The Vorrh

use it
.

I will contact you again after the birth
.
    * * *

    Cyrena sat on the balcony looking out at the city, beyond the city walls, to the distant Vorrh. Ishmael brought her a glass of wine and gently laid his hand on her shoulder.
    It was difficult to believe that so much change was occurring. Everything looked the same. Ishmael thought of the camera obscura; Cyrena watched the swallows. Their skin was warm in its contact and reassuring. Between them, they would endure.
    * * *

    The wind is at my back and I feel a great uplifting as I walk swiftly into a new landscape of roads and broken spherical boulders. The pitchy shadow of before is being bleached away by the oncoming light. There is a meeting of tracks ahead, a kind of crossroads with a tiny roadside chapel. A figure stands there, waiting. Is this the companion I sensed before, somehow ahead of me? It watches for my arrival, and I increase my pace to draw near.
    It is a man, and not what I expected. At this distance, I can see there is something wrong with his face. His posture is sprung, and displays an agile, defensive confidence that puts me on guard. I sense ferocity and purpose. At least I have the gun, which I cock inside the bag before I get any closer.
    * * *

    The figure at the crossroads tensed his muscles and drew himself up to full height: there would be no passing this day.
    No one had ever passed through the forest untouched; the figure before him had lived in it, and traversed it a second time with apparent effortlessness. He had worked hard and suffered much to keep the man before him alive – soon, he alone would possess all elements of the knowledge and their connotative power.
    In his altered condition, the cleric had taken weeks to circumnavigate the outskirts and reach this point of interception. His anxiety to be enlightened peaked and crested within his broken body, sending tortuous spasms of adrenalin into his healing wounds. He tolerated the sensation unflinchingly: it would not last long. When he finally entered the sacred ground, in command of the Erstwhile and able to touch the most sacred centre, all things would be put right.
    * * *

    My God, this man is a leper. He has been half-destroyed by some terrible disease. There is a gaping hole in the middle of his face, which is covered with wounds, sores and loose flaps of skin. His mouth has been eaten and dragged to one side, and his eyes have almost disappeared. It is the face I saw on the ridge, the negative image of the ink-drawn map.
    * * *

    Sidrus had not reached the vial in time. The Mithrassia had begun to thrive before he had even reached the outskirts of the city: the evil old cunt must have lied about the hours he had to spare. When Sidrus had the knowledge of the Vorrh and was properly healed, he would return and slowly split the medicine man apart, at a far, far slower pace than he had ripped open the dove with the antidote.
    The contents of the bottle had stopped the horror from finishing him, but his body was a shattered wreck: his genitals were gone; three of his toes had fallen off and only two of his fingers were left intact; most of his teeth had been eaten away and his face was a putrefied mess; a quarter of his adrenal system was blighted to smithereens. It would all be rectified when he entered the sacred core.
    The Bowman had stopped, as if jarred by the sight of him. Sidrus had seen this before, and made some quick mental adjustments.
    ‘Come closer, friend, I mean you no harm,’ he slurred, his twisted mouth diffracting the intensity of his words. ‘I am Sidrus, a Boundary Holder of the great forest. I hold warrant for these lands.’
    Williams stepped closer to the insatiable hunger.
    ‘I will not shake your hand. It is no longer a custom in these parts, and anyway, you would find the sensation displeasing. As you can see, I have been the victim of a terrible illness. It is not infectious and I am not ashamed of my injuries. Please, do not be worried about my appearance.’
    ‘I am not,’ answered Williams, almost truthfully.
    ‘You do not know me, but I have been aware of you for many years. I have protected you from much danger at the hands of hired mercenaries.’
    Williams seemed blank and disinterested in these facts, and did not show the slightest degree of gratitude.
    ‘You no longer carry your bow?’
    ‘Bow?’
    ‘The living bow that guided you for years.’
    Williams shrugged and said, ‘I have no knowledge of these things. I think