The Vorrh

had boiled every summer, sleeping when the sun set, and freezing in the freak, imported winters, waking in fear in the uncertain times that many called spring. They stood in the flapping colours of their robes, in the weird entanglement of midday wind and pulsing steam. The engine was at the back of the train, its heartbeat reverberating through the wooden ribs of the nameless station. The trio of carriages were next, followed by three simple boxcars with ‘SLAVES’ stencilled on their sides. The words had been painted over, but their message bled through, making them all the more conspicuous. Far beyond them, and the boundaries of the station, extended the flatbeds, each gently hungry for their cargo of tons of bleeding wood, some still wet from their previous journey. Like a perspective drawing, they pointed towards the lush darkness of the Vorrh.
    There were four other passengers on the platform, but it was the solid bunch of men standing in a compacted block next to the boxcars that held their attention. These were the core workers, the ones who had made the trip many times. They no longer had homes or families, but only work and sleep. They stood shoulder to shoulder to resist the cold, facing predators en masse, like the legendary Musk Ox. Here, it was not the freezing arctic wind or the wolves, but some other external agency that seemed to threaten them. The Frenchman could not take his eyes from their expressions of agitated blankness, and he spoke without moving.
    ‘Who are they?’
    Seil Kor was pretending not to see them, and it took him some time to answer, which he did by turning his back on them and speaking through his teeth. ‘They are the Limboia, some call them ‘Die Verlorenen’ – the lost.’
    ‘But what has happened to them?’ the Frenchman asked.
    ‘They have been to the Vorrh too many times. Some part of them has been erased, forgotten. It can happen if you go too often or too deep.’
    ‘Are we in danger of this, Seil Kor?’ he asked worriedly.
    ‘No, effendi. These men have been hungry for work, or have hidden themselves in the forest, disobeying the scriptures and offending the angels. We make only one return journey and will stay close to the rails.’
    They turned, instinctively, to look more intently at the Limboia, who instantly stopped moving and turned into their enquiry, staring back. Then, in unison, the workers unbent the index fingers of their left hands, raised their arms and pointed to their own hearts. The Frenchman was amazed and embarrassed at such a poignant answer to the question that he had been about to speak, a question that had formed between his mouth and his mind, in the vapour of his heart, and evaporated in exact proportion to the intensity of their physical response.
    The doors of the slave carriages opened. The huddle of men dropped their hands and eyes to the ground, turning from their unified gaze to move forward into the train. There were no seats in the boxcars, just racks of narrow bunks. The Frenchman watched as they climbed into their shelves and fastened wide, leather straps over their prone bodies. His melancholic curiosity was violently bleached by the engine’s whistle, its shrill steam sounding departure. They climbed into their carriage and prepared for the long, slow journey away from the reluctant city. The Frenchman fussed in the wooden luggage rack over his head, moving and adjusting his wrapped possessions against the elaborately carved scrolls of ivy and oak leaves decorating the shelf. He was still rearranging when the train began to move. Seil Kor touched his arm and guided him back to his seat, where he could cool down and stop his breathy mutterings.
    After the first hour, the Frenchman had stopped looking out of the windows. The view was of trees, only trees, passing by in incessant uniformity. The track had been cut in a straight line through the density of the forest, forming a tunnel between the living mass. The train was built for power and the movement of great weight, not speed, and they travelled at an unhurried pace, gently rattling along the tracks. The driver sat at the back, reversing them forward into the forest. The long line of clattering flatbeds had no human guard or observer at their head, no one to look out for obstacles or problems, because there would be none. The sharp wedge at the front of the train would push aside any twigs or debris that may have drifted onto the track, but nothing would. The dull,