‘Come in,’ he said calmly.
The visitor said nothing, but removed his hat and placed it behind him as he sat on the wooden lip with his feet and hands still outside. He was rubbing his palms together in the water that ran down off the wagon’s top.
‘Can’t get your hands clean?’ the magus asked.
‘I’ve had this problem all my life.’
‘That’s an exaggeration.’
‘All right. Since Rebekah, then.’
‘Rebekah. The woman whose life you could not save, nor the life of the child within her womb. Both slaughtered by an enemy always out of reach, it seemed. Yet you caught him, did you not? And you killed him.’
‘Like the beast he was,’ Gabel said. ‘But not before he killed Bethany, who had only just begun to fill the gap that Rebekah had left.’
‘And what kind of a beast are you?’ asked the old man. His eyes were still closed. The patter of the rain outside was like an army of teeth-chatterers sitting in and amongst the trees, behind the leaves, hidden in the grass: a freezing throng, waiting for the sun to come out.
‘I don’t know,’ said the hunter. ‘I came to you for answers.’
‘Answers can destroy a man, Joseph. You are a hunter, and a factotum. A mercenary. You’ve lived all your adult life knowing not to ask questions, that answers mean nothing. Do you not find that? That answers are entirely, and inevitably, unsatisfying?’
‘These are answers that I need. And I know that you can give them to me. What happened to me?’
‘You changed,’ the magus replied. ‘But the question is not to what, but from what. Don’t interrupt. Listen to me; this is why I’m here. You want to know what you are? Who you are? You are Joseph Gabel, and you are the monster that Rowan saw. The monster that killed Caeles, fuelled by your own anger and hatred. This is something that has always been with you, Gabel. The nature of the hunter. The lust for death. Do you remember Caeles, after he had fought in the streets of Iilyani? His body covered with blood, his chest heaving, his hands dripping thick red. Do you remember…? That isn’t a rhetorical question.’
‘Yes,’ Gabel said, rubbing his palms together.
‘You are of the same ilk, you and he. But you are also something else, and you have always known this. You have just never known.’
The visitor picked up his hat and donned it. Then he kicked away from the wagon’s rim, but held open the canvas for a second, letting the rain in. The outside was much lighter, and he was only a man-shape to the magus, standing there quietly.
‘What can I do about it?’ Gabel asked.
‘Nothing.’
‘I might hurt someone else.’
‘You will. Only next time, it will be someone who deserves it.’
~
They had started burying the corpse just after first light, and now it was past noon. The rainforest was thick with heat and insects. When they came to the edge of the camp, Sarai stopped. Colan waited for her to speak. In her hand she carried Caeles’ silver wakizashi, fastened securely in its onyx-black scabbard.
‘You’re leaving us, then,’ she said.
‘Yes,’ he replied.
‘Hînio…’
‘Sarai, you must listen. I can’t go with you any further. My intention has always been to stay here, once I arrived. I have made up my mind.’
‘You can change it!’
‘Please,’ he said. He sighed, and the breath came out through the slits in his helmet like a warm wind. She fancied she could also hear his heartbeat, encased and sealed behind all that metal. Just when he seemed to want to move closer, he turned his back.
‘Is there something about me?’ she asked.
‘Not at all.’
‘Then what?’
‘I told you … that my helmet was rusted shut.’
He turned now, and his hands reached up, and twisted free the helmet in an apple-red cloud of dusty metal. It separated from the stiff neck of his armour, and he threw it away into the trees.
‘Forgive me,’ he said.
Sarai removed her cotton gloves and reached up gingerly with her fingertips, tracing the thick, white lines that criss-crossed his face. Scars laced his cheek and his bull-like neck. One eye was a puffy mess, permanently swollen and closed up like a spring bud. There were three pairs of holes around it, where the skin had once been sewn with twine. His hairline – he had shoulder-length, dark and greasy hair, which had unfolded downward like wings when he removed the helmet – was staggered and uneven, where the scars met it. His nose was disfigured, one nostril missing. His upper lip had a curl to one side, like a half-smile; a deep, dark wound reached upward to his right ear, which was absent and replaced by scar tissue.
‘I didn’t want you to see,’ he said, and without the helmet his voice lost all of its echo, but none of its depth and strength.
‘Hînio,’ she said, tears springing from her eyes. ‘I never…’
He unfastened his gauntlets, and even with the thick carpet of foliage they struck heavy notes on the ground. His hands were large and powerful, and they gathered up her face and married her tears with his own.
‘I am truly sorry,’ he said, ‘that I didn’t tell you sooner. I was afraid that—’
‘I understand.’
‘Also know that I cannot stay with you, Sarai, nor come to find your son. I am first a Caballero de la Muerte, a Horseman of Death. But that is no longer. This face was my punishment for being too soft. They sewed my eye and gave me my armour, but they left me to die in the desert. So firstly, I am nothing.’
‘Wait…’
‘This is how I see myself. Secondly, I am an outcast. One that can never—’
‘Hînio, you—’
He grabbed her arms. ‘Listen, Sarai and understand! I could never be what I was born to be, so I could never be anything but nothing. No, don’t speak! I can be only with myself, now, and these wanderers, these gypsies … they know what this means. I can live here, and look after the horses. But I can’t be with you Sarai, because I don’t deserve you, nor anyone else. I’m not a person.’
She leant against his armour. He was still holding her wrists.
‘Do you understand?’ he asked softly.
‘No,’ she said.
‘Still, ask no more. Only, know this: when you journey onwards to Shianti, to Hermeticia in the crater, you will meet more Caballeros. They will not be like me. They’ll be powerful, and swift, and deadly. Don’t hope to trust them in the way you have come to trust me. Take their word only if they’re promising you your death.’
‘You’d leave me to them? I’d be like a sacrificial offering.’
‘You’d be nothing of the sort. You would have your son by then, and he will protect you, and you he.’
He let her go and bowed away, leaving his helmet in the wet forest. Over the years, it would grow weeds, and rust until it was disturbed, and then would crumble into red dust.
The knight walked away through the rainforest, and out into the large clearing where the caravan awaited him. Sarai wiped her cheeks, and put on her gloves, then took her facebelt from her neck and refastened it over her eyes.
~
‘Samuel,’ Gabel said to the darkness. The wagon was empty, and sealed. Rain drummed the canvas. He was alone.
‘Samuel,’ he called again.
The boy appeared, sitting on the boxes that lay to his side. He looked as he usually did, dressed in grey, with his pale skin and bleached-looking hair. It was longer and covered his eyes. His limbs looked more wiry this time, and his face more defined. He had an air of strength about him.
‘You look older today, Samuel,’ Gabel said quietly.
‘Yes,’ he sighed. ‘Yes, I expect I do.’
‘You haven’t come in a long time. Since the Tractatus.’
‘What do you want, Joseph?’
‘I need advice.’
‘What advice could I give? I see what you did, what you turned into. You’re a monster, Joseph. You came
with smoke, do you know that? You’re from Hadentes.’
‘Samuel, what I did…’
‘You killed that cyborg. Just like you killed my mother. And if wasn’t for you, factotum, I would still be alive. I would be able to walk, and touch, and smell and breathe. But you bind me here. You don’t even try to cast me away, like you do all the others. Like you did Bethany.’
Gabel remained silent. He looked at the boy – no, young man – and felt tears spring to his eyes. He reached out for the first time and moved to touch Samuel on the arm. His fingers went through him.
‘Do you see?’
‘Yes.’
‘All because you wouldn’t let Rebekah live.’
‘Should I have done? Would you have let her? Bitten by a theriope, Samuel. Infected. She was changed even then, so soon. Teague had only just left her, lying in a dark pool of her own blood, and she was beginning to become like him. Would you want that, Samuel? Would you have wanted her to become that? Would you want Rebekah as your mother if she had that demon’s blood inside her?’
‘I wasn’t even born, Joseph! You took my life before it even began!’
Gabel stood. ‘Who knows what you would have been born like. The son of an infected woman. You would have been more like Teague’s son than…’
‘Than your own?’ Samuel finished, voice high. He lashed with his fist, but it passed through his father’s chest. He did it again. ‘You’d take the life of an unborn child because he wouldn’t be like you, but someone else? And if I had been born to you, and lived, actually lived, what would I be then? The son of a real demon! Your flesh and your dirty blood! And I would have wings, like you, and come borne upon smoke, like you, and kill my friends and loved ones, like you!’
The hunter stood silently, tears streaming down his face, as Samuel swung and swung, kicked and shoved, but each time his hands and feet flashed through Gabel’s body as if he wasn’t there. Gabel waited until the onslaught stopped, then stood as close as he could. He reached out and held his hands over the space where Samuel’s shoulders were.
He said: ‘I release you from me.’
‘You can’t do it like that.’
‘I can and I will. You’re no longer fettered to me, Samuel. You may rest.’
‘No more washing your hands?’
‘No more.’
The young man’s grey garments fluttered slightly. He looked up through his hair, and said, ‘You save Rowan, do you listen?’
‘I listen.’
Samuel went quickly in an evanescent flash. Gabel lowered himself onto the bundle of clothing he had been sitting on, and listened again to the rain. It sounded much louder, and much clearer.
~
The nomads decided they wanted to perform a pre-emptive exorcism to cleanse the area before they moved on. The land had become tainted by blood, and relocation was unavoidable. However, leaving part of the rainforest haunted by a restless spirit was something they couldn’t allow. All the people staying with them had to be present, including Gabel.
They built a large fire and used drops of iconoil to keep it burning despite the rain, which had thinned but not ceased. All the nomads were present, as well as Gabel, the magus, Rowan, Colan and Sarai. They were painted with spots of ointment that had the vicious bite of garlic, and had sprinkled on them various fluids, each with a different scent and viscosity. Foreign words were muttered as combustible things were thrown onto the fire, each erupting like fireworks. The nomads danced around the clearing. They sang at the top of their voices. Several of the younger women, who hadn’t been given the knowledge to perform such sacred tasks, stayed by the fire and danced together, ringing bells and pirouetting ribbons.
Colan and Sarai sat close by each other, and said little. Rowan sat with the magus, who translated the words of the gypsies for her. She listened, but didn’t speak. Gabel sat on his own, on the other side of the fire, slowly rubbing together his hands. He stopped and looked down at them.
When the exorcism was over Gabel stood and announced that he and his comrades would be departing the very next morning, and take their ill omens with them. The chief of the nomads stood a good two metres in front of him when he replied that he would take no payment, nor keep any other thing that was left behind when they departed.
*
Twenty-Nine
THE OBELISK
The backpacks were heavier. Rowan had previously carried very little – her blanket, and the clothes on her back – but now Caeles was gone, and he had borne the main bulk of their possessions. Gabel had assumed the role of mule, but struggled to carry half of what Caeles had. The rest had to be divided between Rowan, the magus, and Sarai, who now walked silently alone without Colan.
The hunter walked several paces ahead, and spoke only when he felt they should rest, and when it was too dark to go on. They camped later and later each night, though, and since the danger of the goyles had passed, they could sleep closer together. But now Gabel slept apart from the others, leaving his blankets to Rowan, who accepted them silently.
She had gotten weaker, he saw. Her face was now so wan it reminded him of Samuel, and that frightened him more than anything. Her features blended into the moonlight. The only parts of her that was getting darker were the spaces under her eyes, which were now almost black. She moved slowly, and held the others up. Her mouth was constantly dry and no amount of water would moisten it. Her skin was cracking.
They were five days from Shianti when they saw the signal. It was night-time, and everyone sat in silence. The ninja, as usual, was looking to the west, toward where the Great Crater lay. But, she told the magus, she wasn’t looking for the city itself – the walls of the crater rose up a hundred metres from the ground and would not be easily missed regardless – but for the place where she had agreed to meet up with Isaac if they ever got separated.
This place was a rise in the ground that stood like a pillar high above the canopy of leaves; a natural obelisk of rock, sprouted with rainforest vegetation. It was wide enough for a person to climb, and flat enough at the top to light a fire.
The obelisk had been visible for days, Sarai explained. Almost immediately since leaving the caravan the trees had been sparse enough to see the true horizon, and since then she had been patiently watching for signs of fire. So far, there had been none.
When the first smell of smoke came they were sitting by their campfire, and no-one had noticed. Gabel stood first, looking over toward where a thin trickle of smoke had begun to wind its slow way up. The Scathac stood board-straight instantly, watching carefully as her breathing became heavier.
‘What is it?’ Rowan asked.
‘A signal,’ Sarai breathed, pulling up her mask and dropping her pack. ‘From my son, Isaac.’
‘He’s there?’ she asked, surprised.
‘He must be.’ Sarai turned immediately to the magus. ‘I have to go.’
‘I understand,’ he said with a nod. ‘Come back, if you wish. We’ll wait here until morning.’
‘I’ll be back before then,’ she promised and, nodded in parting, leapt panther-like into the trees and vanished, barely upsetting the branches.
~
She tore her own route through the dense foliage. The rainforest never stood a chance; she cut through the branches like a ship’s bow cutting through foam. The trees barely knew she was there. By the time a large, flat leaf was torn loose and landed water-laden on the ground, she was already long gone.
There was more to the obelisk than there seemed from afar. It was situated in the centre of a cleared space in the forest, where the trees were much less dense and the ground rose gradually into a hill. Sarai quickly scaled this until she reached the pillar of vine-embroiled rock.
‘Isaac!’ she cried, voice muffled by the mask. ‘Isaac, where are you?’
There wasn’t a reply at first. She looked up and saw a fire spluttering out, dampened by the tension of the building storm. A sudden violent wind shook her.
‘Isaac
!’ she yelled again. Her call was split by lightning.
‘Sarai?’ said a quiet voice, from behind the rock. ‘Is that Sarai?’
A figure, crowned in a silver nimbus of starlight, stepped into view.
‘Johnmal?’ she said, moving closer. ‘Is it you?’
They rushed toward each other, and embraced.
~
Whilst Sarai had been running, another figure had been moving with equal speed in the opposite direction. He was lean and nimble, barely leaving footprints in the wet mud.
He had seen a second tendril of smoke, another fire – so close to the obelisk – and had instantly made his way toward it, leaving the signal fire to diminish. He stumbled into a clearing, where two men and a woman sat in a circle, warming themselves in silence underneath a fragile makeshift canopy.
The girl looked up, surprised, but said nothing. One of the men, the oldest-looking, saw him too, and said, ‘Hello! You must be Isaac.’
‘Who are you?’ said Isaac. ‘And why are you here? You’re close to danger here.’
‘We head toward it,’ mumbled the second man, from underneath his hat.
‘Your mother travels with us,’ said the first. ‘She has run to the signal to find you.’
‘What? My mother was here?’ asked Isaac. His eyes saw the clothes-parcel, and he picked it up.
~
Sarai pulled back from the embrace and looked up at the man. She had forgotten just how tall Johnmal was.
‘Is Isaac with you,’ she asked quickly, ‘is he safe?’
‘He’s fine,’ said Johnmal, shadowed from the light of the moon, his face an oily pit. ‘He’s okay. Sarai, it’s been so long.’
‘I know it,’ she said urgently, ‘but my son, is he with you? I must see him, Johnmal, my love.’
‘He’s not here.’
‘So where is he? Did he not set this fire? Did you not set him free?’
‘He’s around here, somewhere. I’ve been looking for him.’
The air felt close and suffocating. A second fork of dry lightning cut across the sky, illuminating a jagged reflective object secreted in Johnmal’s hand.
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