The Vorrh tv-1

by B Catling

  * * *

  It had been seven years since the outrage, and now he was returning to London by public demand. He wondered if his machine was still there, gathering dust in those lonely rooms. He had packed the pistol and the key to find out.

  For the first time, Muybridge was getting tired of his long transatlantic shuffles. Each trip seemed to take a little longer. The jewels of the night sky and the luminous waves seemed dimmer and less appealing, and he spent more time in his claustrophobic cabin, planning and brooding about what might await him.

  He would anticipate the criticisms of those who constantly whinged about the ‘validity’ of his work, and rehearse for their unprovoked attacks. He had hounded his critics ruthlessly with his letters to the press. The ship rocked against his adversaries, and all who would disclaim him: the cowards who hid in the shadows and waited for the moment to belittle him; those who objected to his retouchings, his improvements on the original, slightly blurred pictures; the artless, who envied his talent with the brush and the lens. He would have them all, open them up from crotch to craw for such impertinence. Again the ship rocked, and he thought about those who had betrayed him or let him down. There were many, and in some ways they were worse than the obvious foes.

  He wondered why Gull had stopped writing to him. The last four letters had gone unacknowledged; not even the set of prints he had sent appeared to warrant a reply. The doctor may have been busy, but surely it wouldn’t have taken much to extend a common courtesy?

  * * *

  Essenwald had changed; Ishmael sensed it the moment he entered its outskirts. It had grown impatience out of its security, become frantic and hectic inside the dynamo of its industry. All this was worn in the air: the scent of qualm.

  Walking through the streets, he shaded his face from the crowd. He was not yet used to showing himself openly. His was still a face that caught glances, made strangers gawp, but no longer in abject horror. Their reaction was now rooted in something else, a compulsion he did not fully understand, though he recognised at least three of its components as surprise, curiosity and pity. Of the few who had seen him so far, none had run or cried out in shock; either they had searched for a deeper understanding or simply turned away. It was a transformation of wonderful importance, and it fuelled an excitement that bubbled and pumped inside him.

  In the five days it had taken him to reach the outskirts, he had used almost all of the money and food provided by Nebsuel on his departure. He thought about his ability to survive in a world that was so expensive. Previously, he had been sheltered from such realities; now, the mechanics of existence were dawning, and he found them baffling and rather crude.

  His instinct was to head for 4 Kühler Brunnen; at least there he would find a friendly face. He would be invited in and fed, even if it was by the sour old man, Mutter. A plan finally in mind, he began to stride through the tangle of streets with purpose and exhilaration.

  * * *

  A mild panic had begun to grip life in Essenwald. The established pulse of the city’s great heart of timber had fluttered and slowed, the supply of wood withering as the demand blocked the arteries with its swollen need. Since the Limboia had vanished, only a dribble of trees left the forest. The scant workforce that brought the wood out was expensive, and their labour was hasty and sporadic. No one wanted to work in the Vorrh day in and day out, and no amount of wages could pay for the devastating effect that such exposure produced. At first, the new work teams consisted of volunteers, collected from the industries that fed from the forest. This system quickly broke down, only to be replaced by foreign labour, lured there by rumours of rich payment. But it took no time for the outsiders to discover the city’s secret, and they added their own layers of myth to the brooding trees.

  Now the workforce consisted of a mixture of the desperate, the criminal and the insane, most of whom had been dragged into enforced labour. Nobody knew what effect might be produced by adding such a volatile mixture into the mind of the forest. It was a desperate measure, and the elders of the Timber Guild met daily to try and devise the next alternative. The old slave house became a hostel for the unstable, itinerant crew who now cut and ferried the trees: it was undeniably a place to be avoided and Marie Maclish had acquiesced to that understanding, taking the guild’s compensation and fleeing to raise her child in more stable lands.

  * * *

  Ishmael was lost. He had walked past the same garden four times in two hours, each time approaching it from a different direction. Eventually he stopped and looked for the spires of the cathedral to guide him home, but they could not be seen from the elegant streets he was walking through: he needed to get higher. He searched out a street that seemed to head vaguely uphill and followed its lead.

  He had been walking for ten minutes when he sensed it, though not with sight, but familiarity: he had been here before. He looked confusedly at the dozen or so vast houses that lined the street, at their imposing walls, grandiose towers and long, sliding roofs of immaculate tiles. Why would he have ever been here? At the very moment the question was formed, it was answered: it was the street of the Owl! He had found it – or it had found him. His visual memory of the outside of the mansion was scant, so he walked up and down the street, each time lingering a little longer at the house with the ornate metal gates in its wall. He had nothing to lose. He smoothed down his long, black hair, now grown to shoulder length, dusted down the blue riding coat that Nebsuel had given him and approached the gates, pausing momentarily before pulling the metal ring of the bell. He adjusted his collar, turning it up about his face, and waited.

  A dim, absent little man came to the gate and peered through.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘May I speak to the mistress of the house?’

  ‘What is your business with Mistress Lohr, sir?’

  ‘It is private. Quite private. But she will know me.’

  The little man peered more eagerly at the suspicious figure hiding within ill-fitting clothing and an upturned collar.

  ‘Your name, sir?’

  Ishmael looked at the man in dismay, seeing the problem a second too late: he only had one name, and the Owl did not know it. Furthermore, he knew that saying just one name would be considered strange: most other people he met had two names, if not three.

  The man behind the gate was getting agitated, believing less and less that this individual could ever have any legitimate business with his mistress.

  ‘Please, tell her it is Ishmael, from the night of the carnival.’

  Now the gatekeeper was sure that this shabby figure, with his crude, long bundle and scruffy rucksack, had no real business here. ‘Mistress Lohr will not be able to help you, sir. Be off with you! Be off!’

  Ishmael tried again to explain, but his words only served to raise the man’s guard higher.

  ‘BE OFF! No beggars here, we’ve had enough trouble with your kind!’

  Ishmael gave up trying, picked up his bundle and walked wearily away.

  ‘What’s wrong, Guixpax?’ called Cyrena from the balcony.

  ‘Nothing, ma’am, just another beggar.’

  ‘Ringing the bell?’ she asked, surprised yet again at the rising levels of boldness that poverty seemed able to induce.

  ‘An insolent rascal who claimed to know you, ma’am.’

  ‘Really? Whatever next?!’ She turned and started to walk away from the balcony, but something outside of sight stopped her. She closed her eyes and stepped back to the rail, almost afraid to voice the question on her lips.

  ‘Guixpax – did the beggar give a name?’

  ‘Why, yes, ma’am. ‘Ishmael’, I think it was.’

  He was almost at the corner when he heard the sound of shouting and someone fast approaching behind him. He stopped, sensing that running would be seen as a sign of guilt, and hunched his shoulders, waiting for trouble to descend. He had only rung a bell and asked a question, but he realised this was probably enough to cause outrage in this neighbourhood. He
heard the footsteps stop behind him and braced himself.

  ‘Ishmael?’ said the gentlest of voices. ‘Ishmael, is it really you?’

  His heart leapt. It was the voice of the Owl, and she knew him! He turned slowly into his hope, hesitant in her sudden company, his face half hidden by hair and uncertainty. She stared at his presence, her vivid eyes reading and absorbing every detail of his sheltering features.

  ‘You have two eyes!’ she said in amazement. ‘Ghertrude said you only had one.’

  ‘You know Ghertrude?’

  ‘She has become my dearest friend; I found her when I was searching for you.’

  ‘For me?’

  ‘Yes. I looked for you at once, there’s so much…’ She became abruptly aware of their surroundings and shivered at their exposure to unseen ears. ‘There’s so much to say. Shall we return to the house? It may be better to discuss things there.’

  She took the arm he offered and they walked slowly back up the road, past the gate, where the bemused Guixpax was waiting and watching.

  Inside the mansion, they sat like strangers, in chairs that faced one another. His hand returned repeatedly to his face. Neither quite knew what to do next, though their hearts strained palpably towards each other; their passions and unfamiliarity clenched together, forming a barrier of embarrassment between them.

  ‘May I ask to wash?’ Ishmael requested politely. ‘My journey has been long and arduous.’

  ‘Of course! I should have suggested it immediately!’ Cyrena rang the bell and Myra came into the room, subtly observing the injured young man from the corner of her eye. Her mistress ignored the question in her eyes and instructed her to prepare a bath and bring towels, perfumed salts and a dressing-gown. Guixpax was summoned and sent to town to buy suitable clothing.

  When alone again, Cyrena listened at the bathroom door, and heard him splashing with what she hoped was pleasure.

  Dim, bewildered old Guixpax returned with the weirdest selection of clothing she had ever seen. She pawed through the tangled mass on the polished table while the gatekeeper stood behind her, proud of his unique purchases.

  ‘Thank you Raymond, a fine choice. You can leave it to me now.’

  Guixpax left, glowing with achievement but confused by the situation that his mistress appeared to be so enjoying. Cyrena waited for him to depart, then selected a choice of garments and placed them outside the bathroom door.

  ‘Ishmael, there are clean clothes outside the door.’

  ‘Thank you, er…?’

  She realised, with some embarrassment, that she had not yet told him her name. ‘Cyrena,’ she replied. ‘My name is Cyrena.’

  ‘Cyrena,’ he repeated, the room of steam and perfume echoing the name.

  Tsungali’s ghost had followed its master as far as the garden; he had neither the will nor the desire to enter the elaborate and confusing dwelling.

  He watched from the dense colour of the unusual foliage. It was a pleasant place, and he passed through the plants and trees with idleness. His master was safe and at peace inside the house, with a woman and servant to look after him; the villain who had threatened Ishmael’s life was nowhere near, so Tsungali let himself be diluted by time, so that no one saw him crouching down among the energetic growth and high, containing walls.

  Ishmael padded softly down the hallway and found her in her favourite room, drinking golden wine from a long-stemmed glass. She did not hear him arrive, so light was his footfall. He was wearing Chinese silk slippers that she had left for him. Very quietly, he said, ‘Thank you, Cyrena.’

  She stood up and looked at him, allowing herself to linger on the details of his presence, basking in his proximity. He was wearing silk pyjamas and the blue dressing gown that she had left him. His hair was still wet. She looked at his face, at how the scars around his eye seemed to gather his features together at that point, giving it a bunched squint. His nose was a little worse for wear; the straight line of it veered a little between loose folds and taut stretchings. Apart from this, it was the normal face of a slender young man who looked as though he had lived a troubled and weather-beaten life. He began to raise his hand again, his insecurity blooming under her gaze, but she crossed the room to stop him, reaching out to his hand and holding it in her own. She led him to the window seat and they sat looking at each other for an endless, unruffled time, the evening darkening around them.

  ‘I don’t know where to start,’ she said eventually. Handing him her glass, she moved away to fill another, then turned back to him. ‘It’s been a long time since the carnival, and many things have changed for us both, I am sure, but… perhaps we should begin where we left off before?’

  He stared at her for a moment and then smiled, his new eye gleaming almost as brightly as the other. He reached for her hand and together they walked up to her bedroom.

  Outside, the swallows were changing to bats, to measure the space of the sky with sound instead of sight. Inside, contentment had come to the house of Cyrena Lohr – all except for the bow, which seethed in its wrappings.

  * * *

  I have emerged into a morning that is cold for this season, in lands whose heat I can barely envisage.

  I have escaped from a tunnel of years and come out from beneath a great shadow. When I look back, I expect to see a vast and endless forest, but there is only a desolate bog land, black with peat, its undulating hummocks stretching for miles before being broken by distant, ragged peaks. A night sea of wet earth laps the horizon; I cannot make out the path that I must have forged along its compacted surface. I have been standing on this rise for over an hour, attempting to recall myself and everything that must have been around me in that place, but it will not come to meet me. There is only the faintest image of another land like this, sheltering in absence at the beginning of my life, a battlefield of churned earth and oblivion, yet it will not come forward to be recognised or superimposed over this one.

  My belongings tell me little. Most of them were obscure and foolish, and I have discarded them; to prove their worthlessness, I will walk over them when I leave, trampling them into the mud of this place. The only thing of any use is an obscure map on torn, stained paper, which has faded over a period of unknown time; that and a large handgun with a box of its heavy bullets. I must have been carrying it to hunt or for protection, but it is difficult to imagine any kind of creature or threat stirring in that featureless mire.

  The only thing that holds me here is waiting. I feel that there should be somebody else, that they are missing, catching up with me maybe. I find myself scouring the black land below, looking for a trace of movement, for a companion making their way to here. I feel, on the periphery of my awareness, that someone will walk beside me. But nothing moves and no one comes.

  I have waited and puzzled for long enough; it is time to move on and shake off the shadows.

  I think the map has been made with oblique reference to the black bog below me, possibly conceived and drawn from this very vantage. It shows the vast mass as an oval, egg-shaped depression. There are noticeable scars in its interior, though some are now half-erased and swallowed up. The scars are crescent-shaped, and rotate around the edge of its interior; they look to be areas of ancient deforestation, which would explain why they are numbered, but these seem confusing and random. The largest cutting seems to have been at its centre: it is numbered ‘1’. I am using this ragged thing to gain some alignment to the new country, which is, of course, just another blank on the map. But there is a tiny arrow in the lower corner, which suggests direction of some sort.

  There is nothing to lose; all ways are good. I turn the fluttering paper, marking the distant features of landscape that align with the arrow.

  Without warning, the paper gives up the ghost and shreds into the wind. My last sight of it, just before it disappears and is blown from my hands into the dark mass, makes me think that it might not be a map at all. It flashes before the sun and its afterimage burns in my eyes. Its negative revea
ls a crude, mocking face, the countenance of one startled eye, a morbid grotesque, gawping at me. Its features are scarred; its mouth has fallen open. It glares in cartooned astonishment. I blink and it begins to fade; my lids wipe it away as the paper is blown into nothing, tattered and dissolved by the gusting air and the damp earth.

  Now I know: it is time to leave this place of amnesia and illusion forever.

  * * *

  She clasped her hands across her belly, feeling the movement beneath; the blunt nudges and kicks, the stretching and the turns. It was difficult to walk now; there were long periods of the day when she could only rest.

  Abungu was greatly swollen with the child. It had grown much in the recent months; her pregnancy could no longer be hidden. She still had far to go, so she made an asking charm, one enmeshed with all her will and love. She asked the child to be patient, to hold on and snuggle back inside her; to sleep longer, curl deeper and grow slower until they were home.

  So impassioned was her asking, and so powerful was the child’s response, that its age would be held back throughout its life. Her own people would always understand this as a blessing, a sign of the power and uniqueness of the child.

  The journey had taken over a year. During that time, she had started to speak: not out loud, and not in the ugly tongue of the whites who had owned her parents and so abused her, but in the language of her mother and father, the singsong words they had whispered together in that cold, filthy land. The words came through the child who nestled inside, rising up through the shared blood that looped between their brains and hearts. She spoke every day, until she was unsure who had instigated the asking charm; had it come from her or the little one? Not all things were known to her. There was a confusion about it, a fog, as there was about the old, white shaman who had put rightness in her eyes, he whom she had harvested.