The Vorrh

more pressing problem of finding another workforce as quickly as possible. Many business empires and livelihoods were utterly dependent on the company’s constant supply of forest timber; the panic of commerce far outweighed the concerns of a lost employee and his tribe of soulless heathens.
    But when Hoffman went missing the rumours began to squawk and fly. His working relationship with Maclish was well known, but unclear. Also, for years there had been complaints and rumours attached to the eminent physician’s conduct. These had been brushed under the carpet or paid off, while the larger chunks of accusation had been crushed by threat. All began to surface in his absence.
    When officers of the Civic Guard started to look into the doctor’s affairs and lift some of the more conspicuous stones and lumpier carpets, a scree of innuendo came loose and tumbled onto his reputation. They searched his house and laboratory, discovering more facts than rumours, stopping midway to seal the rooms and leave with grey complexions. Pathologists from foreign cities were brought in to continue the search; the findings were never publicly announced. The Timber Guild absorbed the wrongs of its own, even when they revealed malpractice, illegal experimentation and crime. All was stifled and kennelled, patted quiet by wads of money or choke-chained by itinerant accident; perfect erasure by perfect symmetry.
    * * *

    The ancient black hand shone in the flickering light of the small campfire, its tattoos of spirals and sun-wheels spinning as it passed through the circular clearing of the forest. It moved past the two men sitting close to the flames, and whispered in the dancing shadows, stroking the cheek of its grandson before vanishing out of the circle and into the night.
    Tsungali opened his eyes. The flames made the trees shudder and jump; the world looked unstable and weightless. This must be the other place, he thought, bracing himself for his retribution. Then he saw Uculipsa, lying on the shuddering ground next to his spell pouch; his bandolier, kris and other possessions were nearby. He extended his hand out towards them but nothing happened; there was only a wrenching pain. He looked to where his hand should have been, but there was nothing there: his arm was reduced to a stump, from his shoulder to his elbow. He felt sick and groaned loudly. One of the men at the campfire stood up and moved towards him. He stooped down to pick up Uculipsa, lifting her up by her carrying strap; the rifle slid apart and swung in two halves. From where Tsungali lay, she looked like a broken bird, hanging mutely from the man’s hand. He walked over and dropped her at the invalid’s side.
    ‘You should have died,’ said Williams. ‘You deserved to.’
    Tsungali stared into the face, made of shadows and flashes of orange: it was him.
    ‘My bullet hit your arm as you charged. It took your hand and lower arm, and snapped the Enfield in two. It was meant for your chest. You are a very lucky man.’
    It was the same voice. How could this be? Tsungali veered in and out of belief, his broken body unable to keep up with such revelation.
    ‘Oneofthewilliams,’ he whispered woozily, before passing out into a pit of raging black thunder.
    When he woke, he was in a different place; they had moved him into the shade and changed his dressing. Williams was sitting next to him, drinking from a tin cup. The creature was sleeping. Without turning, Williams spoke. ‘You know me?’
    The wounded man tried to speak, but his throat was closed with dust. At the pause, Williams turned. Seeing the man’s struggle, he poured water into the cup and offered it up to his broken lips. Tsungali drank and dissolved the webs on his voice. ‘Why did you let me live?’ he rasped.
    ‘I would have blown your head off, but he stopped me,’ Williams said, gesturing towards the cyclops.
    ‘What is he?’ Tsungali asked weakly.
    ‘Ishmael? He is something from the old world, something that never really existed. He is unique.’
    He took the cup and refilled it, drank some and then handed it back, turning again to stare into Tsungali’s face.
    ‘Now, about your words earlier.’ His tone tightened to a blade. ‘What did you call me?’
    ‘I called you Oneofthewilliams. You knew me when I was a young man; the rifle was yours.’ He pointed to the pathetic carcass of the snapped Uculipsa. ‘You were chosen to survive by the holy Irrinipeste, daughter of the Erstwhile,