“We went to a lot of trouble for you, some more specialist lengths,” he said, his neck beginning to flush.
“Using the Orm, Dr. Hoffman?” she asked. “What is that, exactly?”
This was all going extremely wrong. It was meant to be he who had the upper hand. “Well, Mistress Tulp, why don’t you tell me? You seem to know all about it,” he said in a churlish tone.
“I know that you and the keeper have some power over the Limboia and that you sell it as a service to anyone who can pay; I know that Cyrena paid you a great deal of money to be confronted by that creature.”
“Wait a minute,” he said. “We did our best to help you. It was you who came to us.”
“Best?” she asked, her lip curling sceptically.
There was a silence, as if the air itself had been chopped short, a segment of it removed from the room. After a shallow, gasping time, the doctor sidestepped and said, “How is Cyrena?”
Hearing her friend’s name spoken in such casual terms inflamed Ghertrude even more. “Mistress Lohr is still recovering from the humiliation that you and that brute put her through.”
Hoffman had had enough and snapped back. “I did not come here to be insulted by you, young woman!”
“Then why did you come here?” she said, as quick as a flash. He was caught off guard again and searched fruitlessly for the right words.
“I…came here…to…”
“Yes?” she quizzed insolently.
“I came here to encourage your silence about our business together.” It was Ghertrude’s turn to be disarmed.
“I came to advise you that our assistance was given as a favour, out of respect for you and your families, and that it would greatly benefit you if the whole business were immediately forgotten.” She took in his thinly veiled threat and countered with her own.
“I think our families would be very interested to know about your favours, don’t you, Doctor?”
He had been flushing near to scarlet, but a livid whiteness began to creep through his broken veins. He took a step towards her, his voice rising. “You dare? You dare to threaten me?! If you utter one word to implicate me or my associate in this matter, I will not hesitate to spread the truth about your secret friend; about him fucking you and that Lohr slut, and about everything else! The house, everything!”
“Good! Do it. Say whatever you please; you know nothing about this house, and our indiscretions are nothing to your crimes.”
He was astonished; this should not have been happening. He had never met a woman as impertinent and disrespectful as this. “I warn you…,” he growled fiercely.
“With what?!” She laughed, challenging the last reserves of his restraint.
“With your life!” he snarled, grabbing her throat and tilting her face painfully up towards his. “You open your mouth and I will shut it permanently; I will have the Orm hollow out your soul and deposit it on my dissecting table, and I will cut that bastard out of your cunt. I will…”
His words tailed off as he found himself moving up and out of the room, weightless and undirected. His ring caught on her necklace, breaking it as he flew away from her, the pearls shot-gunning in all directions. She grabbed at her throat and the remnants of the string, her eyes wide and staring at something behind him. He watched, oddly detached, as the girl’s shivering figure diminished and he moved towards the door, the tiny white orbs bouncing and dancing around her feet. He had no idea what was happening and was still thinking of what to say when the door opened and he was catapulted out into the cold night air and down onto the shining black cobblestones.
He looked up to see Mutter standing over him. He attempted to stand, but the old man kicked his legs away from under him.
“All right, all right,” he said angrily, waving his hands in the air. “Your point is made. I have calmed down now; I won’t hurt her.”
The next blow totally confused him; he did not see it coming and it felt like he had run headlong into a wall. He remembered doing that as a child; the shock of the solidity against the speed of his intention. But he was not running now.
A light came into the courtyard: Ghertrude was at the door, the beam from the house streaming across the standing and kneeling figures. Hoffman squinted and saw that Mutter had a manuscript in his hand, a tight scroll of paper, some kind of accusation. He would have this peasant crucified for this outrage. He might even do it himself, maim him, as he had once maimed his son.
The servant went to the door and held up a protective hand, gesturing to the girl to go back into the corridor, before shutting her and the light firmly inside. Mutter returned and took a short run with his second blow. The scroll was not paper, but a two-foot length of lead pipe. With the anticipation of its impact, the doctor understood everything.
“No! No!” he cried.
The third blow cracked his skull; he heard it go, or it might have been his teeth shattering against each other. He tried to protect his head with a flailing hand, but Mutter kicked him over and stamped on it, his solid weight and hobnailed boot crushing the bones and mangling the gold ring flat and into the flesh. The next blow fell across his ear, sending him rolling across the yard, screaming. To stop the noise, Mutter swung the heavy, inert pipe up under his jaw, flipping him over and making him bite through his tongue. He was on his hands and knees, whining like a lost dog as he vomited part of his tongue, along with the recent sherry and the remains of his lunch.
“Pleth fof jodds sek sthup!” he choked pitifully.
He bled and gagged onto the cobbles. The next blow crunched down into his head and removed the top of his fractured skull, which hung to the side of his head by a few long strands of wet hair. His bright laboratory with all its new electrical equipment splashed out, his triumph and genius trickling onto the night-black cobbles, where vivid sparks bounced like white pearls. Mutter hit him once more, and his eyes rasped and split over the broken bones of his collapsed face.
Mutter dragged the body to the stables and loaded it into the smaller cart. Hosing down the yard, he swept the bits of memory and hope into the sewer.
Ghertrude was cold, numb, and uncertain. She had heard the sounds straining through the thick oak door, as the broken string from her necklace hung in her hand. Mutter had not wanted her to witness the conversion of a man to waste, but she had heard every part of the process, and what she had done to that puppet in the basement swiftly paled to insignificance in comparison. She rested her back against the door and felt the weight of the future gather on her shoulders: It would be a long time before she could fall asleep.
The iron hooves of the tin clock stampeded into his dense and sweated dream. He fisted the shrillness into silence and swung his aching legs out of the bed. He fought against an odd, familiar sensation, trying to plan the day ahead, when he realised what was wrong: He was drunk. He had not been like this for more than two years, and he cursed his stupidity at sliding back. It was all so familiar: the dizziness, the smell, the pain in his head; the feeling of utter failure and that smug, crouching, “fuck ’em all” version of himself, poised deep inside, looking up and out of his face.
He glanced at his wife, who seemed to have avoided the screeching siren of the alarm clock, and lifted the bedsheets to observe the growing ripeness of her belly, which accentuated the strong curve of her hips. He dearly wanted this child, and he hoped for a son. At last, he would have something to pass on—and not just the alcoholic temper and selfishness his father had bestowed on him: He was the first Maclish in history to be looked up to, to have done something worthy of others’ praise.
It was then that he saw the bruises on her arm and tasted bile in his mouth. He steadied himself and quickly pulled the sheet up, so he could not see her at all. Floundering into the bathroom, he washed in cold water. He hoped the shock of it would cut away the blunt, grey weight that he was carrying so awkwardly. He knocked the cup of toothbrushes and combs into the noisy, skidding sink while trying to retrieve his razor and stared at their spiky divi
nation contrasted against the porcelain. What had he done and said last night? How could he have let this happen? Why had she not stopped him? He leant against the cold wall and pissed wearily in the general direction of the toilet.
Today, he would oversee the exchange of the Limboia, the exhausted ones for the eager, the train loaded with their stupid bodies. They would travel with one extra this time, and the idea of spending the journey with Loverboy, crated up so that he might be returned and set loose, made the keeper’s head pound harder. At least he would find a place to sleep: That was inevitable. He wanted to crawl back into bed there and then, back to his wife’s warmth and the lingering perfume from last night, but he dared not. Without him, there would be no exchange, no train ride, and the horror would stay hidden in the slave house for another day.
They had moved Loverboy into the basement of the building after the Limboia’s interest in his shouting and barking had reached dangerous levels. Admittedly, it might have been his acrid stench: Even after they had hosed him down, it still permeated everything around, and Maclish was even beginning to think that he might be bringing it home; he could smell it on himself, and it would explain why his wife had become so distant again.
His thoughts turned again to Loverboy; his captive was definitely getting thinner. His colour had changed, the old ivory, creamy yellow of his skin having faded to a sallow grey. Maclish couldn’t understand it; he had been given the same food as the others, and they had never complained. The kitchen staff always prepared the rich, nutritional mix of dried beans, cornstarch, and ground meat the same way. Maclish had done a particularly good deal with the local knacker’s yard, getting almost-fresh meat delivered every week. The workforce needed to keep their strength up, and he had argued it well with the Timber Guild, who now paid a substantial amount for their sustenance. Good meat, of course, would have been wasted on them—they were unable to tell the difference—so he managed to feed them well and make a tidy profit on the side, thus keeping everyone happy; everyone, that was, except Loverboy, who repeatedly threw the bowls of steaming gruel back at his captors. The Chinese cook who ran the kitchen had refused to go back into the cellar after the third ungrateful attack.
“Let the fucker starve!” Maclish had said to his men after the third abortive attempt at the monster; and he would have, but the effect it might have had on the Limboia was unknown, and he could not afford any unhappy impacts on his production rate. “Keep ’em happy, keep ’em keen” was his motto, and it kept everybody else’s prying snouts out of his business. For that reason, Loverboy was going back today, hangover or no hangover.
After his third cup of coffee, he began to feel more alert. He buttoned his uniform and pulled on his shining boots in the quiet kitchen, leaving by the back door and walking up the narrow hill towards the slave house. It was just before seven o’clock, and his wife listened to the kitchen door being closed and the sound of his steps on the gravel outside. She opened her eyes and allowed a small sigh to escape from her lips, relieved to finally be released from her feigned sleep and the suffocation of his presence.
—
They got the crate and the Limboia to the station without much incident. The horses had shied a couple of times when Loverboy had gotten frisky, but Maclish’s hammering on the crate with the metal base of his whip had soon subdued the monster’s cavorting. After placing the crate on a flatbed near the passengers’ coach, they loaded the eager, empty men into the train. The keeper gave the signal and they steamed off to be absorbed into the Vorrh.
As predicted, the train took his wakefulness after twenty minutes. He sank into a dreamless sleep that curdled and fell, amplifying rather than soothing his hangover. Large, abstract masses bumped against him, rubbing at his extremities and dampening his elementals. The train seemed to be crawling at a sluggish pace, and the voice of the crated horror grew louder and louder in his semiconscious skull.
He was woken by a jolting stop and shook his head to try to gather his senses and possessions. His whip was strangled by the vines growing out of the luggage rack and would not come loose when he tugged at it. He knew this kind of thing happened, but this time he was unprepared; unable to dislodge it, he decided to get a knife from one of the others.
He put his head out of the window to yell and was shocked to find no platform. The train had not reached its destination, and it stood at a standstill in the middle of the forest. Looking down its length, he saw smoke and steam rising from the stationary, panting engine. He called out, expecting one of his men to report information on the holdup, but nobody came. His headache had intensified and he rubbed the back of his neck before opening the carriage door and jumping down onto the gravel of the track.
He walked along to the Limboia slave carriage—it was empty. So were the next three. He unbuttoned the flap of his holster as his boots crunched loudly on the stones. His steps and the engine’s puffing heart were the only sounds in the forest; even the birds were hushed. When he came to the flatbed truck and saw that the crate was open, he pulled out his revolver and looked around warily. Nothing moved, and the trees seemed to have lost their motion, their leaves hanging outside of any breeze or growth.
“Engineer!” he bellowed towards the back of the train. It felt reassuring to shout such a matter-of-fact word amid the absence and stillness. “Engineer!” He heard a titter from behind the passenger carriage. He swung round and climbed up onto a flatbed to reach the other side. There was a small clearing at the edge of the forest, as if a straight line had been shaved out, and the Limboia were all there, side by side in a line, looking, he thought, like a ragged regimental parade, waiting to be inspected. He spat and jumped down to their side, his pistol alert and ready. There was more girlish tittering from the line. With a pounding head and a growing nausea, which he could only put down to the previous motion of the train, he approached them, trying to hold back his rage.
“What the fuck are ye doing out of the train? Get back in!” he bellowed.
The tittering stopped and they closed their eyes in a slow, simultaneous movement. Then the breathing started: the same unified breathing that he and Hoffman had heard that first night.
“Stop that! Stop that, right now!” he yelled.
The breathing doubled in volume. He was suddenly lost and obviously outnumbered. The Limboia were stationary, while their chests moved in unison. The only individual movement came from the centre of the line. There stood the herald, holding something to his chest, stroking it with slow, intense gestures. Maclish made a beeline for him, closing on him, the pistol held level with the man’s face.
“Tell them to get back on the train,” he demanded, seeing a way to retake control.
Then he saw what the herald had in his hands. The loose strips of cloth had been peeled away, and the near-naked thing rolled in the manipulating hands, its lifeless limbs flopping back and forth with the movements. Maclish wanted to pull the trigger and end this, but he knew it was already over.
The eyes of the dead, aborted child opened and stared into his. The breathing stopped, and something else rustled between the Limboia. Something was weaving itself between their ranks, rattling their place on the earth with no speed, but a vast momentum. It nudged him like the movement on the train, and he passed out; in a second, every organ in his body had halted, as if they had never moved at all. Every cell gave up in the presence of the Orm. Only his mad eyes flashed in the dead head, as his body slid to the ground.
The Limboia pointed at their hearts and dispersed into the depth of the forest with their prize. An hour later, the engine would give its last sigh, and its firebox would run down to cold ashes.
The frantic, moving eyes in what had been Maclish stared at Loverboy, who had been standing behind the Limboia all along, patiently waiting. He had been busy. Even in his weakened condition he had retained enough purpose, energy, and skill to gather some small branches and vines and construct a basic sledge. He dragged his creation towards the corpse: He was taking R
ed Fur home to meet his people, and one of his stomachs was already rumbling.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
It would have been foolish to think that the life of the arrows was inert or incidental. The truth was that each of the Bowman’s handmade shafts of wood, feather, bone, and steel was an extension of nerve, breath, and skill. The arrows’ continuance was like the nerve fibres outside the brain, which hold memory in a twined conflict of disbelief and certainty; fibres found in the spine and muscles, sometimes even in the hands, that remembered past places, past movements. As it was with trees, whose delicately calligraphic postures waved and shredded the communicating winds with their stencilling semaphores. The arrows were made of all their elements, bound together with intent.
Peter Williams lifted the gleaming bow into the sun of the early morning. He had cleaned and polished it in the dawn, and now he stood outside the cave, on the summit of the outcrop. The bow felt like Este in his hand: eager, lithe, and determined. He nocked one of the whistling arrows and pulled back the bowstring, the sensuous power locking into his entire body. He closed his eyes and rotated, pointing the arrow in a full circle. He stopped when he did not know which direction he faced. He loosened the arrow and opened his eyes. It sang through the clear distance above the forest, before curving to fall into the trees. He looked carefully at the landscape, picked up his pack, and climbed down towards the place where the arrow would wait for him.
—
Two hours later, he had reached the forest floor, again relishing its scent and shade. He faced northwest, and his intention was clear: to forge a straight line until the Vorrh was left behind him. It was a journey that would take him directly through the centre of the forbidden territory.
Tsungali tripped over the pot. He had not seen it sitting clearly on the path. How could that be? He was an experienced hunter who normally missed nothing. Then he realised it was because his attention was focused on the movements and sounds around him, drawn by the trees to identify who or what was watching him. He had been doing it subconsciously; now he was aware.
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