The Vorrh

purity of her hope.
    Then it was gone, carrying a clutch of her in its breath and vanishing into the intimacy of the dreaming city.
    * * *

    It was the perfect place for Tsungali’s planned ambush. The road by the water was narrowest here, and it would force the traveller to slow and watch his footfall.
    He did not know how long he would have to wait – there was always the possibility of being taken off-guard, or his quarry slipping through while he slept. But white men always told you where they were. They sent out a bow wave, so that the earth and its animals would murmur, well in advance of their arrival. Their wake was immense. Crushed and contaminated, the land was forced to repair itself, even after the gentlest of their journeys.
    Further back down the path, Tsungali had laid traps which would release vapours and spoors into the air when they were trampled. Traps that would tilt the colour of birdsong, or cause insects to stop and listen for too long, giving tiny vibrations of warning to the trained ear. He sat across the river, the tang sight of the rifle raised for a long distance shot. This would be an easy kill, so he had given himself obstacles to sharpen his craft. The last two men he had killed had been close range and far too quick. He wanted to use the Lee-Enfield again and prove his marksmanship.
    He had eaten an early supper of fresh river fish and was standing in the bamboo grove when the whistle passed high over his head; it changed into a light, thin rhythm of exquisite tapping. Poised and dry, it slid, beautifully, down through the leaves towards him, in a constant shift of emphasis and pause. The sight of it stopped him dead: a long, blue arrow with translucent fletching gently dropped before him in the rustling leaves.
    He was not alone in the evening. He must have a rival for the blood of the plodding white man, and any being who could place such a flight should not be underestimated. Picking the arrow up, he was stunned by its lack of weight. He examined its point and found a tiny seed head of beaks, each individually joined and locked by a stitch of thread, constructing a hexagonal husk that would let air warble through its delineated contours. He knew its high trajectory meant the arrow had come from afar, but he still looked around hastily and felt a shudder course through him.
    The next day, late in the morning, the birds in the low trees a mile away stopped singing for a minute or two. He found his practised place, and rested Uculipsa in the slit he’d found at the top of a flat rock. He was ready. He waited for inevitability to cross his sights.
    * * *

    There was no key for the door to the tower, just a slit, its edges rounded by use and the gnawing of rats. She put her flat hand inside and her fingertips touched the string. She scissor-gripped it between the polished almonds of her nails and pulled it out.
    ‘Let’s come back in daylight, mistress,’ Mutter said.
    She heard real concern, not fear, in his voice. The oil lamp was smoking and the night was inking in the volumes around them. What had been magical was beginning to give way to the eerie.
    ‘Yes,’ she said, letting the string fall back to the other side of the door. ‘We will return in the morning. With new light, we will see so much more.’
    They climbed back to the civilised part of the house. Lost in her thoughts, she exited the stairwell brushing cobwebs and dust from the folds in her dress. It took her some moments to realise that her action was purely mechanical, designed to announce her arrival – there was nothing on her clothing to be removed.
    The light declared that it would be a glorious day, limply draped in water at first, but with a glowing intensity that would burn off any trace of shadow by noon. They climbed the stairs to the third floor in a saturated brightness that followed their ascent, pencil-thin rays of sun spinning through the singing attic, creating a magnificent landscape of shifting perspective. At the door, she retrieved the string once again and tugged on it eagerly. With a meaty click, the door opened and they stepped into another stairwell.
    ‘I sometimes wonder if this house will ever end,’ she said, as she began to climb up the wooden, panelled tube. At the apex was a large, circular table, sheltering under the beautiful curves of a domed roof. A brass rod and lever pointed down to the faded silk cloth, which covered the disc. She knew instantly what it was, and her heart