Two men hung the dead sheep over the pond, stretched lengthways by its legs, while another man took a knife of white bone or stone and sliced the animal's stomach open. Blood and guts plopped into the pond. As I strained my neck, I saw that the water was a dirty red colour. The men held the sheep over the pond until the blood stopped dripping, then slung the carcass to one side and stood back as three women stepped forward.
The women were old and wrinkled, with fierce expressions and bony fingers. Chanting louder than anyone else, they stooped, swirled the water of the pond around with their hands, then filled three leather flasks with it. Standing, they beckoned the other people forward. As they filed past the first woman, she raised her flask high and poured the red water over their heads. The second woman wet her fingers with the water and drew two rough circular diagrams on everybody's chest. The third pressed the mouth of her flask to their lips, and they drank the putrid water within.
After the three women had attended to all of the people, they moved in a line back to the village, eyes closed, chanting softly. We slipped off to one side, then trailed after them, frightened and perplexed, but incredibly curious.
In the village, the people pulled on the grey robes, each of which was cut away in front to reveal their chest and the round crimson signs. Only one person remained unclothed — a young boy, of about twelve or thirteen. When all were dressed, they formed a long line, three abreast, the trio of old women who'd handled the flasks at the fore and the naked boy by himself in front of everybody else. Chanting loudly, they marched in a procession towards the temple. We waited until they'd passed, then followed silently, intrigued.
At the entrance to the temple, the procession stopped and the volume of the chanting increased. I couldn't understand what they were saying — their language was alien to me — but one word was repeated more than any other, and with great emphasis. "Kulashka!"
"Any idea what 'Kulashka' means?" I asked Harkat and Spits.
"No," Harkat said.
Spits began to shake his head, then stopped, eyes widening, lips thinning with fear. "Saints o' the sailors!" he croaked, and fell to his knees.
Harkat and I gawped at Spits, then looked up and saw the cause of his shock. Our jaws dropped as we set eyes on the most nightmarishly monstrous creature imaginable, wriggling out of the temple like a mutant worm.
It must have been human once, or descended from humans. It had a human face, except its head was the size of six or seven normal heads. And it had dozens of hands. No arms — and no legs or feet — just loads of hands sticking out of it like pin heads in a pincushion. It was a couple of metres wide and maybe ten or eleven metres long. Its body tapered back like a giant slug. It crept forward slowly on its hundreds of fingers, dragging itself along, though it looked capable of moving more quickly if it wished. It had just one enormous bloodshot eye, hanging low on the left side of its face. Several ears dotted its head in various places, and there were two huge, bulging noses set high above its upper lip. Its skin was a dirty white colour, hanging from its obscene frame in saggy, flabby folds, which quivered wildly every time it moved.
Evanna had named the monster well. It was utterly and totally grotesque. No other word could have conveyed its repulsive qualities as simply and clearly.
As I recovered from my initial shock, I focused on what was happening. The naked boy was on his knees beneath the Grotesque, arms spread wide, roaring over and over, "Kulashka! Kulashka! Kulashka!"
As the boy roared and the people chanted, the Grotesque paused and raised its head. It did this like a snake, arching its body back so that the front section came up. From where we were hiding I got a closer look at its face. It was lumpy and ill formed, as though it had been carved from putty by a sculptor with a shaky hand. There were scraps of hair everywhere I looked, nasty dark tufts, more like skin growths than hair. I saw no teeth inside its gaping maw of a mouth, except for two long, curved fangs near the front.
The Grotesque lowered itself and slithered around the group of people. It left a thin, slimy trail of sweat. The sweat oozed from pores all over its body. I caught the salty scent, and although it wasn't as overpowering as that of the giant toad, it was enough to make me clamp my hand over my nose and mouth so that I didn't throw up. The people — the Kulashkas, for want of a better word — didn't mind the stench though. They knelt as their … god? king? pet? … whatever it was to them, passed and rubbed their faces in its trail of sweat. Some even stuck out their tongues and licked it up!
When the Grotesque had circled all of its worshippers, it returned to the boy at the front. Raising its head again, it leant forward and stuck out its tongue, a huge pink slab, dripping with thick globs of saliva. It licked the boy's face. He didn't flinch, but smiled proudly. The Grotesque licked him again, then wrapped its unnatural body around him once, twice, three times, and suffocated him with its fleshy coils, the way a boa constrictor kills its victims.
My first impulse was to rush to the boy's aid when I saw him disappearing beneath the sweaty flesh of the Grotesque, but I couldn't have saved him. Besides, I could see that he didn't wish to be saved. It was clear by his smile that he considered this an honour. So I stayed crouched low in the grass and kept out of it.
The Grotesque crushed the life out of the boy — he cried out once, briefly, as the creature made splinters of his bones — then unwrapped itself and set about swallowing him whole. Again, in this respect, it acted like a snake. It had a supple lower jaw which stretched down far enough for the monster to get its mouth around the boy's head and shoulders. By using its tongue, jaw and some of its hands, it slowly but steadily fed the rest of the boy's body down its eager throat.
As the Grotesque devoured the boy, two of the women entered the temple. They emerged shortly afterwards, clasping two glass vials, about forty centimetres long, with thick glass walls and cork stoppers. A dark liquid ran about three-quarters of the way to the top of each vial — it had to be Evanna's "holy liquid".
When the Grotesque had finished devouring the boy, a man stepped forward and took one of the vials. Stepping up to the beast, he held the vial aloft and chanted softly. The Grotesque studied him coldly. I thought it meant to kill him too, but then it lowered its head and opened its enormous mouth. The man reached into the Grotesque's mouth, removed the cork from the vial and raised it to one of the creature's fangs. Inserting the tip of the fang into the vial, he pressed the glass wall hard against it. A thick, viscous substance oozed out of the fang and trickled down the side of the tube. I'd seen Evra milking poison from his snake's fangs many times — this was exactly the same.
When no more liquid seeped from the fang, the man corked the vial, handed it back to the woman, took the second vial and milked the Grotesque's other fang. When he'd finished, he stepped away and the monster's mouth closed. The man passed the vial back, joined the rest of the group, and began chanting loudly along with everyone else. The Grotesque studied them with its single red eye, its inhumanly human-like head swaying from side to side in time with the chanting. Then it slowly turned and scuttled back into the temple on its carriage of fingers. As it entered, the people followed, in rows of three, chanting softly, vanishing into the gloom of the temple after the Grotesque, leaving us shaken and alone outside, to withdraw and discuss the sinister spectacle.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
"YE'RE CRAZY!" Spits hissed, keeping his voice down so as not to attract the attention of the Kulashkas. "Ye want t' go into that devil's lair and risk yer lives, fer the sake o' some bottles o' poison?"
"There must be something … special about it," Harkat insisted. "We wouldn't have been told we … needed it if it wasn't important."
"Nowt's worth throwing yer lives away fer," Spits snarled. "That monster will have ye both fer pudding, and still be hungry after."
"I'm not sure about that," I muttered. "It fed like a snake. I know about snakes from when I shared a tent with Evra — a snake-boy," I added for Spits's benefit. "A child would take a
long time to digest, even for a beast of that size. I doubt it'll need to eat again for a few days. And a snake normally sleeps while it's digesting."
"But this ain't a snake," Spits reminded me. "It's a … what did ye call it?"
"Grotesque," Harkat said.
"Aaarrr. Ye never shared a tent with a Grotesque, did ye? So ye know nothing about 'em. Ye'd be mad t' risk it. And what about that crazy pink-haired mob? If they catch ye, they won't be long offering ye up t' that giant mongrel o' theirs."
"What do you think the deal … is with them?" Harkat asked. "I believe they worship the Grotesque. That's why they … sacrificed the boy."
"A fine how-d'ye-do.'" Spits huffed. "'Tis one thing t' go killing a stranger, but t' willingly give up one o' yer own — madness!"
"They can't do it often," I noted. "There aren't many of them. They'd die out if they made a human sacrifice every time the beast was hungry. They must feed it with sheep and other animals, and only offer up a human on special occasions."
"Should we try … talking to them?" Harkat asked. "Many civilized people in the past … offered human sacrifices to their gods. They might not be violent."
"I've no intention of putting them to the test," I said quickly. "We can't walk away from this — we saw them milk the snake's fangs, and I'm pretty certain that poison is the holy liquid we need. But let's not push our luck. There's no telling what the people of this world are like. The Kulashkas might be lovely folk who welcome strangers with open arms — or they might feed us to the Grotesque the instant they set eyes on us."
"We're stronger than them," Harkat said. "We could fight them off."
"We don't know that," I disagreed. "We've no idea what these people are capable of. They could be ten times as strong as you or me. I say we hit the temple, grab the vials, and beat it quick."
"Forget the vials!" Spits pleaded. He'd been drinking heavily from his jug since we'd retreated to safety and was trembling worse than normal. "We can come back later if we need 'em."
"No," Harkat said. "Darren's right about the Kulashkas. But if we're going to launch a … quick raid, we need to do it while the Grotesque is sleeping. We have to go after the … holy liquid now. You don't have to come … if you don't want."
"I won't!" Spits said quickly. "I ain't gonna chuck my life away on a crazy thing like this. I'll wait out here. If ye don't return, I'll carry on ahead and look fer yer Lake o' Souls myself. If it holds the dead like ye say, I might meet ye there!" He chuckled wickedly at that.
"Will we go while it's dark," I asked Harkat, "or wait for morning?"
"Wait," Harkat said. "The Kulashkas might have sung themselves … to sleep by then." The pink-haired people had returned to their village an hour after making their sacrifice, and had been singing, dancing and chanting ever since.
We lay back and rested as the moon crossed the cloudless sky (typical — when we wanted clouds for cover, there weren't any!), listening to the music of the strange Kulashkas. Spits kept sipping from his jug of poteen, his beady eyes getting smaller and smaller, tugging at the strands of his tied-back hair, muttering darkly about block-headed fools and their just comeuppances.
The noise from the Kulashka village died away towards morning, and by dawn there was silence. Harkat and I shared a questioning glance, nodded and stood. "We're going," I told Spits, who was half dozing over his jug.
"Wha'?" he grunted, head snapping up.
"We're going," I said again. "Wait here. If we're not back by night, go your own way and don't worry about us."
"I won't wait that long," he sniffed. "I'll be gone by midday, with 'r without ye."
"Suit yourself," I sighed, "but you'd be less visible in the dark. It would be safer."
Spits's features softened. "Ye're mad," he said, "but ye've more guts than any pirate I ever sailed with. I'll wait till sunset and keep the poteen ready — ye might be glad of it if ye survive."
"We might at that," I grinned, then spun away with Harkat and pushed through the tall covering grass to the doorway of the Temple of the Grotesque.
We stopped at the door of the temple, gripping our knives close by our sides, inhaling the foul sweaty stench of the beast. "What if there are guards?" I whispered.
"Knock them out," Harkat said. "Kill them only if we … must. But I doubt there'll be any — they would have … come out with the Grotesque if there were."
Taking deep, nervous breaths, we slid inside the temple, back to back, moving slowly and warily. Candles jutted from the walls, not a huge number, but enough to light our way. We were in a short, narrow corridor, covered by a low roof. A large room lay ahead. We paused at the entrance. The room was enormous. The roof was supported by giant pillars, but there were no other dividing structures. In the centre of the temple, the Grotesque was curled around a raised circular platform, upon which we saw a tall, hollow, upright crystal cylinder packed with vials like the ones the Kulashkas had used to milk the monsters venom.
"No lack of holy liquid," I whispered to Harkat.
"The trouble will be … getting to it," he replied. "I think the Grotesque's body goes … all the way around the altar."
I hadn't thought of the platform as an altar, but now that I looked again, I saw that Harkat was right — the cylinder holding the vials had the appearance of some religious relic.
We started across the room to the altar, the only sound our shallow breathing. The Grotesque's head was buried underneath its fleshy rear, so it shouldn't have a view of us if it was awake — though I hoped with all my being that it wasn't! There was a path leading directly from the doorway to the altar, lit by tall candles, but we approached the altar from the side, where we'd be less conspicuous.
We soon ran into an unexpected obstacle. The floorboards at the sides of the path were rotten and creaked heavily as we crossed them. "The path must be the only one reinforced from below," I hissed as we stopped to ponder our options. "By the echoes of the creaks, there's a pit beneath the boards."
"Should we return to … the path?" Harkat asked.
I shook my head. "Let's continue — but tread carefully!" Despite our attempts to proceed with care, a few metres further on, Harkat's left foot snapped through a board and his leg shot down into darkness. He gasped painfully but bit down on a cry. My eyes snapped to where the Grotesque was coiled, to see if it had stirred, but it was in the same position as before. The fingers close to its head twitched a few times — I hoped that meant it was asleep and dreaming. Stooping, I examined the board around Harkat's leg, carefully snapped more of it away to increase the width of the hole, then helped ease him out of it and back on to slightly sturdier boards.
"Are you hurt?" I asked softly.
"Cut," Harkat answered, probing his leg. "Not bad."
"We can't chance these boards any longer," I said. "We'll have to use the path."
Together we hobbled back to the path, where we rested a minute, before advancing to the altar. By the luck of the vampires the Grotesque slept on. Once there, we walked around the putrid monster, looking for a gap where we could mount the altar. But the Grotesque had fully encircled it, chunks of its flesh draped off it in places. This close to the beast, I couldn't help but stare and marvel that such a thing could have come to exist. What troubled me most was its obviously human features. It was like a nightmare come to life — but a human nightmare. What was its history? How had it been born?
Having walked around the Grotesque a couple of times, I tore my gaze away. Not daring to talk this close to the creature, I tucked my knife away and made hand signals at Harkat, indicating that we'd have to jump over the monster at its narrowest point, close to where its tail lapped over its head. Harkat didn't look thrilled with that idea, but there was no other way of getting to the altar, so he nodded reluctantly. I made a second set of hand signals, to the effect that I could jump and Harkat should remain where he was, but he shook his head and held up two stubby grey fingers, to show we should both go.
I jumped first
. I crouched low, then leapt over the muscular coils of the giant beast. I landed softly, but spun quickly, not wishing to stand with my back to the Grotesque. It hadn't moved. Stepping aside, I nodded for Harkat to join me. He didn't leap quite as smoothly, but his feet cleared the monster, and I caught him as he landed, steadying him and muffling the sound.
We checked to make sure we hadn't disturbed the Grotesque, then faced the tall cylinder and studied the vials resting on see-through shelves within. Those at the top hadn't been filled, but there were dozens underneath, heavy with the thick poison from the Grotesque's fangs. The Kulashkas must have been milking the giant for decades to have amassed such a collection.
There was a frosty crystal front to the cylinder. I eased it open, reached inside, and pulled out a vial. It was cool and surprisingly heavy. I slipped it inside my shirt, pulled out a second vial and passed it to Harkat. He held it up to the light of the candles, scrutinizing the liquid inside.
As I was reaching for more vials, there was a shout from just inside the temple door. Looking up, startled, we saw two Kulashka children, a boy and girl. I raised my fingers to my lips and waved at the children, hoping they'd stop shouting, but that only agitated them more. The girl turned and shot out the doorway, doubtless fleeing to wake the adults. The boy remained and raced towards us, yelling and clapping, grabbing a candle to use as a weapon.
I knew instantly that we'd have to forget the rest of the vials. Our only hope was to get out quick, before the Grotesque awoke or the Kulashkas poured into the temple. The pair of vials we'd stolen would have to do. Leaving the door of the cylinder hanging open, I stepped down to where Harkat was waiting and we got ready to jump. But before we could leap, the Grotesque's rear section swished back, its head whipped up, and we found ourselves gazing straight into its furious red eye — and at its bared, sabre-like fangs!