
After checking the room that would be the magus’s, Gabel paid in advance then opened the windows to let the air in.
‘I’d like to see the town,’ said Rowan.
‘It’s raining,’ Gabel pointed out bluntly. ‘Tomorrow is better for exploring.’
He left her to unpack her few things, and stepped out of the inn to take the air outside. He found the magus out in the square, looking across the road with a dark row of trees behind him. He stood in the centre of their long shadows, observing a house across the street. A corona of rain fell around his head and shoulders as he watched for movement behind the windows.
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