The courtesies were an open mockery now. To begin with he’d been weaving a web around me, a net of meanings behind his words, charged with some power to persuade me, snare me into eager submission. Now it blew in the wind like ragged cobwebs. He would not take me by subtlety now; which meant, I guessed, he was going to rely on force. What kind, I couldn’t guess; but I was horribly afraid. The idea of not being me – I was shaking, and my bruises hurt. Idiotically, knowing how useless it was, I strained and kicked against my bonds; but the iron neckring clattered. It had held the strongest slaves once; and what had he done to them? I fought to stifle a whimper, and was deadly ashamed when I couldn’t.
Slowly the Knave shook his head. Again the cane tapped the ground. The numbing chill was spreading through all my limbs now; a leaden, languorous feeling that was not entirely unpleasant, as soft and relentless as that quiet voice. ‘Struggle, if you will; you but pain yourself to no purpose. In such as you, señor, there is no power to resist what comes. The door stands open, there is none within to bar it. And as for your friends, let me reassure you. Only be patient, and you will see their worries also come to an end! And now, I trust you will excuse me. Our solemn rite must not be delayed!’
Once, twice, he bobbed deep bows to me, then whirled around in a billow of cloak and strode away –
Or did he? He seemed to be walking; but he passed over the rough ground too smoothly and too fast, gliding like a wind-spun leaf. A deadly shiver shook me, a chill deeper than the ground. I’d thwarted him, somehow; and in anger and disappointment, as one does, he was letting appearances slip. ‘What the hell is he?’ I breathed.
Le Stryge let out a great spraying wheeze of a chuckle. ‘But of course, yes, you were pleading with him! So touching; but a trace too late – a century or two, maybe! How did you not see at once? From the eyes, boy, the eyes! A creature gnawed away from within, like a grub with a parasite, a walking shell. Nothing left of him but habits and memories, the real man eaten up long since. From such as that let a man keep his distance, if he wants to stay a man! Small use pleading with it!’
‘What else can I do?’ I demanded, feeling the blood sink out of my face. Don Pedro had been trying to persuade me I could go the way he went – and still stay human. What would it really be like? Being worked like a puppet from within?
Or would I even know about it? Would thoughts come to me just the way my own did? Ideas to act on, that seemed like my own most of the time – and yet, just now and again, there might be this creeping, helpless doubt. And all the time there’d be less and less that was really mine, until …
I saw only too clearly what Le Stryge had meant. In school biology class I’d kept caterpillars. Some died suddenly; and I’d found that the growing wasp larva within had eaten them away to a mere bag of skin, a living mask of flesh. And all the while they’d kept moving, kept on feeding just the same as ever, so I’d never noticed the difference.
‘I don’t want to become like him!’
‘You won’t be able to help it,’ Stryge told me evenly. ‘It is as he says. You also are empty, though you are not so aware. Less empty than he, maybe, since you show some concern for others; but the spirit within you is small and shrivelled. You know neither great love nor great hate, great good or great evil. You have starved your life of what life is, and there is too much space within. Such people are most easily possessed; and often, despite what they think, they welcome it.’
‘So you say!’ I snarled. ‘So you bloody well keep saying! Who the hell are you to condemn me? You’re damn near as creepy as he is! If you’re a full man I’d sooner be empty.’
Stryge’s smile was suddenly frightening, and in his eyes I seemed to see the orange firelight flickering among the rubbish-strewn scrub-grass of his vacant lot. ‘I am full, I contain multitudes … Most of it you would neither like nor understand. But at least it is all of my own choosing. It serves me, not I it.’
I shivered. ‘And me? What’s he need me for so badly, anyhow?’
The old man snorted. ‘What? Is it not obvious? This Don Pedro, for all his power, left the Core long centuries ago, having dwelt nowhere beyond this isle; and for that we may be thankful. Of this world he wishes to rule he knows little – whereas you, boy that you are, are adept at manipulating it. With you as their instrument they’ll have all your skills at their disposal. They would not need such clumsy plots as the one you and the Pilot foiled; trying to sneak a dupiah and a Wolf-pack past our barriers to seek power by brigandage in the Core. They could smuggle in whatever they liked, by ways we of the Ports cannot touch. And they may aim higher, intending to have you rise to a position of power. What could one such homme d’affaires not achieve with the might of the Invisibles behind him, wielded subtly and ruthlessly? You would unleash their domain throughout all the circles of the World –’
‘Stop it! Stop it!’ It was as if Clare’s voice broke the bonds her limbs couldn’t. ‘Don’t just gloat over him, you smelly old bastard! It’s not his fault!’
A sudden roll and surge of the drums gave weight to her words, a thunderous crash that faded suddenly to silence. The crowd swayed and split, and for a moment I glimpsed the drums themselves, dark cylinders the height of ordinary men, grouped in threes with their tall Wolf drummers poised over them, their elephantine skins gleaming with oil and sweat, their dyed parrot-crests brushing the ceremonial tonnelle roof.
‘There’s truly nothing you may do?’ Mall demanded thickly, over that instant of tense quiet. ‘However desperate – nothing?’
Stryge snuffled scornfully. ‘If there were, I’d not have waited on your word! The ceremony begins. First the mangés mineurs, the lesser sacrifices to lure down the Invisibles among the worshippers. Then the mangés majeurs, the great sacrifices, that will bend them to Don Pedro’s will. Then – it will be too late. They’ll bring their power to bear on our empty-headed friend here, and he must fall. Not that we’ll be there to see it! If any hope remains –’ He jerked his head in my direction; and for the first time I saw fear flicker faintly in that ancient, flinty gaze. ‘Then let it lie with him.’
‘With me?’
I almost screamed aloud at the cruelty of it. Lay all this on me?
Fingers stroked the drumheads and they sang, a low humming note that swelled and grew. Another note blended with it, a soft droning chant that fell oddly off the beat, a lurching, distorted music. There were words in it, but I couldn’t make them out. Then the stretched hides bellowed and roared as bone sticks and open palms fell on them, a roll that rose and fell like surf and stuttered into a kind of march. From behind the drums figures appeared, half-swaying, half-strutting, with the solemn slowness of a ritual procession. Slowly, very slowly, they wove towards the fire, towards the high white stones. A tall Wolf, robed in ragged black, led the way, shaking a huge gourd hung about with what looked like knucklebones, and white ivory beads that gleamed in the red light – or were they teeth? On either side of him, dwarfed, two haughty-looking mulatto women swung tall thin staves topped with red banners, embroidered with complex vever signs. Behind them marched two Carib men, holding up naked cutlasses on their tattooed palms and trailing in their wake men and women of all the motley races there, rattling bone-gourds, shuffling their bare feet on the ground. I saw some tread on sharp-looking stones, on still-glowing fragments spat from sappy logs, but they didn’t seem to notice. Others drifted out from the crowd as they passed, while the rest took up the chant and swayed to it, stretching their arms wide, rolling their heads from side to side. Around the flames they wheeled, still chanting, and shuffled to a halt before the altar-stone.