by Darren Shan
“Much up here”—he taps the side of his head—“is darkness. My memories are elusive. I know you are my son, my firstborn, but I cannot recall your mother or watching you grow. I have flashes of us ten years ago, working as a team, but I do not remember how our paths crossed or the common goal we pursued.”
“You don’t remember Bill Casey?” I ask quietly.
He frowns. “In dreams, sometimes, I think that name, but I do not know why. Who is he?”
“A police officer.”
“An adversary of mine? A man I killed or who tried to kill me?”
I shake my head wordlessly. I want to think he’s playing with me, but I see in his eyes that he’s not. He really doesn’t know.
“We’ll return to Bill,” I mutter, praying for calm. This is a surreal encounter and it would be easy to run mad in the face of it. I have to remain lucid and take it on its own terms. “Tell me about yourself… the last ten years… what happened.”
“That is a long story.”
“We have time.”
“Yes. More than you could imagine. At least I have.” He strokes his snakes the way I’ve so often stroked mine since having the tattoos. “Ten years ago I died. My last minutes are clear in my mind. You were with me at Party Central. I wanted to stop The Cardinal killing himself, because I knew that my life was bound with his. He created me. When he died, I would perish with him.
“I tried to stop him jumping but I was powerless. He leaped. A green mist enveloped me. I had a sense of the world fading, then nothing. I was dead.”
His eyes cloud over with anger and confusion.
“Did you kidnap Raimi?” I ask, getting ahead of myself but keen to know.
The killer shakes his head. “The priests were clear on that point—I was never to harm the new Cardinal. The punishment if I disobeyed was death.”
“I thought you could bounce back from death.”
“As I said, I can be brought back, but only by the villacs. If they choose not to resurrect me, I face real, final death. While I do not fear my end—I have always regarded death as a lover, not an enemy—I am in no rush to embrace it.”
“Tell me more about the resurrection process. How do they bring you back? Is it painful? How much do you remember of the past?”
His eyes are cold. “It is seven or eight years since I was first revived. I have no memories of the months before that—death is nothingness. I woke in darkness. At the time I remembered no previous life. I screamed like a newborn, instinctively aware that I should not be. A light entered my world. I saw men in white robes, with white eyes. They probed my face with their fingers. I was tied down but I struggled with my bonds and broke free. I killed three of them. As I pursued the fourth, green mist obscured my vision and I returned to nothingness.
“Some months later they brought me back again. This time I had memories. I was also more expertly chained. Through an interpreter, a priest said they would release me, but if I disobeyed their orders, they would undo my form as they had before.
“I gave my word that I would behave. The priest and some of his companions took me on a tour of these tunnels. He said they were recruiting an army, warriors who would model themselves after my legendary example. The villacs wanted me to work with them and act as a totemic leader. He promised untold riches and opportunities if I cooperated.
“Being a levelheaded man, I heard him out. When he was done, I strangled him and a few of the others, took one hostage and went in search of a route to the surface. Within minutes the green haze enveloped me again. I could only scream as my body unraveled and emptiness reclaimed me.”
Wami goes quiet. His left hand is clenched tight. The knuckles are almost white with tension. “Existence is a prison as conceived by the priests,” he snarls. “I live by their terms, obedient to their whims. Can you imagine how demeaning that is?”
“My heart bleeds for you,” I sneer, thinking of all the innocents he killed, finding it impossible to pity him.
He glares at me, lips lifting over his teeth. “I suppose you think this is a fitting end for your dear ol’ pappy.”
“Actually, yes.”
He grins menacingly. “But you rejoice too soon—it is not the end, only a beginning. The third time I returned, I knew I could not fight the priests. I did as they bid and spoke to their recruits, promising them the city. I let them kill me in front of the young men and women, to kindle a superstitious awe within them.
“I was not kept alive all the time. Months would pass when they had no need of me. During such times I was left to rot in limbo. I feared such periods, afraid they would not bring me back, but there was no point arguing, so I accepted my lot and waited for better times. Those times are almost here.”
He crosses the room and crouches beside me. Squeezes my knee, green eyes fierce in the dim light. “They have promised me freedom. A few more months and I can roam the world as I used to. I must return to mortality—there will be no further resurrections—but I will be free to live and kill in the time I have left.”
“You trust the villacs?”
“Of course not,” he snaps, “but in this instance they will honor their word. They have sworn on their blood and that is sacred to them. If all goes well and you do as they say, I will be—”
“Wait a minute,” I stop him. “What do I have to do with this? I have no interest in seeing you back on the streets. Fuck family ties. I’d rather see you dead than free to take more lives.”
“Al, m’boy,” he moans theatrically, “why do you say such horrible things to me? Don’t you know I love you? You’re breaking my heart.”
“Bullshit,” I sniff. “Now tell me what I’m supposed to do and how I can help earn your freedom.”
Wami’s eyes narrow. “I do not recollect you being this disrespectful.”
“Ten years ago I needed you but I never felt anything for you other than revulsion. You knew that then—it amused you—and I’m sure you know it now. So quit with the indignant act and give it to me straight.”
“Very well,” Wami sniffs. “The villacs want you to…”
The door to the room opens and a blind priest enters, clasping a curved dagger to his chest. Hatred springs to the surface within me and I dive for him, meaning to take the knife and slit his gut. My father holds me back with a powerful hand and shakes his head.
“Sit, Al m’boy, or I shall take my belt to you.”
“You might have to bow and scrape to these bastards,” I spit in reply, “but I don’t. Let me go or I’ll—”
“I throttled you once today,” he says sternly. “I will do so again if I must.”
The calm menace in his voice brings me to a halt. I haven’t feared anyone these last ten years. But faced with the man I’ve spent so long mimicking, I’m reminded how much wilder and sharper he is. I did a great impression of him, but this is the real thing. He’s fiercer than I could ever hope to be. Crossing him would be foolish. Dropping back onto the bed, I glare at my father as he faces the priest, but make no move to interfere.
“Welcome, O wise and blind-as-fuck Great One,” Wami greets his visitor. His mocking words are tinged with tension. Death must be truly terrible if the threat of it can cause Paucar Wami to tremble. The villac says nothing, but holds out the knife. The killer takes it obediently. “Who would you have me kill, O fashion-retarded lord?” The priest smiles thinly at Wami’s jest, then points to the killer’s chest. Wami’s lips tighten. “No.”
The villac barks something in his foreign tongue and points at Wami’s chest again. The assassin grimaces and looks at me. “See the shit I have to put up with?” he sighs, then presses the tip of the dagger to a point below his heart and drives it home to the hilt, its curved blade slicing upward as it enters. He gasps with pain, drops to the floor, convulses… and dies.
As my father’s chest subsides and the light fades from his eyes, the villac steps forward and toes the corpse’s head to one side, so his eyes are facing away. “That man can
be an awful irritation,” he says in perfect English, “but he knows how to kill himself with style.”
The priest’s simple words astonish me more than my father’s suicide. “You can talk!” I gasp stupidly.
“We could always talk,” he replies. “We just never bothered to learn your language—your words are bitter to our tongues. But times change and we have rethought many of our ways since the passing of the last Watana. Most still cling to the language of our fathers, but some have learned to speak as you do.”
As I stare at the villac, lost for words, my father’s corpse shimmies and turns to green fog, as Ama Situwa’s did in the Manco Capac statue. Within moments it’s a cloud of glittering particles, which slowly disperses in the air.
“Paucar Wami returns to nothingness,” the priest laughs cruelly. “He dreads the emptiness of the beyond, but this time his stay will be short. We will bring him back soon.”
“How?” I ask.
The villac taps his nose. “That would be telling. Come.” He pushes the door open. “There are people you must meet.”
I start to follow him, then stare at the spot where Wami disappeared and stop. “Why did you make him kill himself?”
“You miss him?” the priest enquires slyly.
“I just want to know.”
The villac shrugs. “Partly to prove that we have the power of life over death. You know that by now, but knowing and believing are different things. We need to be certain you have no doubts. But also it was practical. Wami thinks we can only speak Incan. If he knew better, he might torture one of us for information.”
“You’re afraid he can hurt you?”
“No, but he can inconvenience us.” The villac taps a foot, sightless eyes as steady as ever. “Come. Time is passing. Your children await.”
I don’t know what he means, but there’s nothing to be gained by defying him. Suppressing my questions, I follow the blind priest into the corridor of skulls, closing the door on one section of the bewildering puzzle and subjecting myself to the myriad mysteries of another.
3
a destiny
The villac leads me through a series of long, twisting tunnels, back toward the giant cavern with the monstrous inti watana stone. Many of the tunnels are lit—for the benefit of the Snakes, I presume—and I seize the opportunity to study the villac’s featureless face, extremely pale skin, light brown hair and delicate hands.
“What’s your name?” I ask.
“I have none,” he answers. “I am a servant of Inti, and he requires no names. He recognizes his sons by the burning fires of their souls.”
“Inti? Oh yeah, the god of the sun.”
He stops and his empty eyes narrow slightly. “You do not believe?”
“No. In this day and age I’m surprised to find anyone who does.”
The priest smiles. “If our powers are not god-given, how else do you explain us bringing the dead back to life?”
He starts walking again. I follow silently, unable to think of a reply.
As we draw closer to the cavern, I hear many people muttering, whispering and shuffling. I slow down. “Come,” the priest encourages me. “There is nothing to be afraid of. We will not harm you.”
“That’s not what worries me.” I nod in the direction of the voices—I keep forgetting he can’t see—and say, “That sounds like the Snakes.”
“Of course.”
“I thought we might be going to meet Capac Raimi,” I test him.
To my surprise he answers directly. “Not yet. You aren’t ready to take your place by his side. When you are, we will introduce you.”
“You have him?”
“Yes. Now come. Your children are restless. We must not keep them waiting.”
Letting the Raimi confirmation slide, I follow the priest to an opening in the side of the huge cavern, where I stand, hidden in shadows, observing the scene below. The cavern’s crowded, yet nowhere near full, with the hundreds of young men and women of the Snakes. All seven triumvirates must be here. The men outnumber the women by roughly fifteen to one and there are even more blacks to whites. All are bald and tattooed, clad in T-shirts and jeans, except for the Cobras, who also sport leather jackets.
The Snakes are lined up in ranks behind the giant inti watana stone, on which stands a lone villac, head bowed, three buckets at his feet. The troops are standing to attention, but slackly. Many talk softly and shuffle on the spot. The Cobras patrol the ranks, admonishing those who get out of order but allowing the softer murmurs and shuffling to continue.
I step back from the ledge, troubled. “What are they waiting for?”
“Their leader,” the priest replies. “They worship him, but he appears rarely, preferring to work through us. They’ve been told he is to address them today.”
“They’re waiting for Wami?”
“Yes.”
“You can resurrect him this swiftly?”
“No. Mama Ocllo works fast, but not that fast.”
“Who the hell’s Mama…?” I stop, eyes widening. “You want me to face them.”
The priest smiles. “You’re sharp, Flesh of Dreams. Yes, we wish you to play your father here, as you have above.”
“No,” I snap. “I won’t.”
I don’t know why I react so violently. I’m always inclined to say no to any proposal of the villacs, but it’s not just that. I sense a trap.
“They will be disappointed if their leader does not show,” the priest demurs.
“Like I give a fuck.”
“You should. The Snakes are only important to us because of you. If you show no interest in them, we will dispense with their service. That would necessitate elimination. We’d introduce some fatal, fast-working poison to their food.”
“You’d slaughter your own soldiers?” I snort.
“But they’re not ours. They’re Paucar Wami’s.”
“You’d do it too,” I growl disgustedly. “Murder them at their dinner table and leave them to rot.”
“We do what we must,” the villac says pompously.
I shrug. “So kill them. What do I have to lose?”
“Some friends,” the priest purrs, “and many brothers and sisters.”
“Brothers and sisters my ass. Just because most are the same color as me, it doesn’t…” I grimace. “You’re not talking figuratively, are you?”
“Forty are of your blood. We reaped the harvest of Paucar Wami’s bastards, drawing all that we could. They don’t know he sired them. We recruited them the same as the others and treat them no differently.”
I stumble back to the opening and gaze upon the massed ranks. With their shaven heads, tattoos and uniforms, they could all be his children, even the paler members—Wami chose white women as well as black.
“What makes you think I care about half siblings I’ve never met?” I ask gruffly.
“Ties of blood are usually impossible to ignore.”
“You won’t kill them,” I challenge him. “If I don’t play along with your plans, you’ll have to turn to another of Wami’s children. You won’t kill those you need.”
“But we don’t need them,” he retorts. “We have already chosen our alternatives in case you fail us. Those few will be spared. All others are expendable.”
I breathe in deeply, silently cursing the villacs and their knack for getting under my skin. First they use Raimi and Bill to draw me in. Now they introduce me to forty of my closest relatives and tell me they’ll be executed like vermin if I don’t toe the line. I hate these white-eyed dogs, but I can’t help but admire their cunning.
“What do you want?” I sigh, as if they’ve called my bluff. In fact they haven’t. As loath as I am to let these kids die, I will sacrifice them if the priests demand too much of me. But I don’t want them to know that. Not yet.
“We want you to take your place on the inti watana when it is raised above the folds of the earth, and help us rule this city. But that’s a position you must come to v
oluntarily. For now we wish you merely to parade before the Snakes as their master.”
“I just have to pretend to be Wami, then I can go?”
“Yes.”
“If I do this, will you tell me where Capac Raimi is?”
“No.”
I don’t like it—I feel the walls of a trap closing in—but I decide to play along, to learn more about the Snakes and where they fit in with the priests’ plans.
Without making a performance of it, I slip off my wig and wipe the paint from my face with a handkerchief. Normally I use moisturizing lotions to remove it, but here I settle for spit. As I’m rubbing hard with the handkerchief, a second villac appears and hands me a T-shirt, leather jacket and jeans. I strip and put them on, then the first priest reaches into a pocket and produces a pair of green contacts.
“You think of everything, don’t you?” I snipe.
“We try,” he replies.
I sourly slip them in and the transformation is complete. Showtime!
A third villac is waiting for me in the cavern, with a microphone. “I won’t need that,” I wave him away.
“It is not so much to clarify as to disguise,” the English-speaking priest from the tunnels says. “Your father always addresses them this way. It muffles his words, as it will yours. Without that distortion, sharp ears might note the differences in your voices. This way we hope to—”
“—Cover your asses,” I finish for him.
He smiles stiffly. The priest with the mike attaches it to the neck of my T-shirt, the control box to my waistband, then reaches for my left ear.
“What’s he up to?” I scowl, slapping his hands away.
“A receiver, for instructions. We will tell you what to say.”
I let him fit the piece in my ear. As soon as it’s in place, a voice comes over it. “Testing, one-two, testing.”
“Who’s that?” I ask.
“One of our brothers,” the first villac replies. “Is it working?”
“Yes.”
“Then proceed. Words will be fed to you as and when you need them.”