The Vorrh

their complexities; to attract admiration and excited insects and perpetuate the fertilisation of its kind.
    The more she looked, the more she saw the extravagant blooms as an insolent, mimicking raid on her eyes and a mocking sham of her womanhood. Their heads nodded in agreement, grinning in a pretence which lay between frailty and obese saturation, and her indignance overflowed. She could have rung the bell and called the maid to take the odious creations away, but that would have been too easy. She clenched her teeth at the thought of being defeated by these wretched weeds that shouted denial at her sensibilities. Then, without plan or agreement, she snapped shut the lids of her perfect eyes, walked forward and picked up the vase; it slopped water onto her dress and all over the floor. She clasped it to her bosom like a troublesome child and walked purposefully across the room to the open door of the balcony, stepping out into the evening air as the peonies slid sideways in their vase, clinging together in an unordered, clammy sheath. At the far end of the balcony, she opened her eyes briefly and looked down into the corner of the enclosed garden. It was deserted. Closing off her vision once again, she lifted the swilling weight up and over the iron balustrade. The immense weight pulled at her joints, almost levering apart the clamped lids of her eyes. Then she let go, and a great gulp rose up from the earth beneath, to meet the vase as it plunged through a long and delicious time before smashing, in glorious, auditory technicolour, on the patio below. She remained there for a long, luxurious moment, arms stretched out, her eyes still shut, looking like an enchanted sleepwalker, smiling triumphantly on the edge of a precipice.
    * * *

    Tsungali was closing. His canoe was loaded with everything he needed: he did not trust this country to sustain him, and he wanted nothing to do with its people. He felt healed and strong, and the paddlings had refreshed him. He could feel the river knot and buckle around the slender boat, its muscle and his balance taut, as one. He could steer it by his chakra alone, turning his hips at its fulcrum, snug below the waterline, only a thin skin between it and his centre.
    The Leo appeared ahead, and he quickly estimated his distance from his target. As the two vessels passed, each man watched the other through slanted eyes, looks that held each other across the sliver of their crossing. Each guessed the other’s identity and the suspicion polished their eyes to steel. They were no more than forty feet apart, and passing fast.
    Tsungali’s Enfield, like the boatman’s shotgun, stayed cocked and flush against its master’s leg, turning with him to secure their continued passage upstream. Only when the men were out of each other’s sight did they turn away and face their own direction. Tsungali’s hackles had been raised, but he was more worried about the birds. They had watched him in silence throughout his journey, whistling and squawking and fluttering their colours before he arrived, and then falling quiet, hunched and watching, small beak whirrs and clicks flinting their treacherous eyes. It was affected, unnatural, and he sensed an omen or a spell buried in their intentions that chilled him.
    By dusk, he reached the place where the self must be given; he felt it being tugged loose in the tranquillity. He pulled the boat ashore, not wanting to travel in the dark with the dizzying sensation as his companion, and made a simple camp, deciding not to eat or sleep, but to stay alert and face anything that may want to shave or dissect him with hungry guile. He tied amulets over his ears and plugged his nose with scrolls; he put a yellow pin through his tongue and, below the waist, he hung sealants against entry. Last of all, after he had looked around and placed his back against a sturdy rock, he covered his eyes with sight amulets that locked all out and allowed him to see into other worlds. With Uculipsa on one side and a short, engraved spear on the other, he was ready for anything that dared to approach.
    The Erstwhile watched on, dismayed by the imposter’s barbarous arrogance. His disconnection of self, for such a short time, was a small price to pay for entrance to these sacred lands and they stayed afar, wanting no contact with the trespassing stranger. If they could have hoped, then it would have been for beasts to devour him, or for lesser men to emerge and gnaw on his