But before he could utter a word, the sand at his feet began to move. For an instant he thought the Scourge intended to bury him alive, as the ground liquified. But instead the sand drew back like a sheet, and sprawled on the bed below - a few feet from where Shadwell stood - was the corpse of Ibn Talaq. The man was naked, and appalling torments had been visited upon him. Both his hands had been burned from his arms, leaving blackened stumps from which cracked bone protruded. His genitals had been similarly destroyed, and the eyes seared from his head. There was no use pretending the wounds had been delivered after death: his mouth still shaped his dying scream.
Shadwell was revolted, and averted his eyes, but the Scourge had more to show him. The sand moved again, to his right, and another body was uncovered. This time, Jabir, lying on his belly, his buttocks burned down to the bone, his neck broken and his head twisted round so that he stared up at the sky. His mouth was burned out.
‘Why?' was the word on Shadwell's lips.
The Scourge's gaze made his bowels ache to empty themselves, but he still delivered the question.
‘Why? We mean no harm here.'
The Scourge made no sign that it had even heard the words. Had it perhaps lost the power of communication after an age here in the wilderness, its only response to the pain of being, that howl?
Then - somewhere amid the legion eyes - a skittering light, which was snatched by the burning wheels and spat towards Shadwell. In the breath before it struck him he had time to hope his death would be quick; then the light was on him. The agony of its touch was blinding; at its caress his body folded up beneath him. He struck the ground, his skull ready to split. But death didn't come. Instead the pain dropped away suddenly, and the burning wheel appeared in his mind's eye. The Scourge was in his head, its power circling in his skull.
Then the wheel went out, and in its place a vision, lent him by his possessor:
he was floating through the garden; high up in the trees. This is the Scourge's sight, he realized: he was sitting behind its eyes. Their shared gaze caught a motion on the ground below, and moved towards it.
There on the sand was Jabir - naked, and on all fours -with Ibn Talaq impaling him, grunting as he worked his flesh into the boy. To Shadwell's eyes the act looked uncomfortable, but harmless enough. He'd seen worse in his time; done worse, indeed. But it wasn't just sight he was sharing with the Scourge; its thoughts came too: and the creature saw a crime in this rutting, and judged it punishable by death.
Shadwell had seen the results of the Scourge's executions; he had no desire to watch them re-enacted. But he had no choice. The Scourge owned his mind's eye; he was obliged to watch every terrible moment.
Brightness reached down and tore the pair from each other, then scoured out the offending parts - mouth, and eyes, and groin and buttocks - erasing them with fire. It was not quick. They had time to suffer - he heard again the shrieks that had brought him into the garden - and time to beg. But the fire was unforgiving. By the time it had done its work Shadwell was sobbing for it to stop. Finally it did, and a shroud of sand was drawn over the bodies. Only when that was done did the Scourge grant him his own sight back. The ground he lay on - stinking of his vomit - reappeared in front of him.
He lay where he'd fallen, trembling. Only when he was certain he wouldn't collapse did he raise his head and look up at the Scourge.
It had changed shape. No longer a giant, it sat on a hill of sand it had raised beneath itself, its many eyes turned up towards the stars. It had gone from judge and executioner to contemplative in a matter of moments.
Though the images that had filled his head had faded.
Shadwell knew the creature still maintained its presence in his mind. He could feel the barbs of its thought. He was a human fish, and hooked.
It looked away from the sky, and down at him.
Shadwell...
He heard his name called, though in its new incarnation the Scourge still lacked a mouth. It needed none of course, when it could dabble in a man's head this way.
I see you, it said. Or rather, that was the thought it placed in Shadwell's head, to which he put words.
I see you. And I know your name.
That's what I want,' Shadwell said. ‘I want you to know me. Trust me. Believe me.'
Sentiments like these had been part of his Salesman's spiel for more than half his life; he drew confidence from speaking them.
You're not the first to come here, the Scourge said. Others have come. And gone.
Shadwell knew all too well where they'd gone. He had a momentary glimpse - whether it was at the Scourge's behest or of his own making he couldn't be sure - of the bodies that were buried beneath the sand, their rot wasted on this dead garden. The thought should have made him afraid, but he'd felt all he was going to feel of fear, seeing the executions. Now, he would speak plainly, and hope the truth kept him from death.
‘I came here for a reason,' he said.
What reason?
This was the moment. The customer had asked a question and he had to reply to it. No use to try and prevaricate or prettify, in the hope of securing a better sale. The plain truth was all he had to bargain with. On that, the sale was either won or lost. Best to simply state it.
‘The Seerkind,' he said.
He felt the barbs in his brain twitch at the name, but there was no further response. The Scourge was silent. Even its wheels seemed to dim, as if at any moment the engine would flicker out.
Then, oh so quietly, it shaped the word in his head.
Seer. Kind.
And with the word came a spasm of energy, like lightning, that erupted in his skull. It was in the substance of the Scourge as well, this lightning. It flickered across the equation of its body. It ran back and forth in its eyes.
Seerkind.
‘You know who they are?'
The sand hissed around Shadwell's feet.
I had forgotten.
‘It's been a long time.'
And you came here, to tell me?
To remind you.'
Why?
The barbs twitched again. It could kill me at any moment, Shadwell thought. It's nervous, and that makes it dangerous. I must be careful; play it cunningly. Be a salesman.
They hid from you,' he said.
Indeed.
‘All these years. Hid their heads so you'd never find them.' And now?
‘Now they're awake again. In the human world.' I had forgotten. But I'm reminded now. Oh yes. Sweet Shadwell.
The barbs relaxed, and a wave of the purest pleasure broke over Shadwell, leaving him almost sick with the excess of it. It was a joy-bringer too, this Scourge. What power did not lie in its control?
‘May I ask a question?' he said.
Ask.
‘Who are you?'
The Scourge rose from its throne of sand, and in an instant it grew blindingly bright.
Shadwell covered his eyes, but the light shone through flesh and bone, and into his head, where the Scourge was pronouncing its eternal name.
I am called Uriel, it said.
Uriel, of the principalities.
He knew the name, as he'd known by heart the rituals he'd heard at St Philomena's: and from the same source. As a child he'd learned the names of all the angels and archangels by heart: and amongst the mighty Uriel was of the mightiest. The archangel of salvation; called by some the flame of God. The sight of the executions replayed in his head - the bodies withering beneath that merciless fire: an Angel's fire. What had he done, stepping into the presence of such power? This was Uriel, of the principalities...