Chase the Morning

I felt deadly cold; but I was running with sweat. ‘You mean – that it was a ceremony like this? In the boiling water? That they were going to sacrifice –’

‘Triple idiot!’ raged the old man. ‘Crétin, can you not listen to a word I say? It was not some such ceremony! It was this ceremony! Here! Tonight, child of misfortune! A rite of sacrifice – and something more! And all your fool’s labours have served only to lead us to it! Not only she you sought to snatch back – all of us! To share her fate!’

He spoke loud enough for Clare to hear. I looked up in alarm and met her eyes, wide and wild with fright – and yet searching, I could tell, for some word to say. ‘You tried!’ she choked. ‘You tried – that’s what matters –’

But the others were silent, even Jyp; and Strgye laughed coldly. ‘You may think little enough of yourself to say that, child! But a chit’s life, or this hollow shell that calls itself a man, what are they to mine? I for one did not live in the worlds so long to be turned out of them on such a fool’s errand, and left to wander my own way back again!’

‘Then do something about it!’ barked Jyp. ‘Or go choke on your own forked tongue, you old copperhead –’

‘Stay!’ said Le Stryge, very sharply, and the fire gleamed on his greasy coat as he leaned forward, listening. Or was he listening? He seemed intent on some sense; but it was not one I shared. Then, very coldly, he laughed. ‘Do? What can I do, fettered in cold iron? No strength in me will pass it. Find me a force from outside, now … But for that, even could it be done, it is too late. Something comes, some other approaches …’ Suddenly the sweat stood out on his high brow and he cried out softly. ‘Evil is here! A strength – an evil ancient and strong. Not of my kind –’

He rounded on me, wild-eyed and panting, so hard he almost pulled Mall over. ‘You! You starver of your soul, you waverer between good and evil, taster of neither – you worshipper of emptiness, of gauds and trinkets! This is your doing, this you have brought on us! It draws nearer … nearer …’

Chapter Ten

I twisted my head away from the old man’s spitting vehemence, like a cobra’s venom. I could have felt ashamed, or angry, I suppose; in fact I felt almost nothing. A little nervousness, a little queasy uncertainty – but at the heart of it all an absence of feeling, a numbness. It was like looking out of a window into a deep black pit. An awareness of failure, maybe; I didn’t know. I wasn’t used to it.

But the poisonous old voice dropped suddenly to a whisper and fell silent. The drums, too, sank to a shuddering mutter, the jabbering commotion of the crowd collapsed into an awed murmur, the sounds merging into a soft, uneasy threnody. Even the flames seemed to bend and dwindle, though the dank air was still and cool. Then the crowd parted suddenly, men and women scuttling hastily aside, clearing a path to the fires and the stone beyond. For a moment it stood empty; then something moved across the flames. Along the barren ground towards us a long shadow fell. What cast it was no more than a shape, a dark silhouette like the outline of a man swathed in hooded robes, like a medieval monk almost; or a leper. Along its own shadow it came gliding towards us, black and impenetrable, as if no more than a deeper shadow itself. It halted smoothly a few feet in front of us – in front of me. And then in one fluid movement it bowed.

Bowed from the waist, with a dancer’s grace, almost to the ground. For a nicely calculated instant it remained poised, steadying itself on a tall slender black cane; then it rose unhurriedly upright, and brushed back the shadowing cowl. Bright dark eyes glittered into mine, with an impact that was almost physical – a shock so sharp I didn’t immediately see there was any face around them. Let alone a face I’d seen before.

Not a Wolf’s face, or a native’s. A European face; but naturally swarthy, deeply tanned, and tinged with an unpleasant yellow, jaundiced and unhealthy, nothing like the golden-skinned Caribs. The high brow was deeply furrowed, the face unlined save for the deep channels that flanked the narrow hooked nose and shaped the black moustachios like fangs around the thin dark lips and jutting, arrogant chin. Black hair only slightly tinged with grey swept back from that frowning forehead to ripple elegantly about the neck. Blacker still were the eyes it hooded, curiously empty despite their glitter, as if some vast void lurked behind their bright lenses; and the whites were yellowed and unhealthy. All in all, a strange, striking face, now I saw it clearly. Proud as a king’s, almost – and yet too marked with concern, cunning, malice to look royal. A statesman’s face, a politician’s – a Talleyrand, not a Napoleon. And with a hint of sickliness that I hadn’t noticed, in that New Orleans street, leading me astray; or behind the wheel of that car nobody but me seemed to see. Or on Katjka’s cards …

Not a king, then – a knave.