The first vine tightened about my foot. I felt a prickling where another, smaller loop of vegetation attached itself. As I watched helplessly the vine lashed against my leg, until one or another of the tiny thorns pierced my skin. There was little pain, but I saw a trickle of blood seep from my boot.
That same odd fearlessness stayed with me in these moments. I dug my elbows into the soft earth and pushed myself up, watching as my own blood welled into the vines. They pulsed slightly, the pale jade flesh darkening to evergreen where they fed. The narcotic effect of the thorns kept me from pain. No doubt it dulled my senses as well. When I saw the jackal rushing to nip at my feet my first thought was to kick it away from me, and I twitched my legs uselessly. I watched in mute amazement as, snarling, it darted between the thrashing vines, tearing at them with its fangs and slipping between them like quicksilver. The thorns slid through its silvery fur like the teeth of a comb, catching nothing but air. The dog leaped and snapped a thick vine in two. The pieces fell, squirming, and I realized this was the vine that had held me fast. I yanked myself free from the myriad tendrils clinging to my tunic and rolled away. The jackal spun about and followed me through the writhing vines.
In the darkness one path shone brighter than the others, moonlit. I stumbled toward it only to find the jackal blocking my way. I turned and ducked under a tangle of ivy; the jackal was there in front of me.
“Go on!” I yelled, pulling a rotted branch from a tree and brandishing it. The animal sat back and cocked its’ head. Behind us the night-coils thrashed and hissed harmlessly, out of reach. “Damn you,” I swore.
I was almost as angry with myself as I was fearful of the animal, because hadn’t it just saved me? Jackals were wild dogs, and dogs were rumored to be friendly toward humans sometimes. Miramar had often told of how as a child he had tamed a wild dog that could do tricks. I had seen him weep to recall it. Doctor Foster verified that they had an ancient and noble history before the concatenations that had resulted in the aardmen and other geneslaves. Miramar swore that dogs could understand human speech.
But wild dogs hunted and indiscriminately fed upon humans, as did the aardmen. I slashed the air with my stick, glancing around me for signs of other predatory plants or beasts lurking in the moonlit trees. The jackal cocked its head, following me with its slanted eyes. It did not appear hungry. When I took a step forward it rose and followed, tail twitching.
“What do you want?” I stopped and faced it head-on. A small glade tufted with pale myrtle reflected the starry break in the trees above us. The jackal halted, then threw back its head and cried.
Not the barking or howling I had so often heard in the distance, but a mournful yodeling that had the varied cadence and intonation of speech. Behind us the night-coils grew still and the wind died. The jackal alone cried out, as if calling to the very stars. At that sound the hair on my arms and neck stood up. My dream rushed back upon me: the dream of the Hanged Boy, whom the Saint-Alabans call the Gaping One.
He who is also named by them the Lord of Dogs.
“What do you want of me?” I repeated, but I lowered my stick. “I am not of your people.” My voice cracked like a boy’s, and I felt foolish.
The animal remained poised, its muzzle pointed star-ward. I looked up to see what it watched there. Through the break in the leaves I saw the new moon. Many stars: the Polar Star; the hunting stars Cerberus and Sirius; uncounted others, nameless and no doubt dead to any eyes but mine. As I stared, a faint point of white tracked slowly across the sky, one of the Ascendants’ sad lights doomed to count the clouds forever. I watched until it disappeared behind the leaves. Still the beast watched the sky. I sighed, turned to go. With a low growl the jackal warned me, and I glanced up.
From the center of the sky welled a brightness, a silver rent in the firmament. It grew so large that I gasped, thinking the heavens would be torn apart to show the blinding void that hides behind the vastnesses of space. But no. It swelled until a second moon burned there, tear-shaped, sliding through the darkness and leaving a trail of fire in its wake as it streaked across the sky. Then it disappeared in a molten glare, tail glowing like a dull ember.
“Sweet Magdalene,” I breathed.
For thus had each Ascension been heralded, by new moons appearing in the heavens to flame and burst like mafic-lights. And suddenly I heard from every point of the City distant cries and clamor. From very far off came the screams of sirens, the thrumming of fougas, and faintest of all the boom of congreves being launched across the river.
I turned, stumbling against the jackal. It grabbed my trouser leg with its teeth and tugged insistently. By now I had no doubts but that I had somehow fallen into an adventure such as Doctor Foster had so often recited to us. As easily as a serpent shedding its skin I sloughed off any reservations I might have had a day earlier about following a ghostly animal through a forest where gods walked and the flowers thirsted for the blood of men.
“Where you will, Anku!” I said. That had been the name of Miramar’s tame dog. This one fairly danced upon hearing it, tossing its head back and letting forth once again that weird wailing song. Then it darted into the woods, its white flanks gleaming through the tangled brush. I followed, steeling my heart against the echo of distant sirens and airships. I ran with wild delight, daring them to hunt me who ran with Death’s dog.
4. Organic beings of a different character
THROUGH THE WOODS WE plunged. It seemed to me that days had fled since first I entered that place, but the moon had scarcely crept across the sky. It was still early evening. With Anku racing ahead of me I ran, head held low to keep him in my sight. The trees seemed to shrink from our passage. Beneath my feet mandragons puled as I crushed them in spurts of white froth. Neither these nor the cries of the betulamia, slender trees like birches that reached to embrace me, could frighten or impede me now. Somewhere ahead of us the river slumbered and the Houses of Eros guttered with golden light. Somewhere Roland embraced another pathic and coursed the first slow steps of the pavane that began each Paphian masque.
At the thought I clenched my teeth. A new kind of lust stirred me: a sudden fierce need for pain and harrowing, a raging desire to wrench the veil of flesh and tendon from Roland’s face and slake this fever with his blood. About my wrist the sagittal burned with a pulsing violet light. I laughed and raised my fist so that it lit the path before me. Anku turned, his white teeth glittering.
The trees thinned to a copse pricked with flashing fireflies. Anku bounded through the tall grass. I hesitated, blinking in the brighter moonlight that spilled onto the coppice. A few yards ahead the shallow reflections of stars glimmered across the Tiger Creek. I whooped in delight and raced across the field to splash in the shallow water. Already Anku waded there, drinking and shaking his muzzle. I sloshed to where the water flowed knee-high, gazing upstream to see if I could locate the Hill Magdalena Ardent hidden behind the dense foliage. And yes, if I squinted I could just make out the more refined silhouettes of ruins and even a pale glimmering that was surely the lights of High Brazil.