David Gilman - The Devil's breath

For two days!Koga sat with the fever-ridden Max. The Bushman boy had selected a branch from a wild currant tree from which they made their bows, and had patiently shaped the curve he wanted. As he fastened the gut string and tested its pull, Max groaned and eased himself onto one elbow. His mouth was clammy; the dried blood had been washed from his face, but its metallic taste coated his tongue.

Max eased the stiffness from his muscles. His arms were covered in dried mud; his torso and hair were also caked. He stood up uncertainly.

“Your skin. It was burning,”!Koga said. “I put mud on you. It is good; it will protect you.”

Max took the water-filled ostrich egg!Koga offered him. A small mouthful at first, with which he rinsed his teeth and throat and then spat out. It felt as though he had cleared a ton of muck, and then he drank greedily. The encrusted mud had dried into what felt like a second skin; his shorts were tattered, his nails broken; his muscles still ached from the spasms of the fever and the contortions from the Dance of Blood. But he felt strong. Stronger than he ever remembered. The Bushmen watched him and he gazed back, seeking out every face, looking into their eyes. He was saying a silent thank-you to them all, and they seemed to understand, nodding at first and then breaking into smiles and laughter. The shaman, BaKoko , gestured him towards the tree’s shade.

“BaKoko stopped the poison,”!Koga told him as they walked across the compound. “He gave you medicine, only he can do this. It was he who brought the blood from inside you.”

“I think he may have given me some kind of hallucinogenic weed; they can lock you up at home for taking that stuff,” said Max.

!Koga showed no sign of understanding, so Max smiled and put his arm around his friend. No need for that to be explained.

As they sat with the other men, who kept a respectful distance from the shaman, they ate food the women had prepared. Strong-tasting eland meat, some root bulbs cooked deep in fire embers, and a mixture of some kind of cornmeal that Max did not recognize. It made no difference, because he was famished, and the food disappeared quickly. All the time he ate, the BaKoko’s words simmered like steam from a boiling pot, a steady low murmur of storytelling that!Koga could only translate in fits and starts. But the essence of the old man’s words was clear. The Bushmen still believed Max’s arrival was foretold, that his journey demanded courage and that he was brought to them so that the snake might strike, that he would fall, that the scorpion would sting and that the great darkness would come upon him. It was meant to be. He must understand that this world they lived in was a dream, that few could be shapeshifters, that as he understood more of what now lay within him, he could use the creature he desired to guide him through danger. If Max allowed the thoughts to take hold, he could experience the essence of any animal. This was a rare privilege and carried with it a responsibility to be used wisely-if it was not, the force that had now been set free within him would devour him.

All of this the old man explained until the sun skimmed the top branches of the trees and the shadows deepened. Finally the old man nodded to!Koga. The boy presented Max with the hunting bow he had made while Max lay unconscious, a sheath full of arrows and a small pot of deadly poison for the arrowheads.

They had made him a hunter. Honored by their gesture and humbled by their care for him, Max solemnly accepted the gift. Across the flat wilderness the sun retreated. The shadow raced like a tide, smothering everything before it. Max caught a shimmer of movement through the trees, at the edge of darkness, and thought he saw a jackal’s eyes watching him.

Max and!Koga ran: steady, loping strides through the night. Their lungs burned for the first hour and leg muscles tightened, but then they pushed through any debilitating thoughts of pain or discomfort and settled into a comfortable pace. Once their breathing eased, their efforts were almost silent as their feet padded rhythmically into the sand. The black-edged mountains, so far away they looked like a troubled wave rising from the sea bed, snared a dark blanket of storm clouds where frayed whips of lightning disturbed the night.

Max was uncertain where he was going. Instinct-and something else, something he couldn’t put his finger on-guided him. It was as if his mind had projected a picture of the journey. It wasn’t exactly clear, because it had no shape or form, but maybe it was a kind of mental radar, he explained to himself. Whatever it was, he trusted it. Throughout the night they kept up a steady pace, but it was Max who led the way now and!Koga who struggled to keep up. Dawn gave them renewed energy, the sunshine easing fatigue. Max gazed at the mountains; the plateau he saw was the same he had seen in his dream-or vision, he wasn’t sure just what to call it yet-and it played back to him like a recorded film. He had flown from the cliff face, had swooped beyond the ravines and riverbeds to the trees. For a moment he hesitated, the memory catching him unawares, the urge to fly again almost irresistible. Max’s relentless pace determined that the boys seldom spoke-both needed their energy and single-mindedness to go to the place of the dream. They traveled north and east for two days, leaving the mountains behind them, moving towards the place where Max’s father had witnessed the death of several Bushmen. The last place he was seen alive.

At night they ate the dried meat!Koga’s people had given them; Max refused to let!Koga hunt and light a fire. They were nearing danger and Max did not want to take any unnecessary chances. As he slept on the hard ground, no longer worried by the discomfort, his sleep was confused, his mind unable to separate scattered dreams from images of shapeshifting which appeared murky, as if seen through smoked glass. His body twisted and turned as his mind tried to find a place of stillness.

By the third day he knew he needed less sleep than usual. There was no denying the tiredness, but his rest took the form of a deep sleep for a couple of hours, and the remaining hours became a light-headed meditation. Conscious of being unconscious was how he described it to himself. But there was one image which came to him of which he could make no sense and which frightened him. It was the maw of a giant creature, its worn-down teeth covered in matted slime; it was deaf and blind and breathed a vomitous steam. In one of his visions Max stood on the edge of the creature’s jaws, saw the monster’s bile gush from its stomach to its throat and heard its wheezing gasp for breath as the mist rose from its depths. He knew without doubt that it was the gaping jaws of hell-a bottomless pit that sucked bodies down to be devoured. And the picture he could not erase from his mind was of falling into the churning cauldron.

When the Bushmen died at the place!Koga’s father called “where the earth bleeds,” the hunting party had dug their loved ones’ graves, smeared the dead with animal fat, covered them with red powder, then laid them in a curled sleeping position, like unborn children. The shallow graves faced the direction of the rising sun and their hunting bows and spears were placed beside them.

The two boys stood in the clearing; wind swirled dust cones, momentarily obscuring the burial site; then, as the wind changed direction, the haze settled and the desecrated graves could be seen. The bodies were gone and only their scattered weapons remained. Some were broken, others seemingly tossed aside. This was not the work of wild animals digging up the corpses.

!Koga wandered to the clearing’s fringe. Who, in such a desolate place, would dig up and take away the bodies of his people? Max looked in each grave; there were no clues as to who was responsible, so he gathered the weapons, put them in a neat pile and waited for!Koga. While Max squatted on his haunches in the shade of a withered tree,!Koga went further away from the burial site, his eyes searching the ground. Finally he went down on one knee, touched his hand to the dirt and walked back to Max.