The Flesh Endures

by Cleo Cordell

  It was then that she heard the screams.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Karolan paced the floor of the laboratorium, his thoughts churning. A search of the house and immediate vicinity had yielded no sign of Garnetta. Romane had organized a group of men to search the forest, but they had returned when the light failed. This was the second night she had been missing.

  ‘Tell the household that my ward has sunk again into the morbidity of the body which brought her to me for protection and healing,’ he told Romane. ‘Let them think she’s wandering in the forest, out of her wits with a fever.’

  ‘Very well, my lord,’ Romane said, pursing his thin lips. ‘Might I be permitted to know the real reason for her disappearance?’

  ‘A man does not wish to speak of how he has been cuckolded by a wronged husband!’ Karolan said, wishing that he did not need to lie to his steward. ‘Suffice it to say that she has gone back to the brute. And after I gave her sanctuary!’

  Romane shook his head. ‘Aye, well. Who can understand the ways of women? She seemed like a fine wench too.’ He looked sideways at Karolan. ‘My lord? Nothing . . . untoward has happened to her, has it?’ He did not add, like the others, but the question was there in his eyes.

  ‘It has not,’ Karolan said, his voice deliberately sharp. ‘Was it not plain that I valued her highly? She came to no harm at my hands.’ At least, he thought, what she has gained is more than equal to what she has lost.

  ‘Forgive me,’ Romane said. ‘I know you held Garnetta in high regard. I’ll set the men to looking again at first light.’

  Karolan nodded absently. He wished now that he had told Garnetta everything and risked having her hate him. He imagined how she must have felt when she looked around the laboratorium and read the ledger. Seen through her innocent eyes, he was damned. He could not deny that many of his actions appeared to be indefensible. Useless to hope she would ever understand. She had not given him the chance to explain, but had fled from him in fear and disgust. He doubted whether she would want to set eyes on him again. He wondered what had shocked her the most, the revelations in the book, the jars with their testaments to his failure to reproduce, or the partially dissected corpse.

  He cursed his failure to consign the cadaver to the furnace, but he had been reluctant to destroy it when there were still things to learn from it. What a marvel it was that the world of inner man reflected the greater world of the cosmos. As above, so below. He had hoped that Garnetta would share his fascination. But how could she while she still clung to the remnants of her Christian faith? She believed in a Church which reserved the power of healing for itself, denying physicians their craft, proscribing desecration of the human body – held sacred as the image of Christ. Prayer and fasting were the remedies for illness. Burning or cutting of the living flesh was not permitted. How much more sinful was he, who examined the conformation of the human body for his own ends?

  He felt certain that Garnetta would, in time, be capable of radical new thought. To believe, like himself, that the progress of science was hindered by ignorance. But first she had to throw off the baggage of preconceived ideas. The signs that her intellect was sharpening, broadening, were there already. She had coped with the changes brought on by transmutation better than he had himself, but then, he had had no one to watch over him, no one to make the transition easier.

  He ran his fingers agitatedly through his hair. Such thoughts were futile now. The fates had conspired against him. Garnetta was wandering the countryside, frightened and alone. In the midst of his fear for her there was a note of anger. Her rejection, understandable though it was, wounded him deeply. He had shown her nothing but kindness, but she had chosen to discard him. Just a little more time and she would have understood that the gift he had given her was priceless.

  His straight black brows drew together in a frown. If he could find her, she might yet be persuaded to listen. But how was he to bring her back to the tower when she knew him to be a murderer and believed him to be a myriad of other vile things?

  There was one way. As he gathered the things he would need to perform a finding ritual, he smiled bitterly to himself. One might detect the hand of God in the immediate events, except that he did not believe in the God of the Christians. Picking up a bowl formed from a single piece of obsidian he thought about how he had, in the past, cheated the fates, laughing in the face of the deity, whether God was called Jehovah, Yahweh, or any one of the ninety-nine names of Allah.

  From a wooden box he took a number of candles, dyed black and scented with a pungent sweet oil. With a piece of chalk he drew a circle on the floor of the laboratorium. He assembled the elements of earth, fire, air, and water within the circle – a set of wind-chimes, the lighted candle, a piece of crystal, and the bowl filled with water. Checking carefully that the five-pointed star he now drew was perfect in every detail, he nodded with satisfaction.

  The heavy, sweet scent of the burning candle rose into the air as Karolan stripped off his clothes and washed his body meticulously. When he was satisfied that he had purified his body, he stepped naked into the circle, settling himself in the centre of the star. He sat with a straight back, legs crossed, his hands clasped loosely in his lap. After speaking aloud the words which afforded him protection while travelling in the shadow realms, Karolan emptied his mind of all distractions and put himself into a light trance.

  His body felt weightless, his senses drugged by the sickly sweetness of the burning oil, but his mind was knife-edge sharp. The scene around him began to change. The air trembled and the light failed. Within the circle the candle flickered. A cold breeze stirred the long tresses of his black hair. It seemed that the walls of the laboratorium moved outwards, receding farther away until he was sitting in a pool of darkness. The inky blackness of the space-between was without confines. It pressed against his skin like warm wool, muffling his ears against all sound. Only the circle held back the abyss from swallowing him whole. He banished from his mind the thought that he was alone in the Nothing, an insubstantial human form seated on a circle of light.

  Gradually the black faded to grey. Dappled light licked at the edges of his vision. He was sitting under a canopy of trees. The sound of birdsong was sweet in his ears. The sharp odour of green things filled his nostrils. There were no landmarks. He could not tell how deep he was in the forest. Karolan looked around, using all his preternatural senses to try and detect a trace of Garnetta’s life signs. There was nothing. He frowned, his concentration wavering for a moment. Instantly the forest grew dim. The blackness began flowing towards him like an ink stain on the grass. With a great effort of will he locked himself more firmly into the trance, beads of sweat breaking out on his brow. The forest scene wavered, grew sharp again. Still he could detect nothing.

  Impossible. He had not developed masking skills for many months after his change, needing them rarely in any case. Only those of unusually keen intellect perceived his unnatural glamour and those were easily charmed or confused. It amazed him that Garnetta had become so adept. Refusing to admit defeat, he focused every last measure of concentration on probing for her mind-trail. There ought to be a scent left on the ether, like a slick of thin oil on water.

  Back in the laboratorium Karolan’s face took on a greenish tinge. Lines of strain appeared around his mouth. Sweat snaked down his face in rivulets, trickling from the point of his chin, dropping onto his clasped hands. His black hair was plastered to his skull, but still he held the trance.

  It was no use. He could not feel her. She was completely closed to him. The dismay he felt was almost his undoing. Emotion was a distraction he could not afford while engaged in a ritual. He began to shake. His body sagged, hunching protectively over his solar plexus. His clasped hands tightened until the knuckles showed through the skin. The energy began to flow out of him in ripples of light. The waiting darkness absorbed it greedily. A bone-deep coldness crept over him. In the mortal world he was not troubled by cold, but this was a coldness
of the ether, a draining of all life-force. This had never happened to him before. He had travelled the shadow realm many times, breaking through to other planes at will, but he had never been fearful in any way – until now.

  Facing up to the fear, pushing it down and out through the soles of his feet, he gathered his will. With almost his last measure of strength he straightened his back and felt a flicker of the inner fire within him. He concentrated on that one point of heat until it grew stronger, spreading upwards until it centred in the space between his eyebrows. The cold began to recede. The ripples of light reversed, beginning to flow back into him. Seven points on his body began to glow with a pale-rose light. He visualized himself as a white form, seven jewels – each a different colour – set at the convergence of energy channels. The area between his eyes felt hot, solid.

  It was tempting to end the ritual at once, but he knew that the formalities must be observed. There would be a heavy price to pay if a ritual was abandoned. Even he might not survive the damage to mind and body. Somehow he found the energy to retrace his steps and face the Nothing. The darkness was like a great maw, waiting to destroy him. In its suffocating embrace it would have been easy to lose his way. He had the sensation of spinning, then tumbling over and over, although he knew that he had not changed position. Grimly he held on, ignoring the illusion, willing himself to pass through the space-between, to enter the light.

  The place in the centre of his forehead pulsed, radiating a life-giving heat, but he was barely conscious by the time the laboratorium resolved itself into matter around him. With a cry of agony he fell sideways and lay curled into a ball. After a while the pain receded to a bearable ache. He flexed his limbs, wincing at the tingling, but found that he could move his arms and legs. Coughing and retching, his lungs working like bellows, he raised his head to see the form of the Fetch at the edge of the circle. Unable to enter, it was flitting back and forth, its ragged shadow form undulating with colours of distress. The spirit’s attenuated limbs stuck out at angles. Its movements were disjointed, unarticulated.

  It was a moment before Karolan had himself completely under control. Slowly he stood up, said the words of completion, and left the chalk circle. Instantly, with horrible glee, the Fetch loomed close, unable to resist the opportunity to bathe in the emanations of his distress. Yet, as if it sensed that there was something different about him, it held off from actually coming into contact with his aura.

  Shivering Karolan pulled on tunic and hosen, then sat on the stool next to his workbench. He ran his fingers through his drenched hair, smoothing it back from his pale forehead. His hands were still trembling. The Fetch hovered nearby, whispering and bleating in consternation.

  ‘I fear, Master. You taste weak,’ it said. ‘Bitter is your scent to me. Why so?’

  ‘You may well feel fear,’ Karolan said dryly. ‘I almost destroyed us both. I was nearly lost in the space-between.’

  ‘Must not risk yourself, Master,’ the spirit whimpered, the violet-brown streaks within its form fading to a more subdued rose. ‘Precious you are to me.’

  Karolan managed a grin at this declaration. The Fetch cared only for its own survival, but this was the nearest it had ever come to showing him true affection. Despite the fact that its words were redolent with self-absorption he felt an unwilling surge of warmth for it. It could not help its nature, any more than he could help being what he was.

  ‘We’ve lost Garnetta,’ Karolan said tiredly. ‘I can feel no trace of her. She could be anywhere by now. I have no fear for her safety. Indeed I pity anyone who tries to do her ill, but it might be weeks before I find her.’

  ‘Lost? Cannot be! I have not tasted, smelt, enjoyed her.’ The spirit made a sound between a sob and a groan. ‘Oh, too, too bad. I yearn. Hunger do I.’

  Karolan raised his head, ignoring the Fetch’s distracted mutterings. At least Garnetta was spared its incessant attentions. He had done right to keep the spirit from manifesting itself to her. ‘The fault is mine,’ he said. ‘I ought to have foreseen something like this, but I was seduced by her innocence and beauty.’

  Having once lain with her, he had become a prisoner of his own senses. Ah, that at least, he could never regret. A thought came to him. Of course. It was the only way. He would have seen the solution at once if he had not been so exhausted by the ritual.

  ‘You must find her,’ he said to the hovering spirit. ‘I release you from the binding spell. Go after her. She does not know of your existence, so is not armed against you. Keep your distance then she may not detect your presence. Find her, establish where she is going, and report back to me. But I charge you to hold off with your tricks. If you terrify her out of her wits with your promises and demands you may tip her over the edge of sanity. And then! . . . I don’t know if even I could bring her back.’

  A soft golden light began to glow within the stretchy fibres of the Fetch’s form. The momentary terror of sensing its master’s weakness faded. It pulsed with eagerness, consumed by the desire to seek and find the female which it desired with a rampant lust. The infusion of womanly energy which it had taken from Garnetta during the transmutation had given it a new focus for its greed and certain strengths. Strengths which Karolan had so far underestimated.

  Where before it had been bound solely by its master’s demands, now it had a limited capacity for independent action. It stretched out its thin limbs as if luxuriating in the sulphur-tainted air of the laboratorium. The fabric of its spirit-form oozed, spreading on the air. For a moment only it formed itself into the remembered shape of the female.

  Garnetta. How beautiful, how desirable, was she. In contrast to his handsome master, she was soft and rounded of limb. Her perfume was sublime – her skin like milk-of-almonds, her hair like warm hay. The shadowed recesses of her body were rich with a world of tastes and scents – musk, blood, the meat-rich smell of her body’s wastes. It wanted to bathe in them all. Nothing was abhorrent to it. Its greed for sensation, for a fleeting experience of consciousness inside a female form, was all-encompassing.

  The memory of being inside Garnetta’s body was exquisite. Squeezed and confined inside the envelope of skin, subsumed beneath the pulsing life of her tissue, it had known the ecstasy of the living flesh. For an instant it had looked out through the eyes and seen another world. A world of depth, colour, possibilities. And it wanted more, more. It ached to become human – even for a few minutes. For that, it would dare anything, even the wrath of its master. The vague shadow-form undulated, seething with excitement. The representation of Garnetta’s face and slender body hovered in the air before dissolving back into the amorphous mass of shadows and light, which was the spirit’s shape in the physical world.

  ‘It shall be as you order, Master,’ the Fetch said. ‘Find her will I.’ And its voice was sibilant with hidden promise and self-serving need.

  Clem struggled against the men who held him, but he was no match for them. He was barely ten years old and they were hardened fighting men, mercenaries who, like so many others, had turned to brigandage when the warlord who had engaged them could no longer pay them for their services.

  Tears pricked his eyes. Snot ran down into his mouth. Iron hard fingers dug into his thin limbs. Clem screamed again, weeping with fear and pain as they dragged him through the trees towards the blazing fire. His screams sounded small, lost in the great forest. That frightened him most of all. No one could hear him. No one would know when he died. The smell of his soiled hosen rose up pungently around him. The shame curdled in his belly. But the shame was not for the fact that his bowels had loosened with his terror, it was because he knew that he would tell them what they wanted to know.

  The bigger of the two men gave his arm a vicious twist. Clem’s scream dissolved into a kind of yelp. Bile rushed into his throat. He thought he might faint. He prayed that he would do so, hoping for a mercifully painless end, but he remained stubbornly conscious.

  ‘Bring the scrap here. The iron, she is ready,’
said Gille de Peyrac, his speech accented by his Norman roots.

  He was the acknowledged leader of the band. A man of middle height, he wore a rusty iron breast-plate over a tunic so encrusted with dirt that no trace of the original colour remained. His face was small featured, pleasant, except for his eyes which were as expressionless as light-green stones.

  The man holding Clem’s arm chuckled. ‘Won’t need more’n a touch of heat to this tender young porker before he’ll squeal, eh, Edwin?’

  His companion nodded, concentrating on keeping their wriggling captive on his feet. A rugged-featured man, Edwin had been a farmer who had become a mercenary when his farm was razed by bandits and his wife and children killed. He took no pleasure in killing, merely doing whatever was necessary to get a job done. It seemed to Edwin that it would not be necessary to torture the boy who looked half-dead from fright and willing to tell them everything they wanted to know. But he knew that Barnabas and Gille would not deny themselves the pleasure of a blood-letting; it had been too long since they fought in battle. Of all the ragged band, those two most missed the sport of killing.

  The other men lay around the fire chatting companionably or cleaning weapons. Later, when the boy had told them where his village was, they would rouse themselves to the attack. Then there would be sport enough for everyone.

  ‘Don’t ’urt me, sires. I beg you!’ Clem sobbed, his voice breaking on a high note.

  ‘Oh, we won’t hurt you, child,’ Gille said, his sculpted lips curving in a smile that did not reach his eyes. ‘Just tell us all that we wish to know. Then you will be free to go.’ The tone of his voice belied his words.

  ‘Oh, aye! Of a surety you will,’ Barnabas sneered, giving the boy a shake and kicking out at the embers with a nailed boot so that a shower of sparks rose up into the air.

  Clem, dumped on the ground, fell awkwardly onto his hipbone. The pain lanced through him, but he had no breath left to cry out. The one who was the leader, the pretty one wearing armour, knelt beside him.