The pain of stretched, torn skin instantly vanished.
Then the waters, or whatever they were, poured back out, defying gravity, surging up my nose, rushing back into the hand they seemed to have emanated from.
As the hands grasping my shoulders at last let me go, letting me sit up with a gasp of relief once more, I saw that the captain was now also alongside me: and, with a gracious smile, he was offering me the semaphore mirror he’d originally denied possessing.
I glanced into the glittering mirror.
I was entirely beautiful once more.
*
As we continued along the road with our resplendent escort of previously butchered soldiers, no one bothered talking. They were, for the most part, perfectly silent, the last words I’d heard being those directed at me by Dogface, letting me know he hadn’t restored my beauty purely for my own benefit: ‘I wouldn’t like all our work to be in vain.’
Everything about these people, it seemed, revolved around transactions, the money they would make.
At last, ahead of us I began to catch the first signs of what could only be some kind of township: the smoke curling up like dark serpents from chimneys; the glow of the domes and spires of the upper reaches of the taller buildings.
By me, one of the bestial men shrugged, shivered, as if attempting to ease strained muscles after the long and uncomfortable journey.
Then his face quivered, rippled, the animal side of his face in particular quaking and even moving as if made abruptly fluid.
The fur retreated into the skin, the snout shrunk, the maw contracted, shrivelled.
And within a moment, he had the face of a perfectly normal man.
*
One by one, the faces of the beasts around me quivered, rippled, and flowed back to being perfectly human once more.
The last to undergo the transformation was Dogface: as if he preferred being half animal, and held off from making the change until the very last moment.
I presumed they’d changed their faces – however they’d managed it – to ensure the town’s inhabitants weren’t terrified by their arrival. Yet the town was no normal town, being rather one of almost compete deterioration: one of those settlements abandoned long ago when water was found to be in short supply, or a gold rush had come to an end.
Moreover, the majority of people living here were no less deformed than the men had appeared while being half beast, half man. Many appeared to be in an even worse state, their flesh apparently rotting, falling from them in shreds or even clumps as they wandered, seemingly aimlessly, up the high street. Still more sported badly healed wounds, everything from sabre slashes to the truly horrific damage caused by a cannonball or shot.
As we rode by them, they eyed us with little interest, even the presence of the smartly attired soldiers failing to inspire within them either respect or nervousness.
Like the rotting, crumbling buildings around them, they appeared curiously soulless, with neither fear nor joy of the life passing around them. Not that the men around me seemed any more enthusiastic, our progress through town being unhurried, time apparently of no consequence to them.
The leader and a handful of his men peeled off from the rest, leaving the bulk of the riders to continue on their unrushed progress down the centre of town. He’d grasped the reins of my own mount, so I found myself heading down a narrower side street, Courundia also having no choice but to follow on behind me.
We arrived outside a surprisingly well-maintained and highly elaborate building, the men hitching our horses to the posts outside. As I was unceremoniously dragged down from my own mount, my hands were deftly roped together in front of me. Courundia was left with her hands firmly bound, but at last she was untied from my horse, the rope now used instead to heartlessly drag her along with us as we all made our way towards the building’s doorway.
I’d presumed we’d be entering a bar, the usual and favourite destination of any men after an arduous, hot and thirsty journey. Inside, however, it was actually quite dark, the only light being an eerie blood red glow that seemed to almost seep around the rooms rather than come from any noticeably direct source.
The bloodied radiance came from behind back-lit pictures fixed everywhere about the wall, as if it were a gallery of stained glass.
Yet these weren’t of glass, or of paint, but of flesh; tautly stretched like canvases over their frames, proudly displaying their tattoos as if they were works of art.
*
Chapter 25
A couple of the men stopped by one of the displayed tattoos, admiring it as if it were a new exhibit. They tentatively touched the flesh, chuckling as the rearing stallion etched upon it apparently moved and came to life, the skin rippling as if muscles were still flexing beneath it.
‘Where’s Mistress Ottat?’ Dogface demanded of a man stepping out of a patch of darkness into the bloody light. ‘I’ve a new decoration for her,’ he added, indicating the tightly bound Courundia with a devilish grin.
Courundia gasped, as if the cruel fate awaiting her had only just dawned on her.
Her eyes, however, weren’t fixed with horror upon the framed tattoos but upon the man unhurriedly ambling more fully into the light.
He was perfectly white, perfectly bald, such that he appeared to be a hideously overgrown baby.
Grindfarg!
*
Chapter 26
Just behind Grindfarg, another man stepped out into the red iridescence.
He too was perfectly white, perfectly bald. He too had all the appearance of being an overgrown baby.
Neither of them gave me a second glance.
All their interest was on poor Courundia. Clustering around her, they produced from their smartly-cut suits measuring tapes, chalk and knives, setting themselves to measuring up Courundia’s tattoos like hellish tailors.
Noticing my revulsion, Dogface mistook it for a reaction to the appearance of these men, who could have been Grindfarg’s triplets.
‘The midwives of this town, they’re always on the lookout for stillborns, see? Whether it’s one of their own making, or one they’ve come across through newspaper announcements of unused cribs, it’s all the same to them: pliable, unhardened, unformed flesh, they can raise just about any way they want to.’
A toad-like woman who could have been their grandmother, if such a thing were possible, next came into the light, looking Courundia up and down much as they were doing.
‘What’s for me today then, Cradjen?’ she asked with only the briefest of glances Dogface’s way before letting her appraising gaze fall upon me. ‘I don’t suppose this dainty piece of work has anything I might be interested in?’
Before I could respond in any way, I was suddenly grabbed tightly from behind, the grasping hands harder than iron in the violence of their grip.
‘Here you are!’ a guttural voice snorted hatefully in my ear.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the flash of perfectly white, perfectly bald flesh.
This really was Grindfarg.
*
I couldn’t break free of Grindfargs’s hold around my waist.
Even the efforts of Cradjen and his men couldn’t wrest me free of his iron-like grip, despite their recourse to pummelling him fiercely about the head, every blow of which he ignored as if they were only striking hard at a pillow.
‘This is my property!’ Cradjen snapped, though I wasn’t sure if he were talking to Grindfarg of Courundia, who also suddenly broke free of the two butcher’s assistants to try and rescue me.
Like Grindfarg, she no longer appeared to care about the beating she was receiving, so intent was her desire to help me.
It might have been a strange and complete stalemate if Señorat Holandros, the photographer, hadn’t walked in upon us.
For a happily grinning Pavro was also with him.
*
Chapter 27
Everything happening around me came to a sudden halt.
Incl
uding, it must be said, all the usual the processes normally whirling around inside my head, all of which had been abruptly replaced by a deluge of questions
What was Pavro doing here?
What was he doing with Señorat Holandros?
With Grindfarg?
Why had their appearance caused everyone to stop what they were doing?
Did the power, prestige and money of the Delmestras hold sway even here, in this hole dragged out of Hell?
Just how much weirder could my whole world become?
*
‘Pavro! What are you doing here?’
Unfortunately, I can only ask one question at a time.
‘And what are you doing with them?’
The second I’ve got to ask anyway, indicating both Señorat Holandros and Grindfarg with nods of my heads and a snort of disgust.
‘I’ve been searching for you: and they had contacts in places like this I couldn’t just ignore!’ Pavro explains with a joyful smile, drawing close to me, tenderly and elatedly kissing my cheek.
As he pulls back slightly, he frowns perplexedly at my bound hands, indicating that he wants them freeing: the odious Grindfarg being more than happy to oblige with the slash of a knife he seems to produce out of nowhere.
Everyone else is hanging back: even Cradjen, whom I assume is simply waiting for payment; even Courundia, whom can only be as dumbfounded as I am by Pavro’s presence.
‘Pavro, you have to help Courundia!’
Using my recently freed hands, I urgently grab hold of Pavro’s.
‘She’s going to be carved up, to make one of these awful pictures!’
I draw his attention to first Courundia and then the framed tattoo skins.
‘Courundia?’ Pavro repeats, as if startled by my concern for her. ‘Who’s sh– ah, wait, of course! The girl who abducted you? You want to help her, Ant?’
Despite his astonishment, he smiles as if amused by my innocence and kindness.
‘No one deserves to end up as someone’s decoration, Pavro!’ I insist vehemently.
‘She’s worth a terrible amount of money,’ the toad-like Mistress Ottat declares, stepping forward without a hint of shame.
‘How much to me, to let her go?’ Pavro asks confidently. ‘Provided, naturally,’ he adds with equal confidence, but this time directing his comment towards Courundia, ‘she agrees to be escorted from town as soon as she’s freed?’
Surprisingly, Courundia nods in acquiescence.
Even more surprisingly, Mistress Ottat nods in acquiescence to Pavro’s request too.
‘Then… Señorat Delmestra…to you…it must be free of charge,’ she says to Pavro, as if every word is being reluctantly forced up from within her deepest recesses.
‘Excellent!’ Pavro declares happily, using yet another quick, authoritative wave of a hand to command two of Cradjen’s men to immediately drag Courundia outside before there can be any protest or signs of discontent from anyone.
Even I’m not allowed time to say goodbye to her, yet I think it best that I don’t cause any delay that might cause anyone to question Pavro’s largesse. Besides, before I can ask Pavro permission to make sure she’s safe, he steps forwards once more and warmly, joyfully embraces me.
Alongside us, Cradjen growls miserably, drawing our attention back to him
‘Ah yes, yes,’ Pavro says, as if delighted that Cradjen has interrupted us, ‘the brave and fearless rescuer of my fair maiden, Andraetra! And how much do I owe you, my good man?’
Cradjen frowns, as if considering the sums he believes involved.
‘To you,’ he says finally, bitterly, as if resenting every word passing through his lips, ‘it’s all free.’
*
Chapter 28
‘Why’s everyone letting you have everything for free?’
‘Oh, not everyone,’ Pavro insists in answer to my question. ‘Just the people we’ve been fortunate enough to meet here so far!’
I’ve never met anyone more unlikely to offer something for free that either Mistress Ottat or Cradjen. And yet the latter had also offered up for free the glass plate image of me he’d managed to safely rescue from the fight with the captain’s men; not that he possessed it any longer, as he had discovered when he’d glanced down at the table he’d placed it on after entering the tattoo gallery.
‘It was here!’ he’d assured Pavro furiously. ‘Someone’s taken it!’
‘Not to worry,’ Pavro had calmly reassured him, glancing my way with loving eyes, ‘we have the real thing safely restored to us after all!’
At the hotel Pavro has taken me to (it being ‘too late to risk a journey home on the roads’), the two rooms he requests for a night’s stay are, naturally, ‘free’.
‘You see,’ Pavro declares brightly, ‘these people aren’t anywhere near as bad as they appear, are they?’
‘There’s a cardinal staying with us,’ the lady behind the hotel’s reception desk declares archly, perhaps making an attempt to impress us. ‘A most insistent man he is too!’
I was impressed that the hotel was regarded as being worthy of a cardinal. It was the cardinals who represented our country in embassies abroad, being the only members of the island’s ruling class who wouldn’t cause an immediate sense of revulsion within any outsider they had to converse with.
A maid carrying a dimly burning oil lamp lit our way up the stairs to our rooms, Pavro accompanying us all the way as we first inspected my room, to ensure I was happy with it.
The room was quite dark, the heavy curtains at the window drawn, the oil lamps unlit, with even the one gracing the central table appearing long unused and dusty. Neither was there any fire in the grate, the maid apologising that ‘we weren’t prepared for unexpected guests at this late hour’.
On the table, near to the unlit lamp, there was a large device similar to the one Señorat Holandros had used to take his glass pate images, although this one, of course, had no stand. Despite this, at its rear it still had the dark cloak Señorat Holandros had hidden under as he had taken my photograph, although here it appeared to have been draped over some sort of framework, much as you would find supporting the bustle of a dress.
As it seemed that the maid was about to leave with Pavro for his room, having left the lit lamp on the table, the door behind us flew open, a man storming in without waiting for either an invite or an introduction.
‘I was told you’d be here,’ the man spat furiously at Pavro. ‘I’m not prepared to wait any longer, not when you know we need answers to these “revivals” of the dead on the battlefields: it seems a sure way to us to raise an indestructible army, who’s only purpose can be our overthrow!’
‘You may leave us, my dear,’ Pavro announced coolly and politely to the maid, letting her depart swiftly past the newcomer and through the still open door.
‘My apologies, Cardinal,’ he continued with hardly any break, granting a slight bow of his head in greeting to the furious man still standing between us and the door. ‘But as you can see, I was hoping to prepare you for my new guise.’
The Cardinal shrugged off Pavro’s strange comment with a nonchalant wave of a hand.
‘We were fully aware that a change must be in the offing: and when we heard of the unfortunate death of a young Delmestra, we realised the possibilities would be too irresistible to ignore.’
‘You know, you don’t look much like the overfed cardinals I usually deal with; do I detect a hint of growing distrust between formerly firm partners…?’
‘Well if one of those partners becomes dissatisfied and believes she should take more power for herself…?’
A figure stepped out of the surrounding darkness, even now her tread silent, unheard, her athletic skills making her as lithe and graceful as the most dangerous creature.
‘To think,’ Courundia said, by way of announcing her surprise arrival, ‘visitors to our island feared our overly large insects…’
*
Chapter 29
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‘And you are?’ the cardinal demanded of Courundia imperiously, obviously affronted by her appearance.
‘She’s of no importance: some petty thief,’ Pavro explained with a perplexed frown, as if as surprised by her return as I was. ‘Didn’t we make a deal that you leave us be?’
‘Your men thought I was easy meat,’ Courundia responded bitterly, ‘graciously allowing me to carve them up with their own swords. Though, of course, I wasn’t to know at first that simply lopping off their heads wouldn’t bring about their swift ends, as I’d expected. But you know, it’s shocking how much you can learn about a person by reading their spilt innards.’
‘So you know?’ the cardinal asked, eyeing her with a curious glint.
Pavro also observed her, but with a smile signalling an obviously growing respect,
‘Then like me, you must realise this is the true revolution, one allowing us to throw off any overlords! You do realise you remain your own master, with your own memories, your own mind? You can live almost endlessly – and using the glass plates we’re collecting as templates, we’ll be able to accurately replicate anyone we wish: no matter how beautiful.’
Courundia grimaced in disgust at Pavro.
‘No, not like that!’ she spat, as if completely repulsed by his words.
‘So, Courundia; you’re no friend of “hers”…’
Even as he spoke, the “cardinal’ leapt with an astonishing gracefulness towards Pavro, deftly producing two long stilettos from hidden pouches across his back.
‘Lock the doors so she can’t call for help!’ he yelled at Courundia as he plunged the two long blades deep within a shocked Pavro’s heart.
‘Help!’ I screamed, picking up an unlit lamp and bringing it down hard across the back of Courundia’s head.