The Vorrh

by Brian Catling

  Muybridge was a little confused and said nothing.

  “Anyway, the reason I tell you of this is that he is using photography, not just to make pictures of a patient, but as a therapy in itself. I have no idea how it works, but one of our junior doctors was there last year and he saw what they were doing. You should go and see it.”

  It was all beginning to sound like the kind of spurious fiction Muybridge so thoroughly distrusted, and it being a French innovation only made it worse; his distrust of French claims was long-standing and inherent—he often found them to be greatly exaggerated, and the natural boundary between fact and fiction to be a lot less substantial in France. Even Étienne-Jules Marey, with whom he had exchanged many ideas, had a fanciful turn of mind that was more interested in the aesthetics of his machines than in the result they were supposed to produce.

  He suddenly realised where he had heard Charcot’s name before. “Yes, Salpêtrière!” he exclaimed with relief, happy to be able to prove his knowledge. “The Parisian teaching hospital.” His host looked at him oddly.

  “Yes, precisely. You should go,” said Gull, closing the subject.

  Muybridge realised he was not going to talk his way into Gull’s private wards. He understood for the first time that Gull had no real interest in him. It had been the malady that had sparked his interest, not the man who bore it. The surgeon wanted a new set of tools to reach in and adjust, to be able to remake the man. The individual was incidental and expendable to his quest. He glanced at his host as the understanding dawned, but the man in question was looking again at the Ghost Dance photograph.

  “Remarkable; the strength of willpower.”

  “Like that poor woman,” Muybridge said.

  “Yes! Exactly!” said Gull, the energy of a small, wiry man jumping up and down inside his solid, unmoving frame. “The determination of that pathetic creature to believe in her view, even until death itself. And I have others who show even more voracity.” He pointed at the shaman. “If that willpower was focused like these, and sharpened with knowledge, well…then we would have an instrument to investigate and repair the soul of any man or woman. I could put my hands into their heads and hearts and change everything.”

  Muybridge nodded silently.

  Outside, the London particular—that noxious, greenish-blackish smog thickened with soot and sulphur dioxide—had arrived, a dense and all-consuming fog that swallowed light and dimension, misplacing the blurred sounds of the city. As he stood in the dim, damp chill, Muybridge realised that Gull had said nothing about the print of the eclipse, although he had touched it repeatedly throughout their conversation.

  He tried to find a cab in the confusion of muffled shadows and sounds but failed and realised that he was lost. His only way home was to ask each person he bumped into which way he should go. Stepping-stones again; stepping-stones in a fog. His life was full of them.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  It was the perfect place for Tsungali’s planned ambush. The road by the water was narrowest here, and it would force the traveller to slow and watch his footfall.

  He did not know how long he would have to wait—there was always the possibility of being taken off guard or of his quarry slipping through while he slept. But white men always told you where they were. They sent out a bow wave, so that the earth and its animals would murmur, well in advance of their arrival. Their wake was immense. Crushed and contaminated, the land was forced to repair itself, even after the gentlest of their journeys.

  Farther back down the path, Tsungali had laid traps that would release vapours and spoors into the air when they were trampled. Traps that would tilt the colour of birdsong, or cause insects to stop and listen for too long, giving tiny vibrations of warning to the trained ear. He sat across the river, the tang sight of the rifle raised for a long-distance shot. This would be an easy kill, so he had given himself obstacles to sharpen his craft. The last two men he had killed had been close range and far too quick. He wanted to use the Lee-Enfield again and prove his marksmanship.

  He had eaten an early supper of fresh river fish and was standing in the bamboo grove when the whistle passed high over his head; it changed into a light, thin rhythm of exquisite tapping. Poised and dry, it slid, beautifully, down through the leaves towards him, in a constant shift of emphasis and pause. The sight of it stopped him dead: a long, dark arrow with translucent fletching gently dropped before him in the rustling leaves.

  He was not alone in the evening. He must have a rival for the blood of the plodding white man, and any being who could place such a flight should not be underestimated. Picking the arrow up, he was stunned by its lack of weight. He examined its point and found a tiny seed head of beaks, each individually joined and locked by a stitch of thread, constructing a hexagonal husk that would let air warble through its delineated contours. He knew its high trajectory meant the arrow had come from afar, but he still looked around hastily and felt a shudder course through him.

  The next day, late in the morning, the birds in the low trees a mile away stopped singing for a minute or two. He found his practised place and rested Uculipsa in the slit he’d found at the top of a flat rock. He was ready. He waited for inevitability to cross his sights.

  His mind began to drift.

  By the time the young Tsungali had returned from his trip abroad, the rumours about Williams had sped well beyond the borders of the True People and reached the coast. Williams had become Oneofthewilliams, and a cult had grown. Tsungali had been horrified to learn, upon entering the village, that the chosen one was the same officer who had given him Uculipsa. The Englishman had shown him kindness and taught him to shoot well, had separated himself from the other whites and shown alliance to the True People almost from the moment he had arrived; he had risked the displeasure of his superiors and made himself an outcast by saving the great prize, the blessed young shaman, Irrinipeste, from the church and from the abominations that the priest of crossed sticks had subjected her to. But still Tsungali had wondered if this man could be trusted, if he would arise against his own kind when it mattered most and help banish these lying intruders forever.

  His deliberations had been short-lived. Minutes into his return, his homecoming was interrupted by the news that his brother and two of their friends were being held by one of the sea tribes, who demanded the return of the long-awaited Oneofthewilliams to the coast, where his own people yearned for their messiah.

  Tsungali had gone immediately to explain the situation to Williams. He told him of the kidnap and the meeting with the Sea People and asked him to come with the rescue party, for his help in the parley; what he did not mention was that the Englishman was the prize, the desired barter that would ensure the safe release of his fellow tribesmen.

  They met on the sands—jungle on one side, sea on the other; six of the Sea People holding the three hostages. Tsungali had brought five men to represent his tribe: three warriors, a policeman, and, of course, Williams, who stood slightly to the side, motionless and cradling a small rucksack in his arms. He had taken off his boots and they hung around his neck by their laces, leaving his white feet bare in the wet, sucking sand. The hostages were tied together and knelt before their captors, all of whom were armed with spears and blades. The Enfield was not present. Instead, Tsungali carried a ceremonial spear with the colours of authority tied on: He was speaking for his people.

  The leader of the Sea People barked out his terms, eloquently concluding by tapping the staff of his spear on the back of Tsungali’s brother’s head; the crouching man’s eyes darted back and forth between his bonds, his brother, and the foreigner.

  They were finalising the niceties of the exchange when Williams raised his hand and took a step forward. From inside his rucksack, he withdrew a small bundle and threw it between the two parties. He spoke ten words in the language of the True People before pulling the monstrous pistol from his bag, stepping forwards and shooting Tsungali’s brother and the Sea People’s leader at point-bla
nk range. The wounds plumed in the dazzling fresh light, and the force threw the bodies back into the sand. Nobody moved. Williams picked up the barbed spear of the dead leader and walked over to Tsungali, taking the bound spear from his tight grip. He uttered two more words, then turned and paced back towards the camp, the sound of his feet matching the heartbeat of the stationary warriors.

  The prisoners were untied from the dead man, who had thrashed against them and tightened their bonds as his blood darkened the beach. Nobody spoke; they just dispersed, going their own way towards jungle and seashore.

  The bundle thrown between them had been a shamanistic truce of great potency; no man would argue with it. The fact that it was his proved the truth of what he said, as well as his purpose. His words had confirmed that he was indeed Oneofthewilliams. But their betrayal and wrong actions meant that, from then on, he would belong to no one. Sacrifices would have to be made, to appease his anger and hold the tribes in constant balance.

  Tsungali had guessed where the bundle had come from, who had made it and given him the words. The whole incident had been overseen by Irrinipeste; she had warned Williams and given him the power to triumph.

  The tide had begun to turn inwards, water filling the impressions in the sand where he stood. He thought about her opal eyes watching him at that moment, thought of her astonishing eminence. She would be the key to the uprising, a key Williams had just turned.

  Tsungali did not have anger or sadness. The bundle had smoothed it away; rightness had been performed. He picked up the pieces of his brother and returned home. Home, where the wrath of his tribe was already boiling over.

  In his wake, the sea came in and removed the blood. The brilliant red swirled with the yellow sand beneath the crystal-green water. The bundle was lifted and carried out, far beyond the land, where it dissolved in the millions of pulsing waves. When the sea retreated and the endless sun turned the mud back into glittering powder, there would be no trace of the men or the consequences of their actions.

  By the time they returned, the atmosphere in the camp was taut. A commanding officer was scarlet as he spat abuse into Williams’s face in front of the entire company. They were standing in uniform, a small, tidy, geometric rank, before the fidgeting avalanche of True People, a momentum seething with rage and betrayal. They had been thinking and sleeping on all the wrongs Tsungali had told them, the duplicity and the evil of all these whites. All except one.

  The commanding officer tightened their insistence with each pompous word. Just before the snapping point, a quiet movement slid from the centre of the clutching warriors, slipping softly between the stiff uniforms as they secretly revelled in Williams’s humiliation.

  Irrinipeste drifted next to the accused like a vapour and touched his hand. He looked down at the beloved shaman and into her impossible eyes. The officer raged above them and then saw their indifference. He stumbled down from his small pedestal and snatched at the girl. Grabbing at her throat, he tried to pull her aside, but it was like yanking on a granite column: Nothing moved, and his fingers screamed. He snatched at her but fell to the floor, still barking his orders, with only her torn amulet and part of her dress in his hands. His raging never ceased. He barked orders from the dirt; he barked orders as he scrambled to his feet. He was still barking orders when the .303 round from the Enfield burnt through his rib cage and skewered his loud, bulging heart. Chaos ensued.

  Irrinipeste guided Oneofthewilliams past the clashing wave of hacking men and out; out of the beginnings of the Possession Wars and into the Vorrh to heal the wounds of yesterday, today, and tomorrow.

  —

  Now, years later, his prey was edging along the river as predicted. Tsungali heard him coming half an hour before he appeared and watched through his binoculars as he entered the light: just another ignorant white man carrying too much equipment on his back. Then Tsungali spotted the bow. The sight jolted him, and his instincts kicked hard against his better judgment. He set the glasses down and adjusted the rifle; his entire attention was drawn along the barrel, anticipating the sights: an elemental flaw in marksmanship, and a lethal practice for a sniper. His mind stopped; there was only the rifle.

  The white man pressed himself against the rock, inadvertently presenting his greatest area of target as he nimbly sidestepped the path. Tsungali squeezed the trigger. The Enfield barked deeply into the gorge and the man fell from the path. Tsungali worked the bolt and recocked the gun, then searched the bank with his glasses to locate the body. It was not there. He stood to see if it had fallen behind a rock or somehow slipped into the water, but there was no sign of the dead man or his equipment. He had vanished.

  He gathered his things together quickly and started wading across the river, the rifle held across his chest. At the halfway point, his eye flickered between the distant bank and the fast water speeding over the smooth, irregular pebbles. As he stopped to pull his twisted boot free from a stone, the first arrow struck. He saw nothing until the flaring blue pain. The arrow went through his hand, piercing the stock of the Enfield and coming out the other side, its broken head digging into his ribs. He bit hard and flailed in the water, trying in vain to locate his adversary. The second arrow hit him in the teeth, smashing through his mouth and breaking his clenched jaw. It fractured the hinge and severed the strings of muscle that held it in place, exiting close to his pulsing jugular vein, where the shaft pointed behind, like a bent quill. His ruined mouth was full of blood and blue feathers. The fletchings pushed against his cut tongue and throat, choking him as globs of blood splashed into the pure waters. The third arrow would have killed him, but he spun wildly and slipped, falling into the tide, which mercifully carried him away from the attack. He kept his head above the wash, swallowing air, blood, and river in equal measures.

  An hour later, he bumped ashore and crawled onto a gravel bank. Even in his pain and failure, he knew he had travelled a lot faster than the white man and that the path he’d been on was now many miles away; he had time to hide and regain himself before the battle continued. The shafts of the arrows had broken off, and the river had washed the feathers out of his wrecked mouth. His hand was loose from its pinning, but he had managed to keep hold of the Enfield and his pack, which had swung round his body and partially emptied itself in the raging river. Flinching, he put his hand tentatively to his hanging jaw and crawled through the gravel into the reeds, dragging the split Uculipsa behind him.

  He lay down in the grasses, breathing deeply and trying not to suck the cold air past his loose nerve endings. He was drying and coagulating, staring at the growing evening sky. The pain welled and throbbed; every time he swallowed he felt sick, imagining that he had ingested another part of himself. He had no teeth in the front of his face and no voice in the back of it. Using ripped lengths of fabric, he tied his jaw hard against his head, for fear of it falling away completely.

  He was furious at having missed such an easy shot, for not killing him point-blank, like the others. How had he so underestimated the powers of this strangest white man? What kind of force was he up against? The man’s arrows had not only found him with ease, but passed through all his levels of protective charm without a single deflection; no white man could do this. He knew he had to escape the Bowman’s intent. With great difficulty, he swallowed a root that was in his pack and felt some of the pain diminish. He watched the sky turn to a rich darkness and, as he passed out into its embrace, his heart sank with the acceptance that he was no longer the hunter. Their roles had been reversed: Now he was the quarry.

  I feel its energy course hungrily through my body. My gentle years are over. A long-forgotten hunger has been rekindled by my unexpected adventure. The murderer across the water has awoken a coiled reaction—I can taste his blood, even at this distance. Why anyone would find cause to shoot at me remains a mystery. My dealings with other humans are decades past, and all before that is erased. Only my wife keeps the memories in her flesh and moisture, both of which live in my bow. We wi
ll find the assassin and dig the answers out of him; my foes in this unfamiliar and treacherous world will not remain hidden.

  I will rest and make an evening camp. In the coming morning, I will make new arrows and use them to sign my passage and sweep all enemies aside. The man in the water will be in no hurry to meet me again, and the next time he does, the first shot will be mine.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Mutter liked things in their places, with clear delineations between them, but everything in the house was changing. All of the rituals, hierarchies, and conventions were sliding over one another to find new settling places; Ishmael moved freely between the third floor and the attic, and the camera obscura had become a focal point for them all, even Ghertrude. Mutter’s collection of the crates was the only thing that continued, unchanged, twice a week.

  Through Ishmael’s constant use, the spaces were becoming his own, his domain. Each place had its own sound, and Ghertrude and Mutter were able to track his movements from any part of the house. He could often be heard pacing and moving about in his rooms, rearranging furniture and adjusting the layout. In the attic, the strings would sing his presence, often for hours at a time. It was no longer an access space; he was making it important in its own right.

  The tower of the obscura was marked by silence, quieter than sleep itself when he was there. His commitment held the house still, lifting it by its scruff, so that it could be felt in its roots. But that was the one place he did not go: where she most feared he would be drawn, where he might betray her more easily. She left nothing to chance and had Mutter double-check the padlocks and barriers to the cellars almost daily. She told him clearly that it was forbidden to all, and that was the only rule of the house. He did not answer but nodded in intelligent approval. Even so, she instructed Mutter to keep an eye on him and on the cellar door.