Half Discovered Wings (52 page)

‘
Yes,’ he replied.

‘
Hînio…’

‘
Sarai, you must listen. I can’t go with you any further. My
intention has always been to stay here, once I arrived. I have made
up my mind.’

‘
You can change it!’

‘
Please,’ he said. He sighed, and the breath came out through
the slits in his helmet like a warm wind. She fancied she could
also hear his heartbeat, encased and sealed behind all that metal.
Just when he seemed to want to move closer, he turned his
back.

‘
Is there something about me?’ she asked.

‘
Not at all.’

‘
Then what?’

‘
I told you … that my helmet was rusted shut.’

He turned now, and his hands reached up, and twisted free the
helmet in an apple-red cloud of dusty metal. It separated from the
stiff neck of his armour, and he threw it away into the
trees.

‘
Forgive me,’ he said.

Sarai removed her cotton gloves and reached up gingerly with
her fingertips, tracing the thick, white lines that criss-crossed
his face. Scars laced his cheek and his bull-like neck. One eye was
a puffy mess, permanently swollen and closed up like a spring bud.
There were three pairs of holes around it, where the skin had once
been sewn with twine. His hairline – he had shoulder-length, dark
and greasy hair, which had unfolded downward like wings when he
removed the helmet – was staggered and uneven, where the scars met
it. His nose was disfigured, one nostril missing. His upper lip had
a curl to one side, like a half-smile; a deep, dark wound reached
upward to his right ear, which was absent and replaced by scar
tissue.

‘
I didn’t want you to see,’ he said, and without the helmet his
voice lost all of its echo, but none of its depth and
strength.

‘
Hînio,’ she said, tears springing from her eyes. ‘I
never…’

He unfastened
his gauntlets, and even with the thick carpet of foliage they
struck heavy notes on the ground. His hands were large and
powerful, and they gathered up her face and married her tears with
his own.

‘
I am truly sorry,’ he said, ‘that I didn’t tell you sooner. I
was afraid that—’

‘
I understand.’

‘
Also know that I cannot stay with you, Sarai, nor come to find
your son. I am first a
Caballero de la
Muerte
, a Horseman of Death. But that is
no longer. This face was my punishment for being too soft. They
sewed my eye and gave me my armour, but they left me to die in the
desert. So firstly, I am nothing.’

‘
Wait…’

‘
This is how I see myself. Secondly, I am an outcast. One that
can never—’

‘
Hînio, you—’

He grabbed her arms. ‘Listen, Sarai and understand! I could
never be what I was born to be, so I could never be anything
but
nothing
. No,
don’t speak! I can be only with myself, now, and these wanderers,
these gypsies … they know what this means. I can live here, and
look after the horses. But I can’t be with you Sarai, because I
don’t deserve you, nor anyone else. I’m not a
person
.’

She leant
against his armour. He was still holding her wrists.

‘
Do you understand?’ he asked softly.

‘
No,’ she said.

‘
Still, ask no more. Only, know this: when you journey onwards
to Shianti, to Hermeticia in the crater, you will meet more
Caballeros
. They will
not be like me. They’ll be powerful, and swift, and deadly. Don’t
hope to trust them in the way you have come to trust me. Take their
word only if they’re promising you your death.’

‘
You’d leave me to them? I’d be like a sacrificial
offering.’

‘
You’d be nothing of the sort. You would have your son by then,
and he will protect you, and you he.’

He let her go
and bowed away, leaving his helmet in the wet forest. Over the
years, it would grow weeds, and rust until it was disturbed, and
then would crumble into red dust.

The knight
walked away through the rainforest, and out into the large clearing
where the caravan awaited him. Sarai wiped her cheeks, and put on
her gloves, then took her facebelt from her neck and refastened it
over her eyes.

~

‘
Samuel,’ Gabel said to the darkness. The wagon was empty, and
sealed. Rain drummed the canvas. He was alone.

‘
Samuel,’ he called again.

The boy appeared, sitting on the boxes that lay to his side.
He looked as he usually did, dressed in grey, with his pale skin
and bleached-looking hair. It was longer and covered his eyes. His
limbs looked more wiry this time, and his face more defined. He had
an air of strength about him.

‘
You look older today, Samuel,’ Gabel said quietly.

‘
Yes,’ he sighed. ‘Yes, I expect I do.’

‘
You haven’t come in a long time. Since the
Tractatus
.’

‘
What do you want, Joseph?’

‘
I need advice.’

‘
What advice could I give? I see what you did, what you turned
into. You’re a monster, Joseph. You came with smoke, do you know
that? You’re from Hadentes.’

‘
Samuel, what I did…’

‘
You killed that cyborg. Just like you killed my mother. And if
wasn’t for you,
factotum
, I would still be alive. I
would be able to walk, and touch, and smell and breathe. But you
bind me here. You don’t even try to cast me away, like you do all
the others. Like you did Bethany.’

Gabel remained silent. He looked at the boy – no, young man –
and felt tears spring to his eyes. He reached out for the first
time and moved to touch Samuel on the arm. His fingers went through
him.

‘
Do you see?’

‘
Yes.’

‘
All because you wouldn’t let Rebekah live.’

‘
Should I have done? Would you have let her? Bitten by a
theriope, Samuel. Infected. She was changed even then, so soon.
Teague had only just left her, lying in a dark pool of her own
blood, and she was beginning to become like
him
. Would you want that, Samuel?
Would you have wanted her to become that? Would you want Rebekah as
your mother if she had that demon’s blood inside her?’

‘
I wasn’t even
born
, Joseph! You took my life before it even began!’

Gabel stood. ‘Who knows what you would have been born like.
The son of an infected woman. You would have been more like
Teague’s son than…’

‘
Than your own?’ Samuel finished, voice high. He lashed with
his fist, but it passed through his father’s chest. He did it
again. ‘You’d take the life of an unborn child because he wouldn’t
be like
you
, but
someone else? And if I had been born to you, and lived,
actually
lived, what
would I be then? The son of a
real
demon!
Your
flesh and
your
dirty blood! And I would have wings, like you,
and come borne upon smoke, like
you
, and
kill my friends and loved ones, like you
!’

The hunter stood silently, tears streaming down his face, as
Samuel swung and swung, kicked and shoved, but each time his hands
and feet flashed through Gabel’s body as if he wasn’t there. Gabel
waited until the onslaught stopped, then stood as close as he
could. He reached out and held his hands over the space where
Samuel’s shoulders were.

He said: ‘I
release you from me.’

‘
You can’t do it like that.’

‘
I can and I will. You’re no longer fettered to me, Samuel. You
may rest.’

‘
No more washing your hands?’

‘
No more.’

The young
man’s grey garments fluttered slightly. He looked up through his
hair, and said, ‘You save Rowan, do you listen?’

‘
I listen.’

Samuel went
quickly in an evanescent flash. Gabel lowered himself onto the
bundle of clothing he had been sitting on, and listened again to
the rain. It sounded much louder, and much clearer.

~

The nomads
decided they wanted to perform a pre-emptive exorcism to cleanse
the area before they moved on. The land had become tainted by
blood, and relocation was unavoidable. However, leaving part of the
rainforest haunted by a restless spirit was something they couldn’t
allow. All the people staying with them had to be present,
including Gabel.

They built a large fire and used drops of iconoil to keep it
burning despite the rain, which had thinned but not ceased. All the
nomads were present, as well as Gabel, the magus, Rowan, Colan and
Sarai. They were painted with spots of ointment that had the
vicious bite of garlic, and had sprinkled on them various fluids,
each with a different scent and viscosity. Foreign words were
muttered as combustible things were thrown onto the fire, each
erupting like fireworks. The nomads danced around the clearing.
They sang at the top of their voices. Several of the younger women,
who hadn’t been given the knowledge to perform such sacred tasks,
stayed by the fire and danced together, ringing bells and
pirouetting ribbons.

Colan and Sarai sat close by each other, and said little.
Rowan sat with the magus, who translated the words of the gypsies
for her. She listened, but didn’t speak. Gabel sat on his own, on
the other side of the fire, slowly rubbing together his hands. He
stopped and looked down at them.

When the
exorcism was over Gabel stood and announced that he and his
comrades would be departing the very next morning, and take their
ill omens with them. The chief of the nomads stood a good two
metres in front of him when he replied that he would take no
payment, nor keep any other thing that was left behind when they
departed.

*

Twenty-Nine

THE
OBELISK

The backpacks
were heavier. Rowan had previously carried very little – her
blanket, and the clothes on her back – but now Caeles was gone, and
he had borne the main bulk of their possessions. Gabel had assumed
the role of mule, but struggled to carry half of what Caeles had.
The rest had to be divided between Rowan, the magus, and Sarai, who
now walked silently alone without Colan.

The hunter walked several paces ahead, and spoke only when he
felt they should rest, and when it was too dark to go on. They
camped later and later each night, though, and since the danger of
the goyles had passed, they could sleep closer together. But now
Gabel slept apart from the others, leaving his blankets to Rowan,
who accepted them silently.

She had gotten weaker, he saw. Her face was now so wan it
reminded him of Samuel, and that frightened him more than anything.
Her features blended into the moonlight. The only parts of her that
was getting darker were the spaces under her eyes, which were now
almost black. She moved slowly, and held the others up. Her mouth
was constantly dry and no amount of water would moisten it. Her
skin was cracking.

They were five days from Shianti when they saw the signal. It
was night-time, and everyone sat in silence. The ninja, as usual,
was looking to the west, toward where the Great Crater lay. But,
she told the magus, she wasn’t looking for the city itself – the
walls of the crater rose up a hundred metres from the ground and
would not be easily missed regardless – but for the place where she
had agreed to meet up with Isaac if they ever got
separated.

This place was a rise in the ground that stood like a pillar
high above the canopy of leaves; a natural obelisk of rock,
sprouted with rainforest vegetation. It was wide enough for a
person to climb, and flat enough at the top to light a
fire.

The obelisk had been visible for days, Sarai explained.
Almost immediately since leaving the caravan the trees had been
sparse enough to see the true horizon, and since then she had been
patiently watching for signs of fire. So far, there had been
none.

When the first smell of smoke came they were sitting by their
campfire, and no-one had noticed. Gabel stood first, looking over
toward where a thin trickle of smoke had begun to wind its slow way
up. The Scathac stood board-straight instantly, watching carefully
as her breathing became heavier.

‘
What is it?’ Rowan asked.

‘
A signal,’ Sarai breathed, pulling up her mask and dropping
her pack. ‘From my son, Isaac.’

‘
He’s there?’ she asked, surprised.

‘
He must be.’ Sarai turned immediately to the magus. ‘I have to
go.’

‘
I understand,’ he said with a nod. ‘Come back, if you wish.
We’ll wait here until morning.’

‘
I’ll be back before then,’ she promised and, nodded in
parting, leapt panther-like into the trees and vanished, barely
upsetting the branches.

~

She tore her own route through the dense foliage. The
rainforest never stood a chance; she cut through the branches like
a ship’s bow cutting through foam. The trees barely knew she was
there. By the time a large, flat leaf was torn loose and landed
water-laden on the ground, she was already long gone.