From the brush a groan sounded. The creature’s bright black eyes slid aside. ‘Shall I twist his head off?
‘No! Please. Don’t. I beg you—’
It shook her. ‘Beg?’ it snarled, offended. ‘You’re in the jungle, child. Begging won’t serve. Did Citravaghra teach you nothing?’
‘Citravaghra?’
The creature brought its hand to its mouth to mimic long bared fangs. ‘The Night Hunter.’
Ah. So that is his name
. ‘He spoke to me. He said I – that I had power.’
‘Exactly!’ The beast tossed her high then caught her leg once more, jerking her neck fiercely. ‘Do not move,’ he suddenly warned, pointing aside.
Craning her aching neck she spotted Hanu, weapon readied, facing the monster.
‘So,’ it continued, eyeing her now. ‘Have power, do you?’ It drew her closer to sniff at her face. Its breath was repulsive. ‘Let’s see it. Come on.’ It shook her anew.
Knives of pain slit into Saeng’s neck. ‘Please don’t do that.’
‘What? This?’ It dangled her even more savagely.
Blasted insulting creature. Fine! I’ll give you power
. Saeng reached within herself, remembering the guiding words of her countless tutors to form and concentrate her inner wellspring. Then she gathered all the energy she envisaged dwelling within and sent it lancing at the beast.
A great clap of displaced air boomed before her and the ground leaped up to smack her in the back. She lay for a time, dazed, then slowly straightened, groaning and dizzy.
‘
Saeng
…’ Hanu murmured, awed.
Before her a great swath had been cut from the ground. It gouged a path through the brush to end at the base of a towering tualang where the broad bulwark of its arched roots had absorbed the blast. But not without damage as a bright fresh crack now curved up its tower-thick trunk. Branches and leaves pelted down from on high. On all sides roars and shrieks and squalls of protest sounded into the waning afternoon light.
Movement and a scrabbling of nails on bark and the gibbon-like creature emerged from among the buttressing roots. It slapped a hand to its head. ‘That’s … a start,’ it gasped, breathless.
‘A start to what?’ Saeng demanded. ‘Speak!’
The beast began edging up the trunk by feeling behind itself with its elongated hands and feet. ‘To what is to come.’ It grinned, baring its teeth.
Saeng closed on the giant of a tree. ‘And that is?’ she shouted up at the creature.
Now close to the mid-canopy heights it called down, mockingly: ‘Something for which you must prepare.’
‘Not good enough,’ she snarled to herself. Hanu had come to her side but she pushed him back. ‘Prepare for
this
, you insolent ape!’
She pooled all her resentment, rage and frustration into one concentrated searing spark and threw it against the base of the tualang.
The release tossed her flying backwards. The next thing she was aware of was Hanu pulling her upright and steadying her. She stood with his aid, blinking, dazed. ‘
Look!
’ he urged, sounding almost fearful.
The immense straight length of the tall emergent tree was swaying and bending like a whipped sapling. Hanu’s strong arm urged her back now as bursting explosions shook its base and, one after another, each of the broad arching supporting roots snapped.
Slowly, the great sky-tall stretch of its trunk came tilting down through the canopy, which it crushed and parted with ease. The trunk, far broader round than any hut, slid off its fresh stump, shaking the ground, and seemed to simply lie down across the jungle like a giant taking its ease. Reverberations of the series of crashes echoed from all about. Yet this time the surrounding leagues of forest were utterly silent, as if shocked, or disbelieving.
Strangely, the only thought that came to her was:
I hope I fall as gracefully
.
At her side, Hanu raised his yataghan blade to examine it, shook
his
helmed head, and sheathed it. ‘
You hardly need my protection, Saeng
.’
‘But I want it.’
He grunted something that might have been a shy sort of gratitude. ‘
Well
.’ He invited her forward. ‘
Let’s see how our friend fared
.’
He helped her up the great tilted base with its torn roots like severed arms reaching to the sky. Together they walked the length of the trunk. It lay as a clear easy path through the crushed tangle. Close to where the crown had snapped away they found the beast. It lay next to the slim bole, one arm beneath it, blinking up at them. ‘Shouldn’t go throwing trees at people,’ it croaked.
‘What do you know?’ Saeng demanded.
It tugged on its arm. ‘Ah, well. Nothing, really. Serves me right. Just what the seers among us sense. A terrifying thing is coming. And you may play a part.’
She knelt to better peer down at it. ‘What is your name?’
‘My name? Varakapi.’
‘And what is this terrifying thing?’
‘
Saeng
…’ Hanu murmured, calling her attention.
‘This thing?’ the creature answered. A fresh grin grew, pulling its black lips away from its prominent fangs. ‘Why, that most terrifying thing of all. Change, of course.’
‘
Saeng
…’ Hanu urged anew.
She straightened. ‘What?’ He lifted his armoured chin ahead. She turned to squint into the deepening honey gloom of dusk. The fall of the giant tualang had parted a swath of the jungle and now she could glimpse a section of the river. There, in the far distance, a bizarre feature seemed to overtop its flat course. It took some time for her to understand what she was looking at as she’d never before seen one of its type. It appeared to be an enormous bridge.
She glanced down to ask Varakapi of it but snapped her mouth shut. He was gone. She snorted her grudging half-admiration.
Cunning beast
. Yet not truly a beast. A man-ape, child of the jungle, ward of the Queen of Witches, Ardata.
It was long after dusk when they reached the structure. Saeng was in an awful mood. The last stretch had been the worst she’d experienced yet: low-lying swampy ground plagued by biting insects. She was filthy with sweat and reeking mud. And the evening downpour was gathering in rumblings and distant flashes of lightning. The wide causeway that led to the bridge emerged from the muck as if from the sea. Saeng imagined the river must have flooded countless
times
, or shifted its course, since the edifice was built. Indeed, huge jungle emergents crowned the causeway. They had pushed aside its cyclopean blocks the way a child might knock over toys. The river coursed ahead, silent and dark.
‘
We may just make it …
’ Hanu murmured.
‘Not tonight. Not in the dark.’
He glittered now in the night. The rain had cleaned the dust and mud from his inlay mosaic of semi-precious stones. Sapphire, emerald and gold flashed keenly as he moved. He gestured aside. ‘
Perhaps there is cover from the rain below
.’
‘And beasts.’
‘
Nothing you cannot handle, Saeng
.’
She followed, wishing she shared his confidence in her abilities. There was cover where the wide arch of the stone bridge cleared the shore, but there was also thick clammy mud that weighted her sandals. Hanu led her to a modest hump where the mud had dried to a hardened cracked surface. She spread her thick sleeping blanket and sat, tucking her legs beneath her.
‘
I will try to find dry wood
,’ Hanu said and pushed off through the tall stands of grass and cattails.
Once Hanu had been gone for a time the dead came.
Saeng turned her face away; she did not want to deal with them now. Their endless demands and neediness. Who would have imagined that the dead should be so needy? But they were. They did not know the meaning of the word surcease. Which was probably why they wandered, ever searching – searching for something they would not even recognize should they find it.
They watched her silently from among the brush. On all sides their sad liquid eyes implored her. Girls mostly here. Young women. ‘What do you want?’ she hissed, keeping her gaze lowered.
‘
Help us
,’ they whispered in her thoughts, pleading.
‘How?’
‘
Help us
.’
The barest hint of their longing and profound grief touched her then and she felt tears mark their hot descent down her cheeks. ‘Go away. I cannot help you.’
‘
Help us
.’ Something disturbed them then and they retreated into the gloom. Their fading was like a heartbreaking sigh in the night. Hanu emerged from the dry brush to set down an armload of driftwood. He started preparing a fire.
After the blaze came alight, he sat back to regard the surroundings. ‘
This is a sad place
,’ he said.
‘Yes. The misery here is so strong even you can sense it, Hanu.’ She edged closer to the fire to dry her skirts. ‘It seems that for many centuries this bridge has been a favourite site for suicides. Both voluntary and involuntary. Young girls mostly.’
‘
Involuntary?
’
‘Yes. Pregnant, or lovesick, or just plain despairing, they drowned themselves here. Or were drowned.’ She rubbed at her neck. ‘I can feel them, Hanu,’ she said, her voice growing ever more faint. ‘Hundreds of hands at my throat, choking. I am peering up through the water at the faces of brothers and fathers, some rapists, some not. I know that later I will be blamed for my own death. But the most tragic thing is, Hanu, that even now, I still love my family. Even as they—’
‘
Saeng!
’ Hanu exclaimed, horrorstruck. ‘
Do not torture yourself. There is nothing you can do
.’
‘They seem to think there is.’
‘
Well … they are mistaken
.’
Saeng didn’t know if they were or not – no doubt they pleaded for help from everyone who could sense them. She lay on her side and pulled her legs up close to her chest, tucking in her skirts around them, and stared into the dancing flames of the fire. Something ought to be done. She just had no idea what.
Hanu straightened and turned to face away from the fire.
‘You still will not sleep?’
‘
No. I will keep watch. The … treatments … and conditioning leave me able to answer that need while remaining awake
.’
‘I see.’ She wanted to say she was sorry, but worried that perhaps she shouldn’t. After all, this was how he was now and nothing could be done.
With the dawn they ate a very meagre meal of a few remaining scraps of dried fish, the last of their rice and foraged overripe fruit. Then they walked round to climb up on to the broad course of the stone bridge. Saeng had no idea how old it was but was certain her people could never have raised such an immense edifice. It was ancient, then, and cyclopean. Like a mountain of stone laid across the river. Yet some sort of equally vast trauma appeared to have assaulted it. Wide columns and plinths to either side lay fallen or sheared, broken ages ago. The arches no longer ran true, but had been pushed to the side as if a giant had heaved against them. From the silts of the flood plain a massive stone face stared at the sky, its eyes now clumps of grasses, its lips buried in the mud. Cruel, that face appeared to her. Or perhaps merely unfathomable. Saeng brushed at the eternal
clouds
of insects that surrounded her, while shimmering dragonflies darted about partaking of the massed offering.
Hanu stilled. A man stood awaiting them in the middle of the bridge. With a hand at his back, Saeng urged him onward.
‘Greetings,’ the man welcomed them, bowing. He was old, dressed in rags that might have once been robes of some kind. His wild hair was a halo about his sun- and wind-darkened wrinkled features and his eyes and grin had a touched, manic look to them. ‘Please, accompany me. We get so few visitors. It is an honour! Please,’ and he gestured, inviting.
In answer Hanu drew his yataghan and pressed its honed point to the man’s bony chest. ‘Hanu!’ Saeng cried.
‘
He is one of them
.’
‘Thaumaturg?’
The old man nodded jerkily, grinning his antic manic grin. ‘Yes, yes. Such things cannot be hidden from our very own servants, yes? Yes, once. Now I am not. I fled them – but I could not escape them. Yes? You know what I mean. Follow me!’ And he turned abruptly, heading off with a quick shuffling gait.
‘
He is mad
,’ Hanu whispered.
Saeng merely arched a brow. ‘What makes you say that?’
‘
No – I am certain. It is one of the curses the Thaumaturgs level against any among their number who disagree, foment trouble, or desert the common orthodoxy
.’
Following along, Saeng answered, ‘Wouldn’t it be easier just to kill them?’
Hanu’s armoured boots scraped over the huge paving stones. He walked with his hands clasped at his back. ‘
No. You miss the point entirely – which is to your credit. You do not understand cruelty. The Thaumaturgs value their thinking minds above all else. To have that torn from you is punishment indeed. Also, keeping such unfortunates about is most instructional to the rest of the rank and file, yes?
’