In places the passage was only a few inches wider than her hips, and they were forced to worm their way along. She imagined that she could feel the immense weight of the dragon pressing in upon her, pictured some muscle twitching in reflex, the passage constricting and crushing them. The closed space made her breathing sound loud, and for awhile John’s breathing sounded even louder, hoarse and labored. But then she could no longer hear it, and she discovered that he had fallen behind. She called out to him, and he said, ‘Keep going!’
She rolled onto her back in order to see him. He was gasping, his face twisted as if in pain. ‘What’s wrong?’ she cried, trying to turn completely, constrained from doing so by the narrowness of the passage.
He gave her a shove. ‘I’ll be all right. Don’t stop!’
‘John!’ She stretched out a hand to him, and he wedged his shoulder against her legs, pushing her along.
‘Damn it . . . just keep going!’ He continued to push and exhort her, and realizing that she could do nothing, she turned and crawled at an even faster pace, seeing his harrowed face in her mind’s eye.
She couldn’t tell how many minutes it took to reach the end of the passage; it was a timeless time, one long unfractionated moment of straining, squirming, pulling at the slick walls, her effort fueled by her concern; but when she scrambled out into the dragon’s throat, her heart racing, for an instant she forgot about John, about everything except the sight before her. From where she stood the throat sloped upward and widened into the mouth, and through that great opening came a golden light, not the heavy mineral brilliance of Griaule’s blood, but a fresh clear light, penetrating the tangled shapes of the thickets in beams made crystalline by dust and moisture – the light of day. The tip of a huge fang hooking upward, stained gold with the morning sun, and the vault of the dragon’s mouth above, with its vines and epiphytes. Stunned, gaping, she dropped her sword and went a couple of paces toward the light. It was so clean, so pure, its allure like a call. Remembering John, she turned back to the passage. He was pushing himself erect with his sword, his face flushed, panting.
‘Look!’ she said, hurrying to him, pointing at the light. ‘God, just look at that!’ She steadied him, began steering him toward the mouth.
‘We made it,’ he said. ‘I didn’t believe we would.’
His hand tightened on her arm in what she assumed was a sign of affection; but then his grip tightened cruelly, and he lurched backward.
‘John!’ She fought to hold onto him, saw that his eyes had rolled up into his head.
He sprawled onto his back, and she went down on her knees beside him, hands fluttering above his chest, saying, ‘John? John?’ What felt like a shiver passed through his body, a faint guttering noise issued from his throat, and she knew, oh, she knew very well the meaning of that tremor, that signal passage of breath. She drew back, confused, staring at his face, certain that she had gotten things wrong, that in a second or two his eyelids would open. But they did not. ‘John?’ she said, astonished by how calm she felt, by the measured tone of her voice, as if she were making a simple inquiry. She wanted to break through the shell of calmness, to let out what she was really feeling, but it was as if some strangely lucid twin had gained control over her muscles and will. Her face was cold, and she got to her feet, thinking that the coldness must be radiating from John’s body and that distance would be a cure. The sight of him lying there frightened her, and she turned her back on him, folded her arms across her chest. She blinked against the daylight. It hurt her eyes, and the loops and interlacings of foliage standing out in silhouette also hurt her with their messy complexity, their disorder. She couldn’t decide what to do. Get away, she told herself. Get out. She took a hesitant step toward the mouth, but that direction didn’t make sense. No direction made sense, anymore.
Something moved in the bushes, but she paid it no mind. Her calm was beginning to crack, and a powerful gravity seemed to be pulling her back toward the body. She tried to resist it. More movement. Leaves were rustling, branches being pushed aside. Lots of little movements. She wiped at her eyes. There were no tears in them, but something was hampering her vision, something opaque and thin, a tattered film. The shreds of her calm, she thought, and laughed . . . more a hiccup than a laugh. She managed to focus on the bushes and saw ten, twenty, no, more, maybe two or three dozen diminutive figures, pale mongrel children in glittering rags standing at the verge of the thicket. She hiccuped again, and this time it felt nothing like a laugh. A sob, or maybe nausea. The Feelys shifted nearer, edging toward her. The bastards had been waiting for them. She and John had never had a chance of escaping.
Catherine retreated to the body, reached down, groping for John’s sword. She picked it up, pointed it at them. ‘Stay away from me,’ she said. ‘Just stay away, and I won’t hurt you.’
They came closer, shuffling, their shoulders hunched, their attitudes fearful, but advancing steadily all the same.
‘Stay away!’ she shouted. ‘I swear I’ll kill you!’ She swung the sword, making a windy arc through the air. ‘I swear!’
The Feelys gave no sign of having heard, continuing their advance, and Catherine, sobbing now, shrieked for them to keep back, swinging the sword again and again. They encircled her, standing just beyond range. ‘You don’t believe me?’ she said. ‘You don’t believe I’ll kill you? I don’t have any reason not to.’ All her grief and fury broke through, and with a scream she lunged at the Feelys, stabbing one in the stomach, slicing a line of blood across the satin and gilt chest of another. The two she had wounded fell, shrilling their agony, and the rest swarmed toward her. She split the skull of another, split it as easily as she might have a melon, saw gore and splintered bone fly from the terrible wound, the dead male’s face nearly halved, more blood leaking from around his eyes as he toppled, and then the rest of them were on her, pulling her down, pummeling her, giving little fey cries. She had no chance against them, but she kept on fighting, knowing that when she stopped, when she surrendered, she would have to start feeling, and that she wanted badly to avoid. Their vapid faces hovered above her, seeming uniformly puzzled, as if unable to understand her behavior, and the mildness of their reactions infuriated her. Death should have brightened them, made them – like her – hot with rage. Screaming again, her thoughts reddening, pumped with adrenaline, she struggled to her knees, trying to shake off the Feelys who clung to her arms. Snapping her teeth at fingers, faces, arms. Then something struck the back of her head, and she sagged, her vision whirling, darkness closing in until all she could see was a tunnel of shadow with someone’s watery eyes at the far end. The eyes grew wider, merged into a single eye that was itself a shadow with leathery wings and a forked tongue and a belly full of fire that swooped down, open-mouthed, to swallow her up and fly her home.
Seven
The drug moderated Catherine’s grief . . . or perhaps it was more than the drug. John’s decline had begun so soon after they had met, it seemed she had become accustomed to sadness in relation to him, and thus his death had not overwhelmed her, but rather had manifested as an ache in her chest and a heaviness in her limbs, like small stones she was forced to carry about. To rid herself of that ache, that heaviness, she increased her use of the drug, eating the pellets as if they were candy, gradually withdrawing from life. She had no use for life any longer. She knew she was going to die within the dragon, knew it with the same clarity and certainty that accompanied all Griaule’s sendings – death was to be her punishment for seeking to avoid his will, for denying his right to define and delimit her.