Aleksey's Kingdom (19 page)

I think Aleksey hoped I would be better in the morning, but as my illness was caused, I believed, by what we were going toward, I could not see how this could be. I think he got it after an hour of riding. He suddenly claimed, “This is in your mind, is it not? Like the ship.”

I pursed my lips. “Possibly, but I think the demon felt it too. I saw him last night, listening to the ground.”

“Do not your people do that? You said you could hear a horse over a mile away and got me to try it one day.”

“Well, yes, but that was because it was funny to see you with your arse stuck in the air and such a grimace of concentration on your face.”

He was about to make a suitable reply when his expression changed, and he held out his hand. “Is it raining suddenly? The sky is not… oh! Look!”

I did. A vast cloud rose ahead of us, as if the earth had suddenly been turned upon its side and we were looking at the sky side on. I hissed with some urgency, “Can you not feel it now? Can you not hear it? Aleksey?”

He nodded thoughtfully. “Yes, I can hear… but we are still many miles from the falls…. Twenty?”

The others had begun to hear it now and comment upon the drumming and rumbling. It was as if a great beast were ahead of us, turning in its den, and the words of the madman returned to me.

I
DO
not know what I had expected from the falls. Something like the ones that fed into our lake perhaps? Or the big ones where I had taken Aleksey to see the bears, only slightly bigger still?

I had no idea that the world could be so wrong, so terrifying, so alien to man that I felt as a pond bug must if given a glimpse of an ocean. I could not get my breath as we approached from the tree line. The others were eager, straining to see, to experience this wonder. I did not want to emerge from the security of the forest. But I had no choice. We came out onto a riverbank on a small promontory, and there it was.

Everything was wet. The trees, the ground, our hair, our clothes, the horses—all became soaked within a few moments from the cloud that was not a cloud but the breath of the falls. And the noise. I could not speak nor hear anyone for the thunder. I wanted to put my hands to my ears to block the sound but did not think that would help, for it was not only sound but vibration, and that could not be checked.

The falls spread out from our vantage point on the promontory until the end of the earth, as if all the rivers of the world—even the oceans themselves—came to this point and just dropped off, and there was nothing between us and this great terror. I could not believe it. We were standing on the riverbank and there, there was the water, moving so fast I do not think that even Xavier running at full speed could have matched its fearsome pace, and then it just all ended, and the flow at that final point was so green and deep and curved and clear and tempting, as if it called to me….

My legs went from under me, and I sank to the ground. Thank God, I was not the only one. My companions were variously squatting or sitting, looking at the view as if they were enjoying it and seeing something wondrous.

I thought that if Aleksey went any closer to the water’s edge I would scream, and then he did. He went right up to the river and squatted, putting his hand in it. I knew then that he had been marked. The river had tasted him, and it would have him. I tried to call out. Xavier sensed my extreme distress and began to dance and retreat, and Aleksey turned, surprised, and came up to calm him, glancing at me questioningly. I was too busy clinging to the grass so I would not be sucked over the edge to worry about Xavier. Major Parkinson pottered over as if we were on a picnic and chuckled, “Well, superb, quite superb. Well worth the trip. I shall have to bring mother to see them. Quite something, eh? Shall we find this damn fort, sir? The sooner we sort this bloody mess out, the sooner we can return home, what?”

Aleksey nodded and swung up onto Boudica’s back. I could not rise. If I let go of the grass, I would be in the water and over—I knew this as a certainty. But then I felt eyes upon me and looked over. The creature had his hands planted to the ground too. He was staring at me, the doll squashed beneath his hand upon the turf, sodden and smeared with… mud? Nothing would have led me to have something in common with what he seemed to be, so I rose to my feet. He glared at me as if I defied him. I climbed onto Xavier. The boy lifted himself from the ground and seemed about to approach me, but his mother came back from putting her feet in the water and swept him up under her arm, then carried him to the cart. I closed my eyes and let Xavier lead me back into the trees.

I think I got away with my unmanning this time. I did not run screaming through a cabin, breaking down doors and attacking guards. I did not weep or howl, or if I did, no one could hear me for the noise that stayed with us as we rode slowly along the riverbank and toward the fort. Aleksey possibly knew. But he was very taken with everything he was seeing and with the possibility of now finding the answer to the mystery of the abandoned fort, so he was not paying me too much attention. I was better away from the falls themselves, but even now I could not take my eyes off the water. I suppose it is not every day that you see something new. I had traveled fairly widely. I had met men in villages in England who had never been beyond their own borders, never even been to the next parish, although this is hard to believe. I had traveled from England to the New World, from there back to England and from there to Hesse-Davia through the low countries of Europe and now back here. I had seen many things, but nothing quite as
not
of this world
as I saw now. This was a place that would truly make a man believe in the spirit world, or a world beyond one where he was supposed to dwell.

Water should not move faster than a horse, nor be sucked so remorselessly into nothingness, for this is how it seemed to me—that the water was being enticed to its doom, cascading over the vast falls and turned into cloud where it rose to the sky—so was this not like the water’s death? The bottom of the falls was beyond sight, so Aleksey said—I had not gone close enough to look. Even the thought that he had made me weaken and groan a little. He maintained that all was mist and spray just like being in a storm upon the ship and that therefore he had not been able to see where the water went.

The fort did not deserve such a term. It was a damp pile of logs upon the riverbank, and behind it we could see some equally sodden cabins, which we supposed was the small colony. This is what the Wrights had come to live in? They were welcome to it.

The place was indeed deserted. We made our way into the palisade and discovered a couple of rough buildings and a stable. One of the structures was a barracks for the soldiers, and one appeared to be a general living area. It was very, very cold. The spray here had frozen in places on the northern sides where the sun did not reach, and eerie shapes like dead witches’ fingers hung from sills and roofs. Nothing seemed to be disturbed in the barracks. I did not care too much at this stage. I sat down upon a wet bench and clasped my hands tight together to stop them shaking. I wanted to suggest that, having found the place now empty, we depart, but I knew that we must at least make a desultory search for the missing occupants.

I confess that being now inside a relatively solid structure made me feel better and more like myself. It was still hard to talk over the dreadful sound of the falls, but I had stopped feeling quite so dizzy and sick. That was until Lieutenant McIntyre returned from his search of the other building and asserted, in a worried tone, that we had all better come and see for ourselves.

On the back wall of the large room, a huge red eye loomed at us from the illumination of the lieutenant’s lamp. As the light flickered, the orb appeared to blink. I saw Aleksey cross himself and the woman hold out her hand and make an odd gesture of warding. She had better keep such witchery to herself. Perhaps I was merely jealous because I could think of nothing to ward off the evil of this place and this thing, besides leaving, which I was now intent on doing.

“What can it mean, sir?”

I shook my head at the major’s enquiry.

The lieutenant moved the lamp and urged, “See, here also.” And there next to the painted eye was a cross. Once again, those who believed in something made small gestures for their comfort, for it was a particularly eerie sight. Both symbols appeared to have been painted with blood. And that, in my opinion, never boded well for anything.

It was very dark now. We stood around, illuminated only by the feeble light of the single lamp, our voices drowned by the constant roar. If anyone had mentioned the beast that came out of the water at that moment, I truly believe I would have bolted for Xavier, dragging Aleksey with me, and none of that small party would have heard from us again. Unfortunately no one said a word, and thus my moment to escape the fate that befell me passed me by. Hindsight is such an insidious companion.

Next came the exploration of the cabins.

I wonder if men who live in well-lit homes in England can appreciate how dark and miserable life can be in a cabin in the wilderness. The men who had built this place may have known a lot about God, but they knew very little about building comfortable homes. Fortunately I had learned from masters, so our cabin was dry and airy, and although we had no windows, we had a floor raised above the earth, good ventilation, and a proper chimney with an excellent draw. These rough homes had none of that. They were dreadful and very sad to search through one after the other. Just as Aleksey had once wanted to see, the people seemed to have left in the middle of important things: knitting was cast aside in the middle of stitches, food upon plates, clothes strewn in an untidy way, which no good Christian wife would have tolerated for long. The glimpses we had of these people’s harsh lives made us somber. They had tried to live as good people—clothes well mended, food stored thoughtfully, little mementoes of where they had come from placed with great reverence upon shelves—a tiny piece of pottery, a spoon, a button: treasures they could probably never hope to replace if lost.

Searching those cabins, seeing those things, made us more determined to find out where they had gone. It made these missing people real for the first time.

There was nothing more we could do in the dark, so we individually repaired to suitable places to sleep: the men taking the barracks, and the reverend, his wife, and child one of the empty cabins. Safety in numbers for us, but I did not like sleeping next to either the river or the red eye watching us (as I thought).

When Aleksey finally did speak to me, it was in a very soft undertone, for with six other men variously lying around the long room, he did not want to be overheard. He rolled onto his side on his narrow, uncomfortable cot, facing me and away from the rest of our companions. “What is wrong? Tell me now, for you are frightening me, Niko. Are you still sick?”

“I do not know, and that is the truth. Perhaps I
am
ill. Perhaps I have taken a fever.”

“No, do not say that! What will I do if you are unwell? I rely upon you to laugh at for being so cross and angry and ill-humored with everyone and everything. Who will I make my sport if you are infirm? You know I hate being kind to you!”

“I know. I’m sorry. I will try to be less ill.”

“Well, good. That is more like it. Truly, you are very contrary to make me come all this way and to put me through such horrors to now flag and wilt like a… wilting thing. Not that I have much experience of wilting things, as you know.”

“Hush, or you will make me laugh, and then I can no longer claim that I am ailing.”

He was quiet for a moment, then asked, “What do you think the symbols mean? Are they native language?”

“Not any that I know, but that is not to say that a native did not put them there.”

“I wonder what they mean. Isn’t this a good mystery: the fort deserted just as I wanted and strange symbols on the walls—just as I predicted. There was even food upon the platters. Was it not a pity that it was not still warm, for that—”

“Aleksey? Shut up.”

He did, but I could still hear his mind working as he lay staring up at the rough bark roof. It was bitterly cold, I did not have my usual warmer, and I was feeling pretty miserable.

All I needed, therefore, was the howling of the damned to begin, which it did just after I had dropped to sleep.

We all sat up with a start or shout of alarm. Major Parkinson actually drew his sword, and the Wright brothers moved instinctively together, as I did with Aleksey. We stood in the utter darkness and listened to the voices. We could not make out what they were saying—can the damned still remember their language in the torments of hell?—over the constant roar of the river and the falls, but they sounded desperate, pleading, terrified. I do not think I was the only man in that room with his hair standing on end or with a surge of primal instinct screaming at him to flee this place. Aleksey wanted to go outside and ascertain if we could see anyone—he was the first to reason that there might genuinely be people lying in the snow just outside in need of assistance. I only agreed because I wanted to check the horses.

We all went, which seemed like the best idea to me.

Xavier was extremely agitated. He was stabled with the other horses and appeared to be alarming them. I knew how he felt. We were all inside the palisade and had fastened and secured the gates as best we could. There was nothing of any import inside the fort therefore. I wondered how the good reverend and his wife and child were taking the howling. It was hard to get a sense of which direction it was coming from, but I put my money on the river.

I think Aleksey would have opened the gates and gone out into the forest to search for the source of the cries, but he was outvoted. Even he must have seen that stumbling around in the dark and snow would be useless. He did climb to the top of the palisade, though, and peered over into the tree line. If he saw anything, he did not tell me. I was being punished for not letting him enjoy his adventure, I think.