by Coral Walker
For a long while Jack went quiet as if the thought of the arena upset him.
+++
The room went quiet after Putu and the maid left. There were now only him and Cici.
And him!
Cici looked tired. Her hair was unbound, cascading down loosely like a wild waterfall. She bent over to untie his arms and clasped her face in the hollows of his palms while gazing tenderly into his half-opened eyes.
Behind the inert eyes, he was awake and alert and gazed back at her.
She was that girl again, the one he had laughed with just yesterday.
— So you liked her.
Jack’s voice sounded rather aggressive — he didn’t seem to like her. But why should he be bothered about that? She was looking at him, not him.
A sudden longing took hold of him. He felt like touching her, caressing her skin and stroking her hair. But his hands, along with the body, torpid as they were, were beyond his command. He sat frustrated, but then a sudden thought occurred to him — it was not his body, but his. How could he allow a hand other than his to touch her?
She took a hand and kissed it. A teardrop fell onto the palm. He felt it.
“How I missed you, Ornardo,” she sobbed, eyes watering like a pond full to the rim. “Can you hear me? I tried so hard to get you back. So many times, so many bodies. None of them worked until this time.”
Jack was right. He was DEAD.
He dispassionately decoded the message. For the next few seconds he strived to stay that way, cool and unaffected, but the message gathered weight every second in his conscious mind.
The cruelty of seeing her fresh and alive, while knowing himself to be dead, was too cruel to take. He felt an overwhelming urge to escape, to hide, and to keep her out of his sight!
He commanded the eyes to shut. Nothing happened except for a flicker of an eyelid.
“You heard me.” Her face lit up as she caught the flicker and with renewed affection turned back to look into his eyes. “I wanted to tell you what happened after our picnic.”
She paused, gathering her thoughts, and when she started again, her voice was slow and heavy, and her eyes fixed on some mystical place beyond him.
“It was all quite unclear. I remember I had a bad headache, but I don’t know what happened afterwards. I must have had some kind of fainting fit.”
She gave a nervous giggle and continued, “When I woke up it was already dark. I was lying by the stream in the woods where we used to play hide-and-seek. I didn’t know how I got there. But then I started to run. I wanted to get back to you as soon as I could.”
She stopped, eyes darkening as her face grew tense.
“I ran all the way up the hill to where the Charleea tree was. The whole house, your house, was ablaze. It lit up the whole sky, as bright as day, as red as blood. I ran down the hill, calling your name. The fire was intense, but I wanted to plunge in and search for you. Putu grabbed me and kept hold of me no matter how much I screamed and struggled.”
“The fire didn’t go out until dawn broke. Men came to search for bodies. They found many. You were among them, in the well.” She swallowed hard, and tears started rolling down her cheeks.
“It was too late, and I couldn’t revive you, no matter how I tried. You had gone. I cried and cried and then I thought. ‘There’s no use crying. A fresh soul will stay around its body for three days. I might just try and find it.’ I knew the method but had never tried it before. I wandered around the place for three days. I came across you a few times but couldn’t coax you into the Guttle — the soul keeper that I got from father. Just before the end of the third day, when I was about to give up, I met you again by the Charleea tree. Perhaps because it was your favourite place, this time you were acquiescent. I took your soul and have kept it ever since.”
“They counted the bodies. Your father and mother were among those who perished. All the bodies bore similar injuries, consistent with a ferocious bokwa attack. It was concluded that the attack took place first and at some stage an oil lamp was accidentally knocked over, which set off the fire. As for you, the only one found outside the house, they discovered that you had suffered a severe neck wound and deduced that you, too, were attacked by a bokwa, a large one judging by the size of the bite. You must have managed to get free somehow, but, unfortunately, fell into the well and drowned.”
There was a long pause.
“They found Lizi, alive, but badly wounded. She recovered physically but —” she stopped all of a sudden, and her face winced as she tried to force a smile.
“It was funny you thought it was just yesterday. But it has been five years — five long years. Every day of those five years, I felt so alone, so afraid that I might never see you again. It was driving me mad.”
A knock on the door gave her a fright, and instantly she leaped to her feet, dabbing her eyes with a handkerchief.
Dilea’s round face peeked in, apologetic for her interruption. “Prince Mapolos is waiting in the drawing room my Lady,” she said, and as quick as a mouse she disappeared again behind the door.
Once the door was shut, Cici drew herself back to him, her chest rising and falling rapidly. “I must go,” she whispered into his ear, “but I want you to know that I want to be with you forever, no matter what. We can leave this place, go to a new place, perhaps a different planet.” She paused, eyes shining and cheeks glowing.
“I know he’s still in the body, Jack, isn’t he? I hope he doesn’t trouble you too much. Did you know that — he was the same age as you were, and you two looked so much alike?”
Her voice became more hushed, almost inaudible. “I’m going to get rid of him, and then the body will be all yours. I know a way of doing it. I just need to find the right thing. Be patient and wait for me.”
She stood up abruptly, gave him a sad but determined look and strode out of the room.
He was plunging down already, endlessly into a dark hole. The fate of his family seeped into his consciousness like a spreading poison. He no longer resisted but let himself fall.
The words Cici had whispered into his ear before her sudden departure were rippling the air around him like gusts of wind. He, still as a corpse, was unaffected. But he smelt it, the detestable, foul smell of death — his carcass, their carcasses, his father and mother’s carcasses, rancid and long decayed. He was part of the smell, for he belonged to it, much as he belonged to the dark, maggoty hole below. Down he fell. Perhaps at the end of the fall he could meet them again.
+++
Cici scuttled past the drawing room, crossed the empty hall, and soon was in the narrow corridor heading towards the back stairs. She broke into a run. In a short while she would be in her tight-fitting riding gear, galloping down the narrow path leading to Deadman’s Cross, leaving Prince Mapolos waiting in vain. He would be enraged at her. So what? Every blood sucking sustained him for five days, and it was just three days since last time.
At that time of day, when the sun was setting and the kitchen was bustling, the long corridor upstairs was quiet and deserted — perfect for getting away without being noticed.
There seemed to be a rustle from the direction of the stairs near the library. She dismissed it as some scurrying mouse, but when she strode past, instinctively, she glimpsed into the shadows to check it out.
In the shaded corner behind the stair, a large rodent lay dead on its back with a ghastly neck wound that had almost detached its head from its torso. The blood was still fresh, so it hadn’t been dead for long. What could have killed it?
The library door behind was ajar. She frowned, thinking of having a word with Mr Smalloop. It couldn’t be father, who had left before dawn for the New Temple of Justice and wouldn’t return until after twilight. The library door should never be left unlatched — Father was most scrupulous about it.
She took a step forward, her hand on the gold-plated knob to draw it shut.
The door jerked away from her unexpectedly, hauling her with it. Inst
antly a shadow leaped out from behind the door and threw itself upon her. It wrapped its arms around her and shoved her to the floor. Giving out a sharp scream, she wrestled frantically to rid herself of the assailant. But the shadow was far too strong for her, and in a flash she was pinned helplessly to the floor, panting and shaking.
Heaping his hefty body on top of her, Prince Mapolos grinned at her from ear to ear.
“How dare you!” she snarled, wriggling again.
“Wasn’t that fun, Cici?” He looked at her, amused. “See how shocked you were. Don’t look at me like that. I am doing you a favour, aren’t I? Instead of ordering you to provide yourself like a piece of meat, I am hunting you like you were an equal.”
Hand clenching into a fist, Cici punched him in the face.
“As angry as a bokwa — I like that!” He giggled, caught her swinging fist with one hand and rubbed his face with the other.
Cici struck again with her free hand, but he was much faster and seized her flying fist with ease. Both her hands now in his grip, he gave them playful squeezes and tweaks before turning these suddenly into hurtful pinches and twists. Not expecting this, Cici flinched with pain and cried, “You’re hurting me!”
“Hurting you? Cici, how could I ever hurt you?” He gave a dry laugh and stopped his attack. But instead of letting go of her hands he pinioned them both onto the floor above her head. As he did so, his face was lowered so it almost touched hers. With his mouth right above her nose, the rank smell of his breath was suffocating her — how she hated it. She had once thought that if she smelt it often enough, no matter how horrible it was, she might eventually get used to it. But it had never ceased to be repellent to her. Each time was as horrid as the first, and she was just as shocked and revolted as she had ever been.
“Dad, I did it. I don’t like it. He smells, and it hurts. Can I not do it again?”
“You will get used to it, my darling. You will.”
Why should Prince Mapolos, the crippled one of the two princes, win her father’s heart and soul? Why should he sacrifice his only daughter to save him?
At the peak of her rebellion, she would hide in the woods near Ornardo’s house, where she had met Ornardo for the first time, and was kept alive by the food Ornardo brought her, stolen from his own kitchen.
Father was angry. He raised his fists and threatened to dig her dead mother out of her tomb to show her how disobedient her daughter was. It sounded frightening, but in secret, she thought it might not be a bad thing. Her mother, who had died giving birth to her, to her was no more than a heap of red soil with a large tomb and a temple behind. To have a glimpse of her, to touch her, even just her skeleton, was more than she could ever hope for.
But there was Ornardo, real and alive, living on the other side of the woods. Putu had found her when they were paddling in the stream catching fish. Putu saw him. If Putu saw him, father saw him too. It was never openly agreed, but it became established tacitly. Father seemed to turn a blind eye and allow her to grow wilder by roaming the woods, as long as she was available when she was needed.
As she was now.
His nose brushed her forehead, sniffing. The grinning face was tightening now into a hideous smile, haughty and devilish — the smile of a predator.
Almost right in front of her eyes, the mouth opened wide, exposing long sharp fangs. She clenched her hands. The next instant she felt the jab, at the same place, on the same red scar, hidden behind her long hair. There was a sensation of bewilderment. She unclenched her fists, feeling the growing lightness of her body, the blood flowing under her skin and its vigorous sound, the sound of a stream.
She seemed again to be with Ornardo, lying lazily by the side of the stream, whispering to each other using their minds through the whispering of the stream.
Time no longer existed, neither did the pain.
It irked her when the whispering of the stream stopped suddenly. Her neck arched up and then dropped back softly as the fangs were withdrawn.
Footsteps, the sound of a door shutting — he was gone.
Shaking, she scrambled to her knees. A fresh drop of blood caught her eye. Nauseated, she curled up as her stomach turned. Between spells of shivering, she felt a sense of burning growing deep inside. It spread rapidly, taking hold of her in a flash, convulsing her in agony, and threatening to turn her inside out. A jug of water stood on the edge of the sturdy desk. In desperation to quench the sense of burning, she reached for it, hands clutching the chair as she leaned forward. The chair tumbled over under her hands.
That was the last thing she remembered.
8
Dilea
“Did you see that Jack?”
— What?
“The big bokwa.”
Jack grumbled in the darkness. What could you do in a cage of darkness? Perhaps being shackled in the arena, facing those bokwas wasn't that bad — at least, he was himself, and if he died, he died as a whole being.
A sense of fear gripped him. He dismissed it — it wasn’t coming from him.
The body started shivering.
— Is that all you can do with my body, shiver?
“The bokwa. It is coming towards us.”
US? He grinned at the term. It was a funny way to refer to oneself. OK, bokwa. He centred his mind on what Ornardo had just said and thought of the slithering bodies of snakelike beasts with claws that filled Death Canyon.
“But this one is much bigger.”
— Bigger than what? You haven’t seen the ones I’ve seen.
“I saw them, like a picture in my mind. It’s Death Canyon, isn’t it?”
— Damn that's not fair. You can see my mind, but I can’t see anything!
“It’s coming. It’s slithering up the chair now. Help me! Can you move the legs?”
— Move the legs? Why? I feel nothing, see nothing. Why should I be bothered? Scream if you like. Think about it, you’re only a soul from a small bottle. What were you doing there for all those years? Doesn’t this make you more alive? Scream more if you like. I just can’t do anything if I can’t feel it or see it.
The body was shivering again, and this time it was violent.
“It’s ... strangling ... me.”
Jack pictured an image of himself being strangled by a bokwa, wondering how disconnected he was, as if he were held in a box separate from the rest of his body.
But all of a sudden, as if the box that constrained him had split open and its air been sucked out, he felt it, the strangling sensation around his neck, the suffocating, and the pressure on his chest that seemed to burst him open.
Cold beams of light poured in through the opened box. Against the dazzling brightness, he saw the flashing image of the bloody red interior of a bokwa’s mouth with its teeth bared.
He jerked upwards, hands clutching at the neck of the bokwa. The next instant, he fell to the ground, rolled and wrestled to no avail, while the body of the giant beast coiled around his torso and strengthened its grip.
The door swung open, and immediately there was the sound of Dilea screaming, followed by rapid footsteps. Putu was among the few men that answered the call. He uttered a sequence of humming sounds, interlaced with some strange squawks that emanated from his broad chest. At these sounds the bokwa loosed its prey and slithered furtively aside.
Putu picked it up, cradling it in his arms like a baby, and walked outside.
+++
“My goodness, Jack? What a funny colour your face is.” But then she realised — “I do apologise, sir, this is not him anymore. Sir Ornardo, isn’t it?” She sounded a little unsure.
The images Jack saw were no longer flashing and shaking, but had settled down to a stable window with ill-defined edges. Through this window he saw her plump blue face with her fluffy dark hair shaking as she panted heavily.
The strips that bound the legs had been partially dislodged during the struggle, leaving the legs tangled with the legs of the chair. With the body awkwardly positioned,
he was confused and disoriented, like an awkward amateur puppet player manipulating a tangled puppet. He tried, but the more he tried, the more tangled the legs became.
“Would you just stop, sir?” Dilea ordered and stooped down to help him. As soon as her upper body bent, her face winced, and her hands went to her bulging stomach.
“Will the birth be soon?” It was Ornardo talking.
It was strange, Jack thought, that the voice, although from the same throat, should sound so remote and un-Jack-like.
He wondered where he was now — curling up in the back corner of the mind, sensing the outside world through a small frame and a shabby speaker at low volume? How strange to think that, for all those years, he had a body but knew so little about it.
Why should he be bothered with how uncomfortable he was? There was no longer a Jack on the outside, and all his actions were to be seen as those of Ornardo, the rich man’s son.
The maid squatted herself down and started groaning.
“Is the birth coming soon?” Ornardo spoke again.
“God forbid! I'm not even pregnant,” she said indignantly.
“I’ve heard of some women who were pregnant without knowing it,” Ornardo persisted.
“That will never happen to me, sir! I’ve always kept my room locked,” she said indignantly but then frowned. “Except once, I was attacked by a large bokwa just like the one that attacked you. It was when I was asleep, and it was strange that it didn’t wake me sooner. It was such a shock when I woke up, so I screamed like hell. It slipped off me and vanished, just like that.” She exhaled and gave way to a tight smile. “I must just have got fat from eating all the leftovers from the meals and got indigestion.”
The recollection worked magically in taking her mind off the pain, and now she had recovered from her discomfort, except her face was still flushed from the indignity.
“Forget my tummy. There are plenty of other things to worry yourself about, sir. Look at yourself, you can't even move properly. What am I going to do with you? I shall just leave you there to sort things out yourself.”