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 you are speaking to the wrong person.’
Sidrus was astonished at the effrontery of these lies; Williams saw the eaten face shift into the same expression of the spectral vision from the slip of vanishing paper. He understood it as a warning and held his bag closer to him.
‘You can trust me; I have done much to protect you.’
‘So you keep saying, but why? And from who?’
Sidrus only enjoyed games of cat and mouse when he was undeniably the feline; this display of churlish arrogance was beginning to annoy him, but he played along, the act of ignorance not distracting his sights from the end goal.
‘You have enemies and adversaries who did not want you passing through the Vorrh again. Your previous colleagues branded you a deserter, a murderer and worse. They wanted you dead or banished, not wandering through the lands of uprising. A bounty was put on your head; all manner of scum have tried to slay you and collect the reward.’
Williams realised that this man’s disease had gone deeper than his face; it must have chewed at his brain. ‘I don’t know what you are talking about.’
‘About the Possession Wars?’
Williams shook his head, writing disbelief and disinterest in deep marks around his eyes.
‘About the Vorrh?’
‘The what?’
‘The Vorrh. The great forest.’
‘What forest?’
Sidrus’ face could no longer be described. In fury, he pointed behind Williams, who turned, looked and irritably slumped back.
‘I see no forest.’
He was a world-famous celebrity; now others were taking photographs of him. His vast portfolio of human movement had been a colossal success, and he knew at last that it had all been worthwhile: his place in history was assured. The century was turning, and his work was on the crest of it.
That night he was lecturing again, and he could hear by the muffled roar that every plush seat had been taken. His new evening suit creaked as he combed his titan beard, which dazzled white against the lustrous blackness of the fine cloth. He checked the mirror again: ‘justified’. The stern dignity of science rested on his strong shoulders.
He strode upon the stage to waves of applause. He had the newest batch of movement photographs ready to project, as well as some old favourites, which he had turned into glass slides that he was looking forward to seeing projected large for the first time: everything from elephants to studies of dancing girls, modelled in classical poses. He had made lantern-slides of all of his studies to share with a wider audience, and to advertise the desirability of purchasing the published works. He felt the vast audience sway closer and closer; sensed their appreciation and wonder as tangibly as one feels heat or smells the sea.
Looking out across the hundreds of faces staring at the screen behind him, he could watch their concentration without being seen. So fixed were they on his magnetic images that he became invisible. He saw his fame in their wide-eyed wonder, heard his applause in their startled sighs. They were all his devotees, his prisoners of illumination.
And then he saw the impossible, sitting in the audience and staring directly at him, ignoring the screen and its changes of animals and humans: Gull. He was supposed to be dead. The doctor’s demise was supposed to have coincided with Muybridge’s last departure from England, wasn’t that what everyone had told him? Had everyone he trusted lied to him? Even the fellow he paid to read the British newspapers?! He did not have time to read every bit of tit and tattle the papers printed; the man had been instructed to scour newspapers for articles about him, or letters of his that had been printed. He had been provided with a list of men of interest to spot; he had reported Gull’s passing two years ago! Even the hospital had said so, yet here he was, large as life, his dense, rectangular face flickering in the projection light.
In more private circumstances, Muybridge would have had a few things to say to the good doctor: questions about the use of his machine instantly sprang to mind. But the animal slides had finished; he was on. He had a short time to fill with explanation as the next set of pictures was loaded. The spotlight moved to him and he could no longer see the audience or the doctor. For a moment, he was lost and forgot what he had to say. There was an uncomfortable shuffling; murmurs could be heard. He coughed and hummed, spluttering the flywheel into action. It turned over and his speech began, recapturing the attention of his audience.
Five minutes later, he got the nod from the projectionist and brought his dialogue to an end; the spotlight went out. The slides flickered into life; Athletes From the Palo Alto series; Men and Women in Motion. He looked back at Gull. He was gone, but two blurs remained in the darkness where he had been sitting. Muybridge strained his sight into the auditorium. The blots looked like eyes, made from smears of light. It rattled him and confused his next speech. He waved the projectionist on, not trusting himself to speak, wanting only to peer into the audience and make some sense of his sight. Women and Children; Running and Jumping with a Skipping Rope; Miss Larrigan Fancy Dancing. He stepped forward to observe the empty seat with greater certainty. They were still there, glaring back at him; amorphous balls of glowing intensity. Why did nobody seated see them there, floating so close? Was Gull playing tricks on him with his mind-mechanics, or was he imagining it? Had he become sick again? He searched every face nearby, but they were locked onto the figures on the screen that rattled past their measuring lines, their muscles and curves bracing against the stillness, the same old charge of strangeness echoing between the bodies and the time they were clad in.