The Vorrh

realised that the swivel was shifting again and returned her focus to the exchange.
    ‘The thing that lives with the Limboia, that you have use of.’
    He was completely speechless. How dare this ninny of a girl stroll into his home, claiming to know of the Orm? What if her father found out?
    ‘I’m not sure what you think you know…’ he began, sitting back and forcing a chuckle.
    ‘What I know is not important here. It’s what you know that will help us in this matter.’
    Cyrena sensed the needs of the conversation and joined in to construct a pincer movement. ‘As I have said before, doctor, this is a delicate matter that I intend to have resolved, at any cost.’ She watched Hoffman absorb the threat and continued, coating it in the honey of temptation. ‘I will pay dearly for this to happen and if you and your ‘Orm’ are part of it, then we shall all profit from finding him.’
    The doctor shifted his position on the chair, avoiding Ghertrude’s attentive direction. ‘I will have to talk to Maclish,’ he said tentatively. ‘I don’t know if it’s possible, but… I will try to help you find your friend.’
    Cyrena instantly brightened at the subtle triumph. They were getting closer to Ishmael. She felt an immediate desire to plan and anticipate for his return.
    ‘Excellent! However, there is one other detail of great importance,’ she said, smiling graciously at Hoffman. She glanced at Ghertrude, then tipped into the doctor’s confidence, warning him back into the excitement. ‘Our friend is severely deformed.’
    She explained Ishmael’s very particular problem, almost forgetting that she had never seen it. But it was better this way; she made it sound brave and heroic. Ghertrude said nothing; she did not trust this man with any detail and was nervous about involving him in such intimacies.
    ‘The whole thing must remain entirely private, you understand,’ said Cyrena.
    ‘I am sure we are all more than capable of keeping a secret,’ the doctor replied, his eyebrows raised.
    The agreement was made that he would talk to Maclish about setting the Orm loose in the forest to find their wandering friend. A certain sum of money would be paid upfront, and the rest exchanged when Ishmael was brought to them. They stood to leave, on fairly good terms, shaking hands in the doorway and agreeing to speak again in a few days. Then, while Ghertrude’s hand was still in his, and Cyrena had turned towards the street, Hoffman looked down at Ghertrude’s waist and quietly said, ‘I am here to help you with the other problem, if you so want.’
    He slowly patted the back of her hand, then uncoiled his fingers and let go of her frozen form, grinning inside his mouth as he gently closed the door.
    * * *

    It would have been foolish to think that the life of the arrows was inert, or incidental. The truth was that each of the Bowman’s handmade shafts of wood, feather, bone and steel were extensions of nerve, breath and skill. The arrows’ continuance was like the nerve fibres outside the brain, which hold memory in a twined conflict of disbelief and certainty; fibres found in the spine and muscles, sometimes even the hands, that remembered past places, past movements. As it was with trees, whose delicately calligraphic postures waved and shredded the communicating winds with their stencilling semaphores. The arrows were made of all their elements, bound together with intent.
    Peter Williams lifted the gleaming bow into the sun of the early morning. He had cleaned and polished it in the dawn, and now he stood outside the cave, on the summit of the outcrop. The bow felt like Este in his hand: eager, lithe and determined. He knocked one of the whistling arrows and pulled back the bowstring, the sensuous power locking into his entire body. He closed his eyes and rotated, pointing the arrow in a full circle. He stopped when he did not know which direction he faced. He loosened the arrow and opened his eyes. It sang through the clear distance above the forest, before curving to fall into the trees. He looked carefully at the landscape, picked up his pack and climbed down towards the place where the arrow would wait for him.
    Two hours later, he had reached the forest floor, again relishing its scent and shade. He faced north-west, and his intention was clear: to forge a straight line until the Vorrh was left behind him. It was a journey that would take him directly through the centre of the forbidden