The Dragon Griaule (21 page)

‘Have you found it?’ Janice called.

‘There’s something here, but I can’t get it open.’

In a moment she came crawling up beside him, bringing with her a faint sweetish smell that seemed familiar. He showed her the depressions, and she began to push at them.

‘Maybe it’s a sequence,’ he said. ‘Maybe you have to push them one at a time in some order.’

‘I felt something,’ she said. ‘A tremor. Here . . . put your weight against the wall.’

He set his shoulder to the wall, heaved and felt the stone shift; the next second the stone gave way and he went sprawling forward. Terrified, he pushed up into a sitting position and found himself in a small round chamber whose pale walls, veined like marble, gave off a ruddy glow. At the rear of the chamber was a lacquered black box. He started to reach for it, but as he picked it up the veins in the stone began to writhe and to thicken, melting up from the surface of the chamber, becoming adders with puffy sacs beneath their throats, and behind the wall, as if trapped in a reddish gel, there appeared the image of Mardo Zemaille, a dark hook-nosed man robed in black and silver, his hands arranged into tortuous mudras from which spat infant lightnings.

Korrogly screamed and pounded on the wall; he looked
behind him and saw that the serpents were twining around one another, some beginning to slither toward him. Zemaille was intoning words in some guttural tongue, staring with demonic intent, and the detonations of light emerging from the fingertips were forming into balls of pale fire that spat and crackled and arrowed away in all directions. Korrogly pried at the wall, his breath coming in shrieks, expecting the adders to strike at any second, to be scorched by the balls of fire. A searing pain in his ankle, and he saw that one of the adders had sunk its fangs deep. His screams grew frantic, he lashed out his foot, shaking the adder loose, but another struck at his calf, and another. The pain was almost unendurable. He could feel the venom coursing through his veins like black ice. Half-a-dozen of the serpents were clinging to his legs, and his blood was flowing in rivulets from the wounds. He began to shiver, his right leg spasmed in a convulsion. His heart was huge, swelling larger yet, bloating with poison; it felt like a fist clenched about a thorn inside his chest. One of the fireballs struck his arm and clung there, eating into his arm, charring cloth and flesh. Zemaille’s voice echoed, the voice of doom, as meaningless and potent as the voice of a gong. Then the wall swung outward, and he scrambled from the chamber, falling, coming to his knees, making a clumsy dive toward the bed, only to be caught up by Janice.

‘Easy,’ she said. ‘Easy, it’s only one of Mardo’s illusions.’

‘Illusion?’ Korrogly, his heart racing, turned back to the chamber; it was empty of all but the ruddy light. The pain, he realized, had receded. There were no wounds, no blood.

Janice picked up the box from where he had let it fall, held it to her ear and shook it. ‘Sounds like something solid. Not papers. Maybe this isn’t it.’

‘There’s nothing else there,’ said Korrogly, snatching the box from her, desperate to be away from there. ‘Come on!’

He crawled to the edge of the bed, started for the door, then glanced back to see if Janice was following. She was swinging her legs off the side of the bed, and he was about to tell her to hurry when movement above the bed drew his eye. In the polished scale that overhung the bed he saw his own reflection . . . that and more. Deeper within the scale another figure was
materializing, that of a man lying on his back, wearing the robes of a wizard. At first Korrogly thought it must be Zemaille, for the man was very like him: hook-nosed and swarthy. But then he realized that the figure was shrunken and old, incredibly old, and the eyes, half-lidded, showed no sign of white or iris or pupil, but were black and wound through by thready structures of blue-green fire. The image faded after a second, but was so striking in aspect that Korrogly continued staring at the scale, feeling that more might be forthcoming, that it had been part of a sending. Janice pulled at him, making him aware once again of their danger, and together they went sprinting along the corridor toward the door.

The wind had grown stronger, the tops of the bushes were seething and the boughs of the trees lifting as if in sluggish acclaim. After the silence within the building, the roil of wind and surf was an assault, disorienting Korrogly, and he let Janice, who seemed untroubled by all that happened, lead him toward the gate. They had gone halfway through the toiling thickets, when she came to a sudden stop and stood with her head tilted to the side.

‘Someone’s coming,’ she said.

‘I don’t hear anything,’ he said. But she hauled at him, dragging him back the way they had come, and he trusted in her direction.

‘There’s a rear gate,’ she said. ‘It opens out onto the bluff. If we get separated, go west along the beach and hide in the dunes.’

Korrogly hustled after her, clutching the lacquered box to his chest, glancing back once to try and make out their pursuers; he could have sworn he saw dark hooded figures as he went around a bend. It took them less than a minute to reach the gate, another few seconds for Janice to unlatch it, and then they were slogging through the soft sand atop the bluff, heading away from Ayler Point; the moonstruck waves below were flowing sideways, obeying the drag of the outgoing tide. Korrogly was relieved to have left the temple behind, and he was more confused than afraid; he thought that Janice might have been mistaken about hearing someone, that he had not really seen
the hooded figures. He ran easily, feeling amazingly sound. It was as if something about the temple had occluded his faculties, diminished his strength. He soon began to outpace Janice, and when he slowed to let her catch up, she gestured for him to keep going; her face was drawn tight with fear, and seeing this, he redoubled his efforts. Just as he came to the slope that led down from the bluff onto the beach, a path of white sand winding through tall grasses, he heard an agonized cry behind him, and turning, he had a glimpse of Janice, her shawl blown by the wind into a pennant, her dark hair loose, teetering on the edge of the bluff, clutching at her breast, at the handle of a dagger that sprouted bloody between her hands. Her eyes rolled up, she toppled over the edge and was gone.

It had happened so suddenly that Korrogly stopped running, scarcely able to believe what he had seen, but after a split-second, hearing a shout above the wind, he set out in a mad dash along the path. Three-quarters of the way down, he lost his footing and went tumbling head over heels the rest of the way. At the bottom of the slope, he groped for the box, found it, and bright with fear, made for the dunes which rose pale as salt above the narrow strip of mucky sand. By the time he had reached the top of the dunes, he was nearly out of breath, and he stood gasping, looking out over a rumpled moonlit terrain of grasses and hillocks, the folds between them holding bays of shadow. He set out running again, stumbling, dropping to his knees in a depression, tripping over exposed roots, and finally, his stamina exhausted, he dove into a cleft beneath a little rise and covered himself as best he could with sand and loose grass.

For awhile he heard nothing except the wind and the muffled crunch of the surf. Clouds began to pass across the moon, their edges catching silver fire, and he stared at them, praying that they would close and draw a curtain of darkness across the land. After about ten minutes he heard a shout, and it was followed a moment later by another shout. He could not make out any words, but the outcries had, he thought, the quality of angry desperation. He tucked his head down and made promises to God, swearing to uphold every sacred tenet, to do good works, if only he would be permitted to survive the night.

At long last the shouts ceased, but Korrogly remained where he was, afraid even to lift his head. He gazed at the clouds; the wind had lessened, and they were coasting past the moon like huge ragged blue galleons, like continents, like anything he wanted to make of their indefinite shapes. A dragon, for instance. An immense cloudy bulk with a vicious head and one globed, glaring silver eye, coiled throughout the heavens, the edges of its scales glinting like stars on its blue-dark hide, spying him out, watching over him, or else merely watching him, merely keeping track of its frightened pawn. He watched it take wing and fly in soaring arcs, diving and looping, making a pattern that drew him in, that trapped him like a devil within a pentagram and, eventually, hypnotized him into a dream-ridden sleep.

Dawn came gray and drizzly, with clouds that resembled heaps of dirty soap suds massing on the horizon. Korrogly’s head ached as if he had been drinking all night; he was sore, filthy . . . even his eyes felt soiled. He peered about and saw only the hillocks, the flattened grasses, the heaving slate-colored ocean, gulls scything down the sky and keening. He rested his head against the sand, gathering himself for the walk back to town, and then remembered the box. It was unlocked. Zemaille, he supposed, had thought that his illusion would dissuade any intruders. He opened it cautiously on the chance that there were more tricks inside. It contained a leather-bound diary. He leafed through the pages, stopping occasionally to read a section; after going over a third of it, he knew that he could win an acquittal, yet he felt no triumph, no satisfaction, nothing. Perhaps, he thought, it was because he still was not sure that he believed in Lemos. Perhaps it was because he knew he should have unearthed the motive sooner; Kirin had given him a clue to it, one he had neglected in his confusion. Perhaps the deaths of Kirin and Janice were muting his reaction. Perhaps . . . he laughed, a sour little noise that the wind blew away. There was no use in trying to understand anything now. He needed a bath, a sleep, food. Then maybe things would make sense. But he doubted it.

Five

The following morning, against Mervale’s objection, Korrogly recalled Mirielle to the stand. She had on a brown dress with a modest neckline – a schoolteacher’s dress – and her hair was done up primly like that of a young spinster. She had, it appeared, passed beyond mourning, and he wondered why she had not worn black; it might signal, he thought, some indecision on her part, some change of heart as related to her father. But whether or not that was so was unimportant. Looking at her, he had no emotional reaction; she seemed familiar yet distant, like someone he had known briefly years before. He knew that he could break down that distance and dredge up his feelings for her, but he was not moved to do so, for while he knew they were still strong, he was not sure whether they would manifest as love or hate. She had used him, had confused him with her sexuality, had undermined his concentration, and nearly succeeded in killing her father, who was very likely innocent. She had told him that she could have been a good actress, and she had been unsurpassable in her counterfeit of love, so perfect in the role that he believed she had won a piece of his heart for all time. But she was a perjurer and probably worse, and he was duty-bound to make her true colors known to the court, no matter what the cost.

‘Good morning, Miss Lemos,’ he said.

She gave him a quizzical look and returned the greeting.

‘Did you sleep well last night?’ he asked.

‘Oh, dear,’ said Mervale. ‘Is the counsel for the defense next going to inquire about the lady’s breakfast, or perhaps her dreams?’

Judge Wymer stared glumly at Korrogly.

‘I was simply trying to make the witness feel comfortable,’ Korrogly said. ‘I’m concerned for her welfare. She’s had a terrible weight on her conscience.’

‘Mister Korrogly,’ said the judge in tone of warning.

Korrogly waved his hand as if both to accede to the caution and dismiss its importance. He rested both hands on the witness box, leaning toward Mirielle, and said, ‘What is the great work?’

‘The witness has already answered that question,’ said Mervale, and at the same time, Mirielle said, ‘I don’t know what more I can tell you, I . . .’

‘The truth would be refreshing,’ said Korrogly. ‘You see, I know for a fact you haven’t been candid with this court.’

‘If the counselor has facts to present,’ said Mervale, ‘I suggest that he present them and stop badgering the witness.’

‘I will,’ said Korrogly, addressing the bench. ‘In due course. But it’s important to my presentation that I show exactly to what extent and to what end the facts have been covered up.’

Wymer heaved a forlorn sigh. ‘Proceed.’

‘I ask you again,’ said Korrogly to Mirielle, ‘what is the great work? And I warn you, be truthful, for you will not escape prosecution for any lie you may tell from this point on.’

Doubt surfaced in Mirielle’s face, but she only said, ‘I’ve told you all I know.’

Korrogly took a turn around the witness box and stopped facing the jury. ‘What was the purpose of the ceremony in progress on the night that Zemaille was killed?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Was it part of the great work?’

‘No . . . I mean I don’t think so.’

‘For someone who was Zemaille’s intimate you appear to know very little about him.’

‘Mardo was a secretive man.’

‘Was he, now? Did he ever discuss his parents with you?’

‘Yes.’

‘So he was not secretive concerning his origins?’

‘No.’

‘Did he ever discuss his grandparents?’

‘I’m not sure. I believe he may have mentioned them once or twice.’

‘Other relatives . . . did he ever discuss them?’

‘I can’t remember.’

‘Did he ever make mention of a remote ancestor, a man who – like himself – was involved in the occult?’

Her face tightened. ‘No.’

‘You seem quite certain of that, yet a moment ago you claimed that you couldn’t recall if he had ever talked about other relatives.’

‘I would have remembered something like that.’

‘Indeed, I believe you would.’ Korrogly crossed to the defense table. ‘Does the name Archiochus strike a chord in your memory?’

Mirielle sat motionless, her eyes widened slightly.

‘Should I repeat the question?’

‘No, I heard it . . . I was trying to think.’

‘And have you finished thinking?’

‘Yes, I’ve heard the name.’

‘And who might this Archiochus be?’

‘A wizard, I believe.’

‘A wizard of some accomplishment, was he not? One who lived some time ago . . . thousands of years?’

‘I think so.’ Mirielle seemed to be mulling something over. ‘Yes, I remember now. Mardo considered him his spiritual father. He wasn’t an actual relation . . . at least I don’t think he was.’

‘And that is the extent of your knowledge concerning him?’

‘It’s all I can remember.’

‘Odd,’ said Korrogly, toying with the lid of his briefcase. ‘Let’s return to the ceremony on the night Zemaille was killed. Did this have anything to do with Archiochus?’

‘It may have.’

‘But you’re not sure?’

‘No.’

‘Your father has testified that Zemaille cried out to his father at one point, saying, “Soon you will be free!” Might he not have been referring at that moment to his spiritual father?’

‘Yes.’ Mirielle sat up straight, adopting an earnest expression as if she wanted to be helpful. ‘Now that you mention it, it’s possible he was trying to contact Archiochus. Mardo believed in the spirit world. He would often hold seances.’

‘Then you’re suggesting that the ceremony in question was something on the order of a seance?’

‘It could have been.’

‘To contact the soul of Archiochus?’

‘It’s possible.’

‘Are you certain, Miss Lemos, that you know nothing more about this Archiochus? For instance, did he have anything to do with Griaule?’

‘I . . . maybe.’

‘Maybe,’ said Korrogly bemusedly. ‘Maybe. I believe he had quite a bit to do with Griaule. As a matter of fact, was it not the wizard Archiochus, the man with whom Zemaille felt a spiritual – if not an actual – kinship, who thousands of years ago did battle with the dragon Griaule?’

Babble erupted from the onlookers, and Wymer gaveled them to silence.

Korrogly said to Mirielle, ‘Well?’

‘Yes,’ she said, ‘I believe it was he. I’d forgotten.’

‘Of course,’ said Korrogly. ‘Your flawed memory again.’ He engaged the jury’s eyes and smiled. ‘According to legend, just as Griaule lies dormant, so that same fate struck the wizard who stilled him . . . have you ever heard that?’

‘Yes.’

‘Had Mardo?’

‘I believe so.’

‘So then Mardo believed that this powerful wizard was yet alive? Moribund, but alive?’

‘Yes.’

‘Let’s talk about the work for a moment. Not the great work, just the ordinary run-of-the-mill work. Is it true that you took part in sexual rituals with Zemaille in that same room where he died?’

The vein in her temple pulsed.

‘Yes.’

‘And these rituals involved intercourse with Zemaille?’

‘Yes!’

‘And others?’

Mervale stood at the prosecution table. ‘Your Honor, I see no point in this line.’

‘Nor do I,’ said Wymer.

‘But there is a point,’ said Korrogly, ‘one I will shortly make plain.’

‘Very well,’ said Wymer impatiently. ‘But be succinct. The witness will answer.’

‘What was the question?’ Mirielle asked.

‘Did you participate in sex with others aside from Zemaille for ritual purposes?’ said Korrogly.

‘Yes.’

‘Why? What use did this wantonness serve?’

‘Objection.’

‘I’ll rephrase.’ Korrogly leaned against the defense table. ‘Did sex have a specific function in these rituals?’

‘I suppose . . . yes.’

‘And what was it?’

‘I’m not sure.’

Korrogly opened his briefcase, using the lid to hide the diary inside it from Mirielle’s eyes; he opened the little book. ‘Was it to prepare the flesh?’

Mirielle stiffened.

‘Shall I repeat the question?’

‘No, I . . .’

‘What does that mean, Miss Lemos . . . “to prepare the flesh”?’

She shook her head. ‘Mardo knew . . . I was never clear on it.’

‘Did you practice any sort of birth control prior to these rituals? Did you for instance drink some infusion of roots and herbs, or in other way attempt to prevent yourself from becoming pregnant?’

‘Yes.’

‘Yet on the night Zemaille died, you used no birth control.’

Mirielle came to her feet. ‘How do you . . .’ She bit her lip and sat back down.

‘I believe that night was considered by Zemaille to be the anniversary of the battle between Griaule and Archiochus, was it not?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘I will introduce evidence,’ said Korrogly addressing the bench, ‘to show that this was indeed Zemaille’s opinion.’ He turned again to Mirielle. ‘Was it your intent on that night to become pregnant?’

She sat mute.

‘Answer the question, Miss Lemos,’ said Judge Wymer.

‘Yes,’ she whispered.

‘Why of all the nights did you hope to become pregnant on that one? Was it because you were hoping for a specific sort of child?’

She stared hatefully at him.

Korrogly let the lid of the briefcase fall, let her see the diary. ‘The name of the child whom you were to bear, was it to be Archiochus?’

Her jaw dropped, her eyes were fixed on the leather book.

‘Was it not Zemaille’s intent, the long focus of his great work, to achieve by some foul magic the liberation and repair of Archiochus’ soul? And for that purpose did he not need flesh that was so soiled and degraded, it would offer a natural habitat for the black mind of that evil and moribund man? Your soiled flesh, Miss Lemos. Was it not your function to provide the vile womb that would allow the soul of this loathsome wizard to be reborn in innocent flesh? And would he not, once he had come to manhood and regained his full powers, with Zemaille’s aid, seek once again to destroy the dragon Griaule?’

Instead of answering, Mirielle let out a scream of such pure agony and despair that the courtroom was thrown into a stunned silence. She lowered her head, resting it on the rail of the witness box; at last she sat up straight, her face transformed into a mask of hatred.

‘Yes!’ she said. ‘Yes! And if hadn’t been for him’ – she flung out a hand, pointing to Lemos – ‘we would have killed the damned lizard! You would have thanked us . . . all of you! You
would have praised Mardo as a liberator! You would have built statues, memorials. You . . .’

Judge Wymer cautioned her to silence, but she continued to rant; every muscle in her face was leaping, her eyes were distended, her hands gripping the rail.

‘Mardo!’ she cried, turning her face to the ceiling as if seeing through it into the kingdom of the dead. ‘Mardo, hear me!’

At length, unable to silence her, Wymer had her taken in restraints to an interrogation room, returned Lemos to his cell, and ordered a recess. After the courtroom had been cleared, Korrogly sat at the defense table, fingering the diary, staring gloomily into the middle distance; his thoughts seemed to arc out and upward like flares, bright for a moment, but then falling into darkness.

‘Well,’ said Mervale, coming to sit on the edge of the table, ‘I suppose I should offer my congratulations.’

‘It’s not over yet.’

‘Oh, yes it is! They’ll never convict now, and you know it.’

Korrogly nodded.

‘You don’t seem very happy about it.’

‘I’m just tired.’

‘It’ll sink in soon,’ Mervale said. ‘This is a tremendous victory for you. You’ve made your fortune.’

‘Hmm.’

Mervale got to his feet and extended a hand. ‘No hard feelings,’ he said. ‘I realize you were overwrought the other night. I’m willing to let bygones be bygones if you are.’

Korrogly took his hand and was surprised to see actual respect in Mervale’s face – his surprise stemmed from the fact that he felt no respect for himself; he could not stop thinking of Mirielle, wanting her, even though he realized that everything between them had been a sham. And, too, he was dissatisfied. The case struck him as a jigsaw puzzle whose pieces fit neatly together, but whose picture made no sense.

‘Want a drink?’ Mervale asked.

‘No,’ said Korrogly.

‘Come on, man. Maybe there was some truth in what you
said the other night, but I’m won over. You won’t find me patronizing you anymore. Let me buy you a drink.’

‘No,’ said Korrogly; then he looked up at Mervale with a grin. ‘You can buy me several.’