Ian Esslemont: Blood and Bone

Ghosts ruled the jungles of Jacuruku. Saeng remembered staying awake through the night as she strained to understand their whispered calls. Somehow their murmuring beckoned so much more seductively than her own dreams. One of her earliest memories was of walking alone through moonlit leaves hunting for the source of the jungle’s voice. She’d been utterly self-composed and without fear — as only a child could be. Long into her wandering she distinctly recalled a hand taking hers and guiding her through the dense fronds and stands of damp grasses back to the village. Her mother swept up then, her face wet with tears, to squeeze her to her bony chest while Saeng calmly explained that everything was all right. That there was no need to cry. That a friend had brought her back.

And of course later everyone swore to seeing her wander in from the dark alone.

Since then the leagues of impenetrable jungle surrounding the village had held no fear for her. A dangerous and, she could admit, rather reckless attitude in a land where flower garlands and prayer scarves festooned trees in honour of countless spirits, restless dead, ghosts, lost forgotten gods, and far too many missing children and adults.

Growing up she continued to steal away into the woods whenever she could. And there among the hanging vines and leaves dripping night-mist the old spirits of the land came to her and she learned many forgotten things. In the morning she would return from her wanderings through the jungle tracks, her legs and feet sheathed in mud and grass and webs tangled in her hair. At first her mother beat her and twisted her ears. ‘You are no low-bred farmer’s daughter!’ she would screech. ‘We come from an ancient family of priestesses and seers!’

And often, during the midday meal, her mother would take her hands and always it would be the same story: ‘Saeng,’ she would begin, as if so disappointed in her. ‘Our family has kept the old faith. Not like these ignorant fools surrounding us with their grovelling to idols, charms and amulets. All these superstitious mouthings to earth goddesses, or beast gods, or the cursed God-King, or the Witch — all of these empty words. Or worse. Our family, we women, we descend from the original priestesses of the Sky and the Sun! We worship Light. Remember that! The Light that gives all life!’

Her mother would try to capture her gaze as if pleading with her to understand but she would glance away, mouthing, ‘Yes, Mother.’ Eventually her mother gave up even these exhortations and she was allowed to continue her wanderings in pursuit of the voices that whispered from the great green labyrinth that surrounded them.

As she grew older, and her mastery of the whispered teachings grew more assured, she found she could summon these ghosts, which she now knew as the dreaded land and ancestor spirits, the Nak-ta. And as her skills advanced these spirits and shades came to her from ever further into the ancient gulf of the land’s past. And each commanded greater and greater puissance in the manipulation of their talents. In the murmurings of these restless dead she learned how to bind the will of animals, how to interpret the voices of the wind, how to trick the senses, and how to tease knowledge from the earth itself. As she drifted, half asleep, it seemed to her that they stole close to her ears where they whispered of darker secrets. Of ancient forbidden charms, of lost deadly wards, and how to dominate the recesses of the human mind.

At first she thought nothing of this, even as the shades crowded ever nearer and proved ever more difficult for her to dismiss. Until one night the tenebrous clawed hand of one clutched her arm. Its voice was no more than the sighing of the wind through the leaves as it hissed, ‘ The High King will be well pleased with you .’

She remembered her shock at its frigid touch. ‘All that was dust ages ago.’

‘ Nay, ’tis of the moment. No more foolishness from you .’ It began to sink into the wet ground, yanking her down by the arm.

A yell shocked her even more then as a branch swung through the shade, dispersing it. She lay staring up at her elder brother, Hanu, while he glared about, branch readied. Strangely, all she felt was outrage. ‘What are you doing here?’ she demanded.

He pulled her up. ‘You’re welcome. I’ve been following you. And thank the ancestors for it, too.’

‘ What? ’ She danced away from him. ‘For how long?’

He shrugged his broad shoulders in the shadowed darkness. ‘Whenever I can. Someone has to keep an eye out while you offer yourself up to these feral spirits.’

‘I can control them.’

‘Clearly not.’

‘That one surprised me, that’s all.’ A sudden thought occurred to her and she drew closer, biting her lip. ‘You’re not … you’re not going to tell Mother, are you?’

‘Great Witch, no. She’s worried enough as it is.’

‘Well … you can’t stop me.’

‘That much is clear as well,’ and he crossed his thick arms, peering down at her.

She raised her chin in defiance and saw how the sweat of the humid night ran in streams down his face and neck. Through her skills she sensed his drumming heart and rushing blood and she realized: He is terrified. Terrified of the night — just like all of them. Yet he is here. He came to protect me .

His breathing was heavy as he scanned the deep forest shadows. ‘At least promise me that you’ll wake me, yes? That you won’t go out alone.’ His gaze swung to her, pleading. ‘Yes?’

And how could she refuse? Her own defiant front melted. ‘Yes, Hanu. I promise.’

For another year the nights passed in this fashion; she waking her brother and the two stealing out to where she communed with the wild Nak-ta ghosts that haunted the jungle. And with far older spirits of stone, stream and wind. Night after night she sat for hours under the wary gaze of Hanu and spoke to things he could not see nor sense. It was then she realized that while he might protect her from any physical threat, he remained susceptible to their compellings and charms, and so she surreptitiously cast over him protections and guardings against such magics.

‘Who are you talking to?’ he would sometimes ask from where he squatted under a tree.

‘The old dead,’ she’d answer.

‘Aren’t you scared?’

‘No. They’re dead.’

Befuddled, he’d throw up his hands. ‘Then — why aren’t they gone?’

‘Because they’re angry. Only anger is strong enough to keep the feet of the dead to the ground.’

Then he would glower because secretly he was afraid. And as the months passed he began to pester her. ‘It isn’t safe,’ he’d say. ‘We shouldn’t be here.’

And he was right. But not in the way either of them imagined.

One night she sat on the edge of a choked swampy depression. She was speaking with the shade of a woman who’d been drowned here in what she claimed had once been a great reservoir. In those days, the spirit asserted, its waters had been clear and deeper than a tall man. Among the trees behind her, Hanu pretended he was one of the ancient warrior-kings as he swung a heavy branch.