There was a sharp, metallic click from across the room, like somebody standing on a twig of iron. Sidrus knew what it was, even before he heard the voice.
‘Twelve grams of splinter round at four metres,’ it said. ‘Put the blades down where I can see them, old friend.’
Sidrus obeyed in slow motion, sneering at Ishmael.
‘Nebsuel, I thought this scum had disposed of you.’
He started to turn towards the rifle’s muzzle, which peered at him from across the room.
‘Very slowly, old friend. I know your ways and I am not alone.’
‘But it was you who summoned me here?’ said Sidrus.
‘Yes, but I was wrong, and so were you to slay a man in my house.’
A rope was swiftly lowered from the ceiling, a loop tied at its end.
‘Put your hands in the noose,’ said Nebsuel.
‘There is no need for this; you can trust me. It will be better for you in the long term if you do.’
‘Put your hands in the noose.’
‘You tempt my anger,’ snarled the cleric.
‘Put your hands in the noose! You are tempting your death, and you know I will do it.’
Sidrus thrust his hands into the looped rope; there was a small tug from above to tighten it and then a great wrench, which lifted him from the ground and high into the space above. A dry, rumbling sound filled the room with its mechanical power. It halted, and Nebsuel shouted up.
‘You hang between two great wooden drums. If you displease me, you will be mangled through them and crushed to a rag before you can take a breath. Do you understand me?’
‘I do!’ came a faint voice.
‘Now, tell me exactly what weapons and charms you have about your person.’
Sidrus began to recite an inventory of his possessions; Ishmael was astonished at the length of the list. When it was over, Nebsuel stepped out of the shadow; he held a black dove in his hand. He winked at Ishmael and threw it into the air.
The bird disappeared towards the sky and he pulled a wooden lever concealed in the wall. The drums turned, slowly this time, and Sidrus
was lowered to the ground. He was white from the strain of hanging by his twisted arms, dangling like a puppet. He glared at Nebsuel, who put a small ball of leaves in the wide muzzle of his short rifle and pushed it into Sidrus’ face.
‘Eat it.’
‘Fuck you!’
‘Eat the sedative or eat the charge, and the splinters waiting behind it.’
The hanging man knew Nebsuel would do it, so he sucked the sticky ball into his wide mouth. Nebsuel helped by jarring the rifle, chiselling the barrel onto Sidrus’ teeth.
‘No man soils my house. No man murders in my healing room. Now swallow.’
He thrust the barrel again, hitting Sidrus in his Adam’s apple. Sidrus choked and swallowed the mouthful down, his eyes raging. The lever was pulled again and he fell to the ground. Nebsuel was at his side with a sharp, curved knife. He slit the rope from the cleric’s hands with a deftness that demonstrated how easily he could have done the same to his throat.
‘Put your weapons and charms on the table and go.’ Nebsuel stood by the door, splinter gun at the ready.
‘I could still take you both.’
‘Maybe, but you would pay a terrible price for it. Anyway, we have the information you need to find your Bowman. Information that will now cost you dearly. You will never come here again. If you cross this threshold, you will die. In the future, we will communicate only by bird. Do you understand?’
‘I want to know all, NOW!’ Sidrus barked.
‘I doubt you have the time.’
‘I have all the time it takes,’ he spat back.
‘How long did it take you to get here?’
‘WHAT?’
‘How long?’
‘Three days.’
‘As I thought. I have given you forty hours to get back.’
‘What are you gibbering about, old fool?’ snarled Sidrus.
‘I told you, from now on we only communicate by bird. I sent a black dove to your abode, a quarter of an hour ago. It carries my last supply of the vital antidote for Mithrassia Toxia, the spore of which you sucked from my rifle a few minutes ago.’
‘Mithrassia? You gave me Mithrassia?!’
‘Yes. I lied about the sedative. That is why you don’t have the time to discuss what we may do for you.’
Sidrus was speechless for a moment and then bolted for the door.
‘Pray there are no hawks in the skies between us,’ shouted Nebsuel at the swinging door.
The healer started to clear up and remove the sad, scarred body of the old black warrior. Ishmael attempted to get off the bed to help, but was stopped and told to rest.
Nebsuel disappeared outside to dispose of the body, then returned to the hushed interior to start to prepare for the cleansing ritual, which would last for five days. Ishmael watched him for many minutes before eventually asking, ‘Please, what is Mithrassia?’
The shaman groaned and sat down wearily on the edge of the bed, gently patting Ishmael’s hand. ‘Young man, you really don’t want to know; you have already been surrounded by too much shadow and chill, and I will not be responsible for telling you more. You must heal now; you need to set your mind and body in light and warmth.’ He started to get up, then turned, his face creaking into a reluctant grin. ‘Let me only say that the symptoms of Mithrassia are tenacious and unspeakable.’
* * *
He was beginning to feel his age. Not in a depleting sense – he was strong, lean and agile, with the physique of a man half his age – but the shortage of time before him had begun to vex. He was becoming aware of how much work there was to do, and how little time he had left to do it in.
Almost every day, he was talking in public, producing interviews and articles, a man on display. The zoopraxiscopes were as popular as ever, and he had managed to shelve his disillusionment with them; they were making a small fortune, and had become a clarion for his reputation, much more so than his more serious work, which seemed to continually be overlooked and underestimated.
It had been after his meeting with Edison, where they had discussed the possibility of adding sound to moving images, that he had started thinking again about his lost machine in London. Edison was impatient and somewhat shallow for Muybridge’s taste; he found the inventor to be little more than a mechanic, with an ego dedicated and driven towards fame and fortune. The American seemed more like the new breed of entrepreneur showmen, rather than a son of science; he had more in common with Barnum and Bailey than Newton and Galileo.
However, their meeting had been a clear pointer towards the deeper significance of his own knowledge and its meaning, which lived a long way from the production of toys for petty entertainment. So he went back to the hidden charge he had observed in photographic images. He would return to his machine, when the chance arose, to catch the phenomenon and explain its workings to a more select and dignified audience.
In the meantime, some of the flock of patients he had treated had come home to roost; his investments were paying fine premiums and the Stanfords still patronised his work. He was justified and rich, and he could do whatever he chose.
To his amazement, nothing had ever come from the Winchester coffers; the mad old woman hadn’t given him a bean. After the embarrassment and time that he had wasted on her, she had commissioned nothing. He
thought about her sometimes, still shut up in that wooden mausoleum, letting nobody in and building brick upon brick of empty rooms for the dead. He thought about the millions of dollars still flowing in from that old gun, a cent for every time it was cocked, a cent to buy another nail for her timber fortress, just another mad hag shut up in a box. What was the name of that old woman in the Dickens story?
Many years earlier, he had bought his wife a magazine subscription for her birthday; it was for an English publication. He could still see the expression on her glum, sour face as he had given it to her. He had thought it a good present: it, and its postage, had been expensive, but worthwhile. It could have educated the stupid bitch if she had ever read it; enlightened her and brought culture into her prairie mind. But no, he may as well have burned his hard-earned money for all the appreciation she had shown. In the end, he had read it himself; he hated fiction, but not quite as much as he hated the sight of the unopened packages from the publisher.
He had read Mr. Dickens’ story, and recognised many coincidental features of his own life in it. Perhaps Mr. Dickens, he had pondered, had met the crazed Winchester dowager on one of his trips to the USA? Met and stolen her, so as to lock her insanity up in his words forever. But he did not need Sarah Winchester’s money now; he was independent. If he could only find the time, he would remake that mysterious and powerful machine and carve himself a proper place in history with it.
It had been this chain of thoughts that led him to dig out the logbook from those distasteful times. It carried the scent of Gull’s rooms, and when he undid the clasp, he heard the sound of the crank spinning the light, humming. What he read still made sense, was still the work of a balanced and creative mind. He closed the book backwards, vowing not to let such valuable work go to waste, and that’s when he saw it, like a black shadow at the back of the book: a drawing of the solar eclipse. She had drawn it from memory, from his photograph, directly into his book;
the nerve of the filthy woman! Then he saw the other: it was instantly recognisable as a map of Africa, but distorted and scribbled in, upside-down. Near its edge was the same signature, the crippled ‘A’ for Abungu, scrawled in a hand that he knew to be hers. He had once asked Gull if her name had any meaning and the doctor had told him that ‘Abungu’ meant ‘Of The Forest’. He turned pale looking at it, knowing it had been secretly drawn and inscribed for him.
* * *
Tsungali sat with his grandfather during the five days of purification. He did not know who had killed him, or why, only that it was not the healer; not like that. He hoped that Nebsuel would remember the oath he had taken, his vow to be more vengeful in his death than in his life. He hoped that the cleansing would stop short of his exorcism; part of himself needed to remain viable to be able to feast on the revenge; he needed his ghost in that world for a while longer, to protect Ishmael until he had reached his home. Need was the only thing that still remained, and he did not want the healer to rub it away; it would wear out in time, the spirit would depart – there may be the occasional, fleeting return, but his time was not without limits and he would have to make it count.
His grandfather was pleased to welcome him. He would have preferred him well and walking, back in that world, but this, though early, was always expected and there was contentment in their reunion.
Nebsuel was as just as he was wise. He remembered Tsungali’s words, and in honour of his wishes, he did not make the final scouring. Instead, he shushed away the last, scattered remnant, sweeping his ghost out into the world, to wait with the dry leaves and dust until Ishmael was healed.
The day of the mirror arrived. Nebsuel showed Ishmael how to wash in the warm, pine-scented liquid in the bowl before him; he dried the new face with care and patted down his hair, which had grown long.
‘Very well, young master,’ said Nebsuel, fetching an oval mirror with a red cloth draped over it. ‘The time is here. Now you will see my handiwork and the way you will look in the world.’ He set the looking glass before the young man, whose apprehension made his cheeks turn pale. With a small, theatrical flourish, the healer removed the cover to reveal a blinking man, framed within.
Ishmael could not move or speak; he touched his nose and the inset eye, dabbing at its reality. As the silence grew, Nebsuel became nervous: if this was not to Ishmael’s taste or requirement, there was nothing he could do. It was impossible to read Ishmael’s expression; he had not yet become used to flexing it, and the inevitable nerve damage made parts of it permanently impassive. The shaman watched with growing trepidation. The cyclops still had the hideous bow close by; his displeasure might become horrendous with its use.
‘What do you think?’ ventured Nebsuel. ‘I have used all of my knowledge; it is the best of my work, of that you can be sure.’
The words nudged Ishmael. He stood up and very slowly approached Nebsuel. He took the old man’s hand and brought it to his lips. This was another kind of kiss, one that nobody had ever taught him.
The days passed quickly, with each better than the last. He gained strength and learned much from Nebsuel, who found it novel to have such a keen and sagacious student; he could show off his knowledge and tell tales of wonders and impossibilities all day, without the young man’s attention ever straying.
The face became pliant as Ishmael practised with it. His moods could be read, and communication became more fluent. The bow lived in a corner of the house, wrapped and silent, recognised but unengaged.
Nothing had been heard of Sidrus. The dove did not return, so they could not know whether he was healthy and fuming with rage, or if he had painfully rotted apart. As the weeks passed, they became less watchful; Nebsuel removed some of the more virulent charms that he had placed about the house for protection.
An unexpected friendship grew between the unlikely pair; for a time, they played at father and son. Tsungali occasionally came knocking at night, not to frighten them, but to announce his presence, and register an anxiousness about the length of Ishmael’s stay. For a while they disregarded him and continued to work together in the ramshackle house. But growth and satisfaction can only hold a young heart for so long, and one morning, without apparent reason, Ishmael announced that it was time for him to leave and find his place in the world.
‘What’s wrong with this being your place in the world?’ grumbled Nebsuel.
‘Nothing,’ replied Ishmael, ‘but I have another one that I must confront first.’
‘I suspect you’re right,’ said the old man, grudgingly.
They spent the coming days making preparations for his departure. Like the experience of all about to separate, the strain of an imagined elsewhere bore a hurtful torque on the moments they actually inhabited. The night before Ishmael’s departure, when they heard the impatient ghost moving back and forth outside, Nebsuel became bad-tempered and melancholic.