The Vorrh

by Brian Catling

  He cocked the Enfield and stood stock-still. The shards of the flimsy pot cracked beneath his boots. Something was here with him; there was no doubt. He said a spell and spat into the undergrowth. There were all kinds of beings here; everybody knew that. He hated this place and never dreamt of pursuing a quarry here. The circumstances had changed and the spirits moved against him; his twitching wounds continually reminded him of that. He should have been able to kill the white man before now, should have been able to stop him from entering this haunted realm. But he was no ordinary white man. Tsungali thought he might even be a ghost, or one of the creatures that steals the bodies of the dead to wear, or takes their faces. He had recognised Williams as soon as he’d seen him but could not believe it possible. He should have died with all his company of lying invaders in the first days of the Possession Wars. Even if he had escaped, he should be older than this, not exactly the same age as he had been the day he returned from the beach. Tsungali looked for a moment at his gnarled, knotted hands. He felt his years ache in the hinges of his joints.

  Was it the Bowman he felt watching him beyond the trees? Was it he who left this dish in his path, to spook him? He spoke another charm, whistled, and spat. There were worse things than the Englishman, even if he was a ghost.

  He continued to tread slowly forward, and after some hours he saw another pot. It was full of steaming, fragrant food. He savagely kicked it off the path and moved on. He was going to tear the throat out of this enemy who played games with his hunger and his fear. The Erstwhile and the demons entered his thoughts, but he knew that they did not prepare food, not even as a sick joke to mock him. No, it was something else, something with human tendencies, which, of course, made it terrible in a different way. He was becoming more and more unnerved, when he suddenly heard the faint whistling in the sky. He had heard it before and it made his blood run cold. Then it came down through the leaves and branches directly above; he dropped Uculipsa and clasped his hands over his head, not daring to look up. The arrow shrieked and trembled to a halt, piercing the path six feet before him.

  Ishmael had come to a place where a mighty oak had fallen, its prone bulk drawing a horizon in the world of verticals. It must have been of considerable age; he could easily have hidden in its girth. A wonderful aroma of leaf mulch and sap exuded from the place, one of dampness spun with age. He walked across the narrow path, under the bridge formed by the oak, before stopping to look up again at the fallen tree, which blotted out the dappled sunshine. New shoots were growing from its old, dead body, and a lacework of vines still thrived on its bark.

  He was beginning to enjoy the depth of this place, to feel a sense of belonging in its mysterious interior. Perhaps this was where he was from; perhaps his kind really had lived here, among the peace of the great trees. He imagined a primitive life in simple huts, with a gentle and ancient race that had hidden successfully from barbaric humans for centuries.

  The Kin had shown him pictures and models of such places, and he remembered stories of them. Adam’s house in Paradise had been drawn on scrolls in the teaching crates, alongside images of strange, manlike creatures living in harmony with lions and other wild beasts. He and Seth had made a miniature shelter of mud, sticks, and stones. He had been proud of it and would sit staring into its rough interior, imagining what a life within it would entail; he saw, in his mind, the hearth and the trickle of smoke from the roof, rising into the motionless air.

  He was there again, expecting to turn a corner and find that unique village. So lost was he in the conjecture of that place that he did not immediately notice that he was no longer alone. It took him a few moments to realise that somebody was walking to the side of him, just out of the periphery of his view. He spun around to confront the creature, his heart in his throat. The other stopped and ducked, but he now knew for sure that he was being observed. He wondered if these were the people who had been giving him food and water. He called out to where the figure had disappeared, expecting a response this time. None came. Then there was a sound behind him, a sound to the side, a plethora of sounds from every direction. The creatures stood up, and he turned in horror to look at them all, their faces growing out of their chests.

  He pushed back the fear and repulsion that came from being in close and unknown proximity with something that was utterly different. Their squat, square bodies were pale yellow, blotched with a pink mottle; they had no discernible head. Their mouth, jaw, nose, and ears grew out of their sternum, and a single eye stared out from their flat chests with the blinking wit of a farm animal. Pale lashes shading one-dimensional thoughts flicked vacantly between fight and flee.

  Then he saw the squint of cunning and knew that this was his end. These were things he had seen in a picture: horror cyclops that could have nothing to do with him. This was a subspecies, not a kindred race. They had been giving him food and direction, not out of aid and sympathy, but to guide him home. They had been fattening and luring him, and he had willingly followed their trails of food straight into their trap and right into the heartland of the anthropophagi.

  They moved towards him to look closer and started to communicate in a series of high, ragged bleats, sounds that seemed to be razored out of their small, teeth-filled mouths with a great deal of effort. Theirs were not the mouths of eloquent debate; the holes and their contents were constructed purely for the sake of biting, sucking, nibbling, and guzzling.

  They were all naked, and Ishmael, whose interest in genitalia had always been intense, gazed in amazement at their diversity and proportion. Unlike other species he had examined, no two seemed to be alike: Some were shrunken and inverted, while others hung or coiled out of their bodies with wasteful abandon. He was reminded of “Lesson 93: Invertebrates of the Oceans (Certain Soft-Bodied Sea Creatures)” and wondered if their sex organs might indeed be a separate species that shared a symbiotic relationship with their host. How they used them to mate was beyond even his conjecture.

  These far-off speculations stopped him from running or fainting with fear, which he knew would be an instant trigger to his demise. They moved closer, and he froze. They touched him, held his legs, and looked up into his eye, their proximity betraying a violent odour that matched their speech patterns. Suddenly, without warning, a searing pain made Ishmael scream out into the trees. A thin hardwood blade had been pushed into the Achilles tendon of his right leg; they were making sure he would not run away. The pain made him fall, and the others pinned him down while a second hobble was stabbed in. He yelled and thrashed, but there were too many of them. Their strength, smell, arms, legs, and genitals flapped and fastened him, while others unsheathed more pointed sticks.

  Suddenly, there was an almighty explosion, and the creature holding his leg split apart, the two halves of its upper body flying in opposite directions, leaving the tottering legs standing comically for a second or two. The arms remained connected to each piece of raw meat, spurting mud-coloured blood as they tried to hold on to the ground or crawl off. A second creature was hit in the back, and the great sound pushed his splintered rib cage out through his puzzled face; this one did not even twitch.

  The creatures fled the ambush, vanishing into the undergrowth with a practised speed and agility. Ishmael rolled on the ground in agony, straining to see who or what the weapon belonged to—was it better or worse than the horrors he had just been saved from?

  “What kind of thing are you?” barked a voice that was out of sight. “Don’t look around; lie still or you will bleed to death. Now, answer my question, or I will destroy you like I destroyed your little brothers.”

  “They are no brothers of mine,” said Ishmael through clenched teeth.

  “Then what are you?” said the booming voice, the Gabbett-Fairfax Mars pointing at Ishmael’s spine from behind an old oak tree.

  “I am a man with one eye.”

  It seemed like a reasonable answer: That was indeed what the writhing creature appeared to be.

  “I can help you, if I
trust you,” said the voice. “Keep still and put your hands in front of your face where I can see them.”

  “What are you?” Ishmael grimaced.

  “I am Williams,” said the voice at last, “and I am a man with four eyes.”

  Tsungali was drinking from the earthen bowl when he heard the shots. He thought he was the only one who dared fire a gun in the forest. Perhaps other hunters shared his pursuit? The sound was foreign, not like any gun he had heard before, but it had given him a clear direction, and his stalking took on a more purposeful intent.

  The stinking brown blood was still drying on his arm where the thing had bled to death, his kris driven along its shoulder blade to find its heart, or its brain, or whatever else it was that had once powered the yellow demon. It had been tracking him for days; Tsungali had allowed himself the water and thrown the food away, preferring his own dried supplies. Then he had circled back on the demon and killed it from behind. It was one that his grandfather had told him of, the demons that eat hunted human flesh. Any doubts he might have had were quickly dispersed when he saw what his victim wore over its swollen cock and balls: a makeshift bowl, which on closer examination proved to be the skullcap of a man, the skin and bright-red hair still attached.

  Tsungali gathered some vines and tied them around the large, pointed feet of his fallen hunter, hoisting the demon up to swing in the trees and show its unseen herd that fear had entered their lives. As he did so, he saw a small movement in the creature’s armpit. He grabbed the body to stop it swinging and took a closer look. Under each armpit was hidden a small, delicately woven sphere of grass. It was attached to the skin by curved thorns that hooked it in place. Each sphere contained a human eye.

  He cut the little cages out of their hiding place and examined them, one in each hand. Then he saw it, and the shock made him drop them: He had seen many wondrous and terrible sights and was not easily surprised by unnatural phenomena, but this place bred things beyond the nightmares of devils.

  He bent and rummaged in the low bush where the spheres had fallen, found them, and again inspected them. Yes, there it was: stronger in one, but apparent in both. The irises were moving, dilating back and forth, adjusting their sights: The eyes were still alive. This was magic beyond the powers of his comprehension.

  His hand was wet; he examined it and realised that one of the eyes was leaking. Placing the good one in the deepest pouch of his spell belt, he cut open the grass cage around the damaged eye and saw that one of the thorns had hooked inwards, piercing it deeply. More fluid was escaping, and the eye had started to lose its shape.

  He found a flat stone and brushed it clean. Holding the eye between the forefingers of his left hand, he laid it on the rock and, taking his razor-sharp knife in his right hand, carefully slit it open, causing the rest of the fluid to soak away into the stone. Tsungali bent close enough to see the tiny muscles, working to focus the lens, and the iris, still trying to shutter the overbearing light. Their minute energies were independent and self-willed. He probed the interior with his hungry vision; he thought he saw the stub of the optic nerve twitch but could not be sure. The fluid and the movement attracted the attentions of other watchers, bringing the hungry curiosity of a stream of black ants to the rock. Without hesitation, they continued the dissection that Tsungali had started. He watched the eye being nibbled apart and ferried away, its muscles still alive and contracting as the insects held it aloft like a great prize, dragging it backwards along the glistening black chain of their frantic bodies. A few minutes later, there was nothing left—even the stain was fought over and diminished by the porous stone and the cooking sun.

  Tsungali put his hand protectively over the closed pouch; whatever its origins, he knew that he had in his possession a most valuable prize.

  “I was born this way,” Ishmael answered with a wince.

  They were on a high rock in the sun. Williams had carried him there, away from the killing fields of the anthropophagi. They talked and questioned each other as the white man worked on Ishmael’s wounds.

  “I came here from the city.”

  “Why?” asked Williams, without looking up from his work.

  “I wanted to escape from the people and see if my origins were here.”

  “What, with those things down there?”

  “No, not them, something else. I don’t know,” the cyclops said, catching a small movement out of the corner of his eye.

  “How long have you been here?” Williams asked.

  Ishmael noticed the bow at the same time it noticed him. It moved again. Small, muscular adjustments inside its taut form caused it to stir against the warm rocks. He barely heard his companion’s repeated question.

  “I said, how long?” came the murmured reiteration, from somewhere below his left knee.

  It must have been the sun warming it, or his pain and shock knitting together to create the illusion.

  “Answer me!” demanded a frustrated Williams. “How long have you been here?!”

  “Sorry?! What?” spluttered Ishmael.

  Williams moved to the other side of the prone cyclops. “I said, how long have you been in the Vorrh?”

  “I don’t know. Six days? Maybe more. I have lost count.”

  “You nearly lost your life,” said Williams.

  The cyclops said nothing but shuffled himself into a sitting position.

  The pain was fading and he was beginning to trust this stranger and his bag of healing plants.

  “How long have you been here?” asked Ishmael.

  “Now, that is a difficult question to answer,” Williams answered. “Maybe a week. Maybe a year. Maybe much longer. I have little memory of the life I led before I entered this fearsome place. But I have been here before; of that I am certain. What lies ahead is only destiny.”

  Ishmael started to see him in a different way and said, “They say that the forest lives on memory, that it devours the memory of men.”

  “Do they?” said Williams, handing the cyclops a cup of tinctured water.

  “Yes!” said Ishmael earnestly, not sensing the irony in the other’s question.

  The bow trembled again. Its twitch displaced it, and it slid down across the rock, like the big hand of a clock. Its clatter startled the cyclops, who jerked around to look at it.

  “She’s getting restless,” said her owner. “She wants to move on.”

  “She?” asked Ishmael nervously.

  “It’s a long story,” answered Williams, walking over to the bow and bringing it back to his side to rest between them.

  Ishmael looked at its long, narrow form and felt a radiance exude from its maroon-black surface. He touched it gingerly with the tips of his closest fingers; it was warm and moist.

  “Don’t do that,” said Williams with a sharp, empathic correctness. “I am the only one who touches her.”

  Ishmael’s hand flinched back. “Forgive me!”

  “No need. But you must understand: I have had that bow a long time. She is my only real possession.”

  Ishmael murmured an understanding. Distracted, he asked, “Does it have a name?”

  “She did once; I think it was Este.” As he spoke, a profound change came over the Bowman’s face. He looked shocked at the name in his mouth and appeared to be searching for something; the next word, or the next moment.

  “What does it mean?” asked Ishmael.

  Williams changed again, staring oddly at the cyclops with an expression that made Ishmael feel anxious and unsafe. He decided to say nothing more about the bow and lowered his head out of the stranger’s disturbing gaze. He looked down at his hands; the skin where the tips of his fingers had traced the surface of the daunting object was wet and stained.

  “I don’t know,” said Williams, in answer to a question that Ishmael could not remember asking. “I don’t know!”

  Ishmael discreetly wiped his fingers in the dust of the rock and changed the subject quickly. “I meant to thank you, for saving me from tho
se savages.”

  There was no response from the distant man.

  “It is said that all manner of creatures live in these trees. I think those must have been the worst; if it was not for you, they would certainly have hurt me again.”

  “They would have eaten you!” Williams announced, clicking back into the unease of the moment. Ishmael stared at him, suddenly feeling very queasy and tired. He slipped slightly in a disjointed, groggy movement.

  “That will be the tincture I gave you,” said Williams. “It will heal you and help you to sleep.”

  Ishmael touched the palm of his hand against his face, seeking some basic, instinctive reassurance. He smelt the liquid of the bow on his fingers; it took his softening mind very far away. He turned to look at Williams, to ask him what it meant, but the words turned to jelly and gas, and he faded into the growing gravity beneath him. His eye closed; somewhere in its narrow slit rested the dark bow, whose name he had already forgotten.

  Tsungali found the remains of the slaughtered demons. He kicked them over and examined the wounds. He had never seen flesh and bone torn apart like this. It impressed him, and he longed to be the owner of a weapon that could cause such utter devastation.

  He had tracked the two men from the place with the fallen tree, up to a rocky outcrop. It was getting dark, which placed him in a quandary: He did not like the idea of climbing the rock in the failing light, of coming across the owners of the powerful gun from a point beneath them; however, he did not know what still lived below—the demons might well be nocturnal.

  His options were few, and he eventually decided to spend the night perched on the fallen tree; it gave him the best vantage point and better options of defence or attack. He climbed up and onto the vast, fallen giant and walked its length, looking down onto the forest floor for signs of activity or seclusion. All was quiet. He knew the other two waited above. He would find them tomorrow and decide then whether they should live or die. The weapon they carried made him favour the latter—it would be cleaner that way. Then he could move on to find the Bowman; perhaps his first use of the novel firearm would enable him to watch its effects on his wandering prey.