The Kingdom of the Damned

by Mario Garrido Espinosa

  5

  "The Metrowaní God was a man before God.” The jet-haired woman felt great delight as she counted the last of her people's legends and smiled at the man who, lying on the floor, would never give her that smile again. “When Cyclomatewo, God-maker of all worlds, created the island Hooweallay decided that the first man to step on it must be Metrowaní. That mortal spent a lot of time only on the coast of the island, until he decided that it was a waste that he only inhabited the wonderful place, full of food, water and beauty. That paradise was to be shared by many more who were like him. Therefore, he asked Nordencocomo, the supreme winged God of all men, what he could do. ‘There is only one way of populating this island, but it requires your sacrifice.’ Metrowaní was a generous man and understood that his life was worth less than all the people’s who would later inhabit the island, so he begged the supreme God to tell him what to do. ‘Eat a whole birch juniper tree,’ Nordencocomo said. Although, he did not know what this would do, Metrowaní did not doubt what his God advised him and searched for twenty days for some of these trees. When he found the only one on the island, he found that it was the largest of all Hooweallay trees...”

  "I'm leaving the rocker," Joseph The Bull interrupted, who was beginning to have his head stunned by so many days of relentlessly invented stories. “Are you coming?”

  “No.”

  "I do not know why I thought you were going to say that"

  The woman stared at him with her large eyes. The giant felt tenderness for her, as on so many other occasions, and went outside.

  Night Skin resumed her history:

  “With great patience and by executing a superhuman work, Metrowaní cut down the enormous birch juniper and extracted the root. Then, he broke it into pieces he could swallow and began to eat fifteen pieces day after day every time the sun went out or set. For eight moons, he fed only the tree's bark, trunk, leaves, roots, and unripe fruits, causing his body to suffer and enlarge beyond what any other man could have. When the last piece was digested, the body cracked from the mouth to the navel, and from the inside came out twenty beautiful and perfect human specimens. There were ten men and ten women, who would be the first of my tribe. Each couple had five sons and daughters and each new couple another five... and so our village was gradually formed.” She paused to look at Mario. “The supreme winged God Nordencocomo decided one day that the great sacrifice of Metrowaní must have some reward, in order to balance the forces of the justice of the world. After thinking a lot, he erected it as the God of births, and since then, in the cave where he lived as a man, can feel his spirit of life. It is since our custom to take all the newborns to the cave and leave them all morning. If when it is returned by the baby has died or has disappeared eaten by some animal, it is that Metrowaní has ​​seen that in the future would not be good for the tribe and could only bring misery. On the contrary, if he still lives there is a great celebration in honor of the good judgment of the God of birth...”

  Night Skin remained silent for half an hour. She had no more stories left. If Mario Toulon had been able to hear and understand something, then he could be said to know all Turhaii people’s histories, which were twenty-five and had to be transmitted in their reverse chronological order, in the inhabitants’ language of Hooweallay Island and always in the moments when the Gods did not provoke the rain. She had patiently counted them for days and nights. Now, he was like a member of her tribe and could participate in their Gods’ magic... therefore, that was the sublime moment of invoking them to heal the sick, who had already lost the motility, the sensibility and the intelligence of inexorable form.

  Night Skin was afraid of failing and did not dare to start with the ceremony. She cried for a long time. Still with tears, she went to the corner where stored her plants. She made a paste by mixing the Annilata red flowers with the liquid squeezed from the huge leaves of the same plant. After being naked, she used half of the ointment to paint her body with strange geometric designs, and the rest ate it in a hurry since she knew that the Annilata flowers intense bitter taste could provoke instant vomiting if they tasted more than the usual. She began to feel hot and began to sweat. She knew what was going to happen because it was not the first time she ate the floor of ceremonies... At the moment, she tensed her muscles to feel what was imminent: A terrible prick burst in her stomach, so strong that threw her to the ground and made her scream as if a burning iron had been stuck in her. Very little by little the pain was subsiding until, with the sight clouded by the effects of the drug, she managed to get up and start the ceremony.

  She chanted spells in front of Mario as she danced in circles and rhythmically moved the chervil leaves, she held in her hands. The Gods must come before she felt a second prick in her stomach. Otherwise, Mario would never heal. They were taking a lot. The sweat blurred the geometric figures of her body and although she did not want to lose hope, she began to think that her filters of pure love and ancestral spells were useless.

  The green paste that covered the patient’s body was drier and more compact than had ever been, and in some places began to crack as if it were the floor of a river affected by a century-old drought. She knew that was not a good sign.

  Suddenly, Turhaii stopped dead her songs. She had taken a good scare and lost all the concentration accumulated during the dance. She still had a cloudy vision but could see right in front her father, Shippo’s ghost, the great wizard of the other continent. He must have been there for a long time. He stared at her motionless, with a stern expression, levitating above everything, as if he were an ethereal spirit that filled the entire space of the room with his very presence.

  After the initial surprise, Turhaii exclaimed:

  “Father, help me!”

  “Don’t.”

  “Please!” Turhaii pleaded with Shippo's ghost, using her native tongue.

  “I only come to check the uselessness of your effort.”

  “Help me and I will never disobey you again...!”

  "It's no use pleading me now. I did not show you everything. There was no time. You chose that man instead of all the wisdom that I had to bequeath you according to what our supreme God had ordered. Now I'm cursed for it...”

  “Impose me any condition but help me!”

  Shippo continued as if he did not hear her:

  “You do not know everything. You lack the essential. The last thing you learn!”

  “What is it that I do not know father? I do the white eagle dance in equal circles and at the same time. I sing the prayers of the serpent and the black spider that make the evil spirits disappear, and every night I pray and invoke Holgurrwetam, God of life and death...”

  "It's been a long time since any God heard you. You deny them...”

  “I do everything you told me!” She exclaimed, not paying attention now to what her father said.

  “That's not enough.”

  "Teach me how to earn your trust, father," she pleaded again.

  “No. It's late for that already. The Gods no longer allow you to learn.” And he repeated: “It's late.”

  “You showed me that it was never too late to learn...”

  “And it's true. But I was referring to the things of this world. A shaman must control what is above the human domain. I started you on that path, but you...”

  “Let's finish that road now.”

  “It is impossible. The circle has been left open forever. In addition, total wisdom, maximum wisdom, is not taught. Neither must nor cannot be transmitted. A shaman’s infinite knowledge is learned in themselves; but to get to this point you must first know everything that I intended to teach you. It is in sight, Turhaii, that you have not known yourself as the Gods require," Shippo reproached to his daughter, "and you have been denied the powers to heal.”

  “What can we do to make the Gods think of me again?” She repeated.

  “Nothing. Nothing can be done.” Shippo paused, looking at her in a way that suggested that what he had just said admit
ted no doubt. “You did not want to know. You did not want to finish your learning. It's late. You are contaminated by the things of this other world so far from Hooweallay. You left and now you pay with your suffering all your selfishness.”

  “Please! Then you can punish me for everything... I am willing to face anything to save him...”

  “Enough punishment you already have because of your bad behavior; besides, I am not a God who has to punish men...”

  “Father. I will do anything!” Turhaii pleaded, trying to take his father's legs to embrace them, but evidently, she could not reach what was in reality a ghostly intangible image.

  “You left. My death meant the end of the shamans race in the village. Now, our people die without anyone to heal them," and repeated Shippo, this time with a voice even more serious. “Pay with your suffering all your selfishness!”

  Then, Shippo’s ghostly vision vanished in invisible smoke.

  “Noooo...!” Turhaii screamed, regretting that her father left her.

  An instant later, she fell back to the ground paralyzed by the second puncture, which this time went inside her body with the violence of a lightning. She was depressed, trying to endure the pain while savoring the most absolute solitude. Feeling powerless, useless, impotent and imperfect. Feeling, in short, useless in the eyes of the world that represented her father... In the eyes of the world to which she must belong.

  Chapter 19

  The Nun-Ripper Cripple

  1

  I

  rene Lopezosa Quesada, after the butchery of the convent, had done everything to survive: stole, swindled, poisoned, looted and even killed on request. Everything was worth it if she could get some money and, to tell the truth, the fact of taking other people’s life each time gave her greater pleasure.

  Carrying out her misdeeds, she put her beloved wench. She used it as a kind of mask, so when her head was not wrapped in it, she looked like another person. Her blond hair had grown back to the length of her days in La Alpurria del Campo and she combed it in a way that almost covered her face. Thus, with the wench on, could not know if it was brunette or blonde; and without it, she was a woman with a long mane that swung around her face.

  With so much banditry and shoplifting behind her, she ended up being sought by justice, although without much success; but one day she killed or, at least, was related to the strangulation of certain wealthy characters from the south of Gurracam. From then on, people began to distribute, for the knowledge of everyone, drawings that served as her portrait. These posters represented her with her wrist, which gave her the peace of mind that she was going to be hardly recognized, but one day she was very surprised when she saw her face hanging on the wall without the wimple, with her hair in the way she was always wearing it. It was almost as if she were looking in a mirror. From that day he collected his hair in a braided ponytail, which unwittingly made her even more recognizable.

  She ended up being called, in all Gurracam with the terrible nickname of the nun-ripper cripple; alias that was rightly imposed after the St. Bonaventure Day massacre remains were discovered and the bailiffs recognized her as the sole author. The matter was known thanks to Bernabe Parrondo de Cachavera, the merchant of dubious sexual affinities. Parrondo returned shortly to the convent precinct, outraged by the poisoned products he had bought, and how Irene happily and rigorously cooked the days before she escaped. Forty days passed without anyone opening the door and informed the court; this in turn warned the Holy Inquisition, and five days later, when a Grand Inquisitor’s secretary, the mayor Squill River Hard Course and half of the local peasants were present, the main door of the convent was thrown down using a battering ram. The six men who crossed the threshold were met with the most gruesome sight ever seen. Thus, they found Sor Restitute’s body in an advanced putrefaction state and Sister Mikaela’s tied to Pelayo’s, who still retained the horrible expression of one who is asphyxiating without possibility of escape. The nun, God knows how, still lived. It seemed as if she expected the arrival of someone to betray the person who caused everything.

  "Irene Lopezosa Quesada, Sir Higinio Lopezosa Quesada’s daughter of La Alpurria del Campo, has killed us." She pronounced with the voice of the dead and then passed away with a strange expression of satisfaction. It was the face of someone who dies knowing that it has culminated what brought them to this world.

  It was not long before the six men who entered from the spooky building went out. When they saw the sunlight again, they had changed their countenance and seemed to be twenty years older. It seemed that nothing in this world could surprise them from that moment. As if they did not need anything else to see.

  In the following days, it was tried to know what was so frightful that it dwelt inside the convent, but none seemed to want to speak. Finally, one of them confessed after being subjected to torture by the Grand Inquisitor seasoned secretary.

  "That was the Pandemonium," he said.

  The poor man had seen spectral apparitions that passed in front of the body without departing, crossing and leaving every last drop of frozen blood. They were beheaded nuns’ spirits or with terrible wounds full of pus, slithering awkwardly through cracked pictures and shattered images; between the consumed candles and the worn kneelers; through the deserted and dusty cells and the dark and sonorous corridors... The ghosts’ faces showed such sadness and pathos that they seized those six men for the rest of their short lives. They were miserable souls who would not find rest until they knew why the God, they consecrated most of their lives, had allowed such an end to their existence.

  The explanations should not have liked to the secretary too much, who sent negative reports to St. Josafar. The Grand Inquisitor decided to add the six men —for no one denied his companion's affirmations— to those who already formed the September Auto-da-fe list. They accused them of heretics and Devil’s worshipers. The poor men perished at the stake with willing spirit. In a certain way, it was a liberation for them because, from the moment they left the convent, did not spend a minute of their existence without having in mind the horrors seen.

  2

  There came a time when the nun-ripper cripple was practically known by all Gurracam. There were posters in all the towns with her head stuck in the wimple and without it, with her ponytail and even with two other hairstyles that she had never worn in her wonderful hair. They said hawks describing her way of walking, caused by her legendary stiff leg, and her frightful exploits —half invented or perpetrated by others— went from mouth to mouth, thus becoming a legend of evils and nonsense, fattened to the people’s rhythm of live imagination.

  One day, Irene Lopezosa passed through the town of Pozorondo. In the square, a blind storyteller counted one of those attributed to her. The man carried a stick with a pumpkin and on one shoulder hung two scallop shells that collided when he moved his arm, which was more dramatic depending on what passages of his peroration. In addition, he used a collection of drawings that he had displayed on one side of his wagon, which he pointed out with his staff.

  Come your Excellencies!

  To this other story, attend!

  Know what this woman did,

  sure, you will surprise.

  Listen, well, nothing I make up.

  Ignore it do not pretend.

  The blind man gave three strong sticks to a bell that hung from the wagon, with the same precision that he would have exhibited if his sight was in perfect condition.

  Hear a sad romance:

  A reckless woman,

  a faithful cuckold husband,

  a merciless assassin.

  In this way, lengthening musical verses even as if he were a preacher, the blind began to tell another supposed chapter of Irene's atrocities. A boy with a rogue face and full of dirt accompanied the claim of the blind man playing a drum without any grace.

  A long-suffering husband wanted

  To give revenge to his beloved,

  Well, found her a hundred times

 
with maids in bed;

  and the antlers and the honor

  It is not a well-married couple.

  A day in those places

  A Sight to the crippled

  and the husband, oh torment,

  He hired her in a vile day.

  The terrible commission accepted

  and took root with his soldier.

  Although only a start,

  the husband to his adored,

  wanted as a warning

  and so, the work was explained,

  if with the Demon you deal

  You will not see tempered action.

  Among the circle of people who listened, there were three men who did not stop observing the one alluded to in the story. Irene wore a hooded wool cloak in an attempt to hide her face and disguise her stiff leg. She did not suspect that she was being watched closely.

  Very few days were left

  to the poor wretch,

  since by trails and streets

  the Cripple was sought.

  Terror in her path

  the vile was well armed,

  and her crazy look

  Produced great fright.

  In an alley she was found.

  Her life was dispatched.

  The wife asked for protection,

  Though nobody was helped.

  Bold, she wanted to defend herself:

  he gave a strong kick,

  but in these low losses

  the Cripple was an expert.

  She dodged the blow, very shower,

  as if it were something given,

  and of a Herculean slap

  the wife was stunned.

  That she tried to defend herself

  Do not like to the Cripple.

  She got angry, responding

  in a way that is not accurate.

  So, using a knife

  the face left shattered;

  and pluck the dresses;