House of Corruption (28 page)

He entered an abandoned apartment and stepped onto the veranda. The match died and he tossed it away. His fingers brushed along the teakwood railing, festooned with the carvings of animals like tribal gargoyles. The balcony faced the river, illuminated by a faint slash of moonlight on the lagoon. His arms shook and he folded them, and when the tremor crawled into his hands he pressed them against his face.

“What do you smell?” came a voice.

Lingood stood behind him, a wrinkled cinnamon-stick in her faded sarong.

“You...” he said. “You speak English?”

“Your God-men speaking,” she said. “When they not grow yellow-snap they come and talk much.” She pointed at his chest. “You men with poor Ki-Ki. You go Lehan Antu? What do you smell?”

“What do I smell?”

“You smell like dog.”

He inhaled the sweaty tang of his odor. She smelled a good deal worse. She offered a grin, brushing toward him with her sinewy hands as if to sweep him off the porch.

“Dog,” she said. “You wild dog?”

“What?”

“Hear her voice? Do not listen? Maligang fat with blood and hungry. Your God not here. Not here, and not there.
Aiso tuhun do obitua doid pomogunan
.” She motioned toward the river. “You not come here, wild dog. You not go
there
.” She tapped at his chest. “Sad.” She laughed, and patted his arm like a grandmother. “You no cry. You no
laat
. You good boy.”

“Why do you say this?”

“I see him from Lehan Antu.
Ka'a'ai mati' do mugad doid hamin diho'
. You listen to Lingood, boy. That old dog there. He
not sad.
Angry. That great
sandung nauang
, and no
kuangkai
for poor girls Maligang takes. She get Eng Banka every day, every day, foolish boys who listen only to Maligang. She make them love her. Kill for her. She sing and—”

She looked past him, distracted. The subtle change in her scent prompted him to follow her gaze, past the balcony toward the river. A dull, orange light appeared from between the trees, following the current as it moved into the lagoon.

“Here,” she whispered.

Reynard led her back to the others. The cooking fire was already doused, the lanterns snuffed, Grant crouched on one knee with his Winchester poised upon the railing. Savoy pressed a finger against his lips. The others acknowledged with their eyes that yes, they too had seen the light.

“Eng Banka,” Lingood whispered. “They come.”

Savoy’s eyebrows peaked. “You speak English?”

“She speaks English,” Reynard said.

With a sweep of his arm Grant encouraged everyone to stay quiet. Reynard knelt beside him. The bobbing light passed through the lagoon: a lantern or a torch they could not tell, drifting from the water onto the shore. Its glow did not reveal who, or what, might have brought it. By the look on the old women’s faces, it might as well have been a bodiless apparition. They huddled and wept silently and upturned their palms, pressing their hands against their eyes and lifting them again in silent supplication.

The light lifted, twice. From beneath the longhouse many shapes moved with deliberate, cautious steps. Grant drew in the rifle, pressed his finger against his lips, dropped his head below the railing, and tried not to breathe. Reynard followed his lead.

Beneath the floor came a snuffling, a scattering of movement in the muck, then a deep, loud, unearthly cry. It was followed by more cries at the river and others in the village proper, like wolves howling in the night, joined, then cut short.

The old women closed their eyes, shivering. Reynard glanced at Kiria. She returned his look, grim, clutching one of the women as if she held her own mother.

The light near the river moved up and down, twice, then died. They heard nothing leave. They saw no more lights, no boats. They heard no more. Those in the longhouse waited a long time, not daring to move, to speak, until long after they were sure they were gone.

The next morning Grant examined the grass beneath the longhouse, but the soft mud had erased any sign of what—human or animal or something else—had passed by.

They left what extra food and blankets they could spare. The men brought up firewood, many days worth, and still the old women did not see them off. The prahus were undisturbed in the brush where they had left them. As they repacked the boats Reynard watched the veranda, considering the nets filled with old skulls. He hoped he had misunderstood the old woman, that he had merely read meaning when none had been implied. When one was filled to the brim with shame, he reasoned, he often heard condemnation when none was given.

No, he thought. She knew what she knew.

How could that old woman know?

“Lingood seems fond of you,” Kiria said. She reached into her pocket. “She told me to give you this.” She gave him a small stone like a rough-hewn marble, etched with the curling head of a wide-eyed beast. “This is
petahu
. I have never heard of a woman giving this to a man, much less a foreigner.”

“What is it?”

“A ward against evil,” she said, “and some would pay a good deal of money to get one. Keep it close.”

He placed it into his pocket, the same where he had once kept the silver bullet. His fingers felt along the rough scratches of the petahu stone, exploring its shape and density. Across the Atlantic his hand remained in that pocket most days, fingering and clutching the bullet. Now that the silver was gone, the emptiness still lingering, he now touched the stone as if this new talisman might make him feel better.

No. It did not feel the same. Yet it felt like
something
, something he could not place, so he would keep it close and remember.

You good boy.

If only that were true
. 

“What did you say to her?” Kiria asked.

Reynard did not answer. They climbed into the boat and cast off. They each took a final glance at Bukit Garam: the dilapidated longhouse, the empty, muddy flats and discarded reed baskets along the shore, the morning fog like hands finding naught but impotent teakwood spirits and the smell of old women’s tears. The four drifted into the lagoon, dipping their paddles into the water.

“You think they’ll get on?” Grant asked.

“The monks will lend aid,” Kiria said. “They must.”

Reynard thought he saw, peering from the veranda, an old face watching him—until the river’s current caught their boats and the trees shrouded the longhouse from view.

For the rest of the day they fought the river, beaten by the relentless sun, the air so thick it hurt to breathe. When they thought to stop Reynard urged them one more mile, one more curve so that they might reach Saint Dismas before dark. Yet as the sun descended below the trees the shadows made each curve and rapid more difficult to navigate.

Then Kiria said, “There it is.”

The river deposited them into a valley of thick jungle; a high, granite cliff wound its way to their right along the northern border, and the trees between it and the river fought to grow higher and wilder as if to blot out the sky. The Jebata ended at a watery crossroads where the slow Kinabatangan slithered southeastward in long, wavy curves back toward the sea.

In the last traces of sunset Kiria led them to a wooden dock where waited a tin-roofed shed and the head of a path disappearing into the trees. No signpost or light welcomed them. They eased their boats against the dock and crawled out, shouldered their packs and followed Kiria down the dark path. Savoy lit a lantern, the light casting strange shadows, as Kiria led them fifty yards to a grassy field. There she paused, looking about.

“Shine it,” she said, “there.”

Savoy raised the lantern high. Light splashed across blackened beams, piles of rubble and the ghostly shape of half-wrought bricked walls. The monastery of Saint Dismas hunched like a ruined castle, vines creeping through its broken teeth, burnt and broken and lightless. Twisted in the grass lay a bleached pile of ivory sticks; a skull grinned from the pile with leathery tissue. Insects scrambled into the dark recesses of the corpse’s eyesockets.

Reynard’s nostrils flared.

“We are not alone,” he said.

He started back towards the dock and the others followed, feeling his urgency, and when they reached the river Savoy lifted his lantern, examining the dock and the shore.

“Good Lord,” Savoy said. “The boats are gone.”

28

Grant slid the Winchester rifle from its holster at his back and cocked it, adding bullets from his belt. Savoy and Reynard removed their field pistols and confirmed they were loaded.

“Where are the boats?” Kiria asked.

“They were waiting for us,” Grant said.

“Evidently,” Reynard said. “Is there higher ground?”

Kiria continued looking at the water. “They were just—”

“Higher ground!”

“This way.”

She led them back up the trail, pressing past wide fronds and dripping overgrowth. Branches snapped from all directions. Wood clacked upon wood in a loud, harsh rhythm, followed by a long, terrible howl—surrounding them, from all sides, coming closer.

The four burst into a run.

Kiria led them into the ruins of Saint Dismas, through fallen chambers, over rubble and under blackened beams. The monastery had once been twenty rooms surrounding a central garden and well, the Gothic brickwork sporting fluted trim and deep, crenellated edging with arched windows like a medieval castle. Now it lay scattered like tumbled-down children’s blocks. They passed through the ruins of the cloister. They hurried up a wide staircase to a plateau where waited the eerie silhouette of the ruined chapel.

Grant lowered his rifle, and they slowed to a halt. “There.”

Shapes materialized—six men appeared from the trees behind them at the foot of the stair, six more arriving from behind the chapel. Savoy raised his lantern. Light reflected off oiled limbs, bodies sheathed with grass tunics and necklaces of bone, heads garbed with tall, wooden masks carved into the exaggerated muzzles of snarling dogs. Some carried palmwood spears lashed with steel blades, while others held machete-like iron
mandaus
slung in their woven belts. They barked and shouted and paced, acting more beast than human.

From the chapel’s corner one of the men stretched back, barked a strange cry, and hurled his spear with a sinuous arm. It thudded between the opposing groups.

“I assume that’s a challenge,” Reynard said.

“Shall we give a response?” Savoy asked.

Grant fired the Winchester. The bullet splintered the spear in half; the natives howled and advanced, and those down below started up the steps. Reynard planted a boot into the chapel door and cracked it open like charcoal.

The large chapel retained most of its brick walls and half of a ribbed ceiling, dripping with rot and creeping growth. They raced around blackened pews and scattered rubble, the floorboards groaning beneath their feet. The building had been desecrated intentionally: altar and cross broken, statues decapitated, stained glass shattered. Dirt and stones and moss covered the wooden floor, the jungle creeping into the holes and broken windows.

A glance through the ruined ceiling revealed a stone belltower, fifty yards northwest from the rear of the chapel.

The four raced for the back door, Grant and Savoy ahead with their weapons extended. To their right, a cluster of the masked men slipped inside from a break in the wall. They shoved their shoulders against a massive beam propped against the wall, thirty feet long and as wide as a man’s outstretched arms. The beam pivoted and, with another shove, spun away and fell into the center of the chapel.

It connected with the rotten floor and crashed through with an explosion of broken wood. The rest of the floor sighed and, with a great, snapping death-knell, sank into itself. Detritus slid into a black maw that swallowed the chapel’s contents.

Kiria screamed and disappeared.

A hand snapped at the fabric of Reynard’s shirt—he thought it was Savoy—before he too dropped into emptiness. Grant grabbed Savoy’s coat and yanked him from the edge. They ran as boards disappeared at their heels, the sinkhole widening. They launched out the back door and onto moist earth, the floor of the chapel behind them a black, gaping mouth.

“Reynard,” Savoy whispered.

Grant jerked him to his feet—natives swarmed from both sides of the chapel, clattering with bone and wood. Grant and Savoy sprinted across the yard to the belltower. A spear cracked above Savoy’s head as they passed through the tower entrance and up a curling stairwell. The steps ended halfway up to a bare, stone room with a trapdoor in the ceiling and a ladder on the wall. Grant faced the head of the stairs, rifle loaded, while Savoy went for the ladder. He leaned it against the rim of the trapdoor and scrambled up.

Gibbering natives flooded up the steps. Grant fired as the first man emerged from the stairwell. He took the bullet in the stomach and dropped to his face. Grant cocked the lever and fired again, the impact throwing the man back down the steps. When a third came, Grant pulled the trigger with a
clack
as the chamber snapped, frozen. He tried again and the rifle groaned with metal against metal.

“Savoy!”

The native slid a bone-handled knife from his belt and charged. Grant thrust the rifle barrel into the man’s gut, doubled him over, and cracked him across his mask to send him spinning. Grant used the rifle to throttle one, two, three more men. One attacked from the side, crouching, and stabbed up with his spear. Its point plunged in and out of Grant’s left arm. The native slid his long
mandau
from its sheath and, with a shout, plunged forward—a
crack
of sound—

He fell to his back, dead.

On the ladder above, Savoy clutched his smoking pistol.

Two more natives emerged from the stairwell.

“Open that door!” Grant said.

Savoy heaved his back against the trapdoor—grunting, his breath hissing—until the door groaned free. He crawled up into the belfry. Grant started up the ladder as two more natives reached; he kicked the nearest dog-mask with a solid blow, scrambled up, and launched through the trapdoor. The belfry was a twenty-foot square stone chamber with little more than a floor, two open windows and a vaulted ceiling. An obese iron bell hung in the center.