The Dragon Griaule

by Lucius Shepard

  On a Sunday in late March, Korrogly interviewed an elderly and wealthy woman who had until shortly before the murder been an active member of the Temple of the Dragon. The woman was known only as Kirin, and her past was a shadow; she seemed not to have existed prior to her emergence within the strictures of the temple, and since leaving it, she had lived a secretive life, known to the public only through the letters that she occasionally wrote to the newspaper attacking the cult. He was met at the door by a thick-waisted drab, apparently the woman’s servant, who led him in a room that seemed to have been less decorated than to have sprung from a green and leafy enchantment. It was roofed by a faceted skylight, divided by carved wooden screens, all twined with vines and epiphytes; plants of every variety choked the avenues among the screens, their foliage so luxuriant that sprays of leaves hid the pots in which they were rooted. The sun illuminated a profusion of greens – pale pomona, nile, emerald, viridian, and chartreuse; intricate shadows dappled the hardwood floors. The fronds of sword ferns twitched in the breeze like the feelers of enormous insects.

  After wandering through this jungly environment for nearly half an hour, growing more and more impatient, Korrogly was hailed by a fluting female voice, which asked him to call out so that she might find him among the leaves. Moments later, a tall white-haired woman in a floor-length gown of gray watered silk came up beside him; her face was the color of old ivory, deeply wrinkled and stamped with what struck Korrogly as a stern and suspicious character, and her hands moved ceaselessly, plucking at the nearby leaves as if they were the telling beads of some meditative religion. Despite her age, she radiated energy, and Korrogly thought that if he were to close his eyes, he would have the impression that he was in the presence of a vital young woman. She directed him to a bench in a corner of the room and sat next to him, gazing out into the lushness of her sanctum, continuing to pluck and pick at stem and leaf.

  ‘I distrust lawyers, Mister Korrogly,’ she said. ‘You should know that from the outset.’

  ‘So do I, Ma’am,’ he said, hoping to elicit a laugh, some softening of her attitude, but she only pursed her lips.

  ‘Had you represented any other client, I would not have agreed to see you. But the man who has rid the world of Mardo Zemaille deserves any help I can give . . . though I’m not at all certain how I can help.’

  ‘I was hoping you might provide me with some background on Zemaille, particularly as regards his relationship with Mirielle Lemos.’

  ‘Ah,’ she said. ‘That.’

  ‘Mirielle herself has not been forthcoming, and the other members of the cult have gone to ground.’

  ‘They’re afraid.’

  ‘Of what?’

  She gave an amused hiss. ‘Of everything, Mister Korrogly. Mardo has addicted them to fear. And of course now that he’s gone, now that he’s abandoned them to the fear he instilled in them, they’ve fled. The temple will never thrive again.’ She tore a strip of green off a frond. ‘That was Mardo’s one truth, that in the proper environment, fear can be a form of sustenance. It’s a truth that underlies many religions. Mirielle understands it as well.’

  ‘Tell me about her.’

  The old woman fingered a spray of bamboo leaves. ‘She’s not a bad girl . . . or at least she didn’t used to be. It was Mardo who corrupted her. He corrupted everyone, he broke them and then poured his black juice into their cracks. When I first met her, that was five years ago, I took her for a typical convert. She was an agitated, moody girl when she came to the temple. All dance and no standstill, as the saying goes. I assumed Mardo would have her – he had all the pretty ones and that then he would let her fall from grace, become an ordinary devotee. But I underestimated Mirielle. She had something, some quality, that fascinated Mardo. I originally thought that he might have met his match sexually, for I knew from some of the other members that she was’ – she seemed to be searching for the right word – ‘rapacious. And perhaps that did have something to do with it. But of greater relevance, I believe, was that she was driven in much the same way as he. And thus she is equally untrustworthy.’

  ‘How do you mean “driven”?’

  The old woman looked down at the floor. ‘It’s difficult to explain Mardo to anyone who never knew him, and it’s entirely unnecessary to explain him to anyone who did. When you examine what he said closely, it was all doctrinal persiflage, mumbo jumbo, a welter of half-baked ideas stirred together with high-flown empty language. But despite that, you always had the idea that he knew something, or that he was onto something, some course that would carry him to great achievement. I’m not speaking of charisma . . . not that Mardo was short in that department. What I’m trying to get to is something more substantial. There was about him an air that he was being moved by forces within him that not even he fully comprehended.’

  ‘And you’re saying Mirielle had this air as well.’

  ‘Yes, yes, she was driven by something. Again, I don’t know if she understood its nature. But she was driven much like Mardo. He recognized this in her, and that’s why he trusted her so.’

  ‘And yet it appears that he was going to kill her.’

  She sighed. ‘The reason I left the temple . . . no, let me tell you first the reasons I joined it. I fancied myself a seeker, but even at the height of my self-deception, I realized that I was merely bored. Bored and old . . . too old to find better entertainment. The temple was for me a violent dark romance whose characters were constantly changing, and I was completely taken with it. And there was always the sense that Griaule was near. That chill scaly presence . . . that awful cold power.’ She gave a dramatic shudder. ‘At any rate, two years ago I began to have a sense that things were getting serious, that the great work Mardo had talked of for so long was finally getting under way. It frightened me. And being frightened awakened me to the deceits and evils of the temple.’

  ‘Do you know what it was . . . the great work?’

  She hesitated. ‘No.’

  He studied her, thinking that she was holding back something. ‘I have no one else to turn to in this,’ he said. ‘The cult members have gone to ground.’

  ‘They may have gone to ground, but some of them are watching even now. If I revealed secrets, they would kill me.’

  ‘I could subpoena you.’

  ‘You could,’ she said, ‘but I would say no more than I have. And there is also the fact that I would not make a very reliable witness. The prosecutor would ask questions about my past, and those I would not answer.’

  ‘I assume the great work had something to do with Griaule.’

  She shrugged. ‘Everything did.’

  ‘Can’t you even give me a clue? Something?’

  ‘I’ll tell you this much. You have to understand the nature of the cult. They did not so much worship Griaule as they elevated their fear of him to the status of worship. Mardo saw himself in a peculiar relationship to Griaule; he felt he was the spiritual descendant of that first wizard who long ago did battle with the dragon . . . a sort of ritual adversary, both celebrant and enemy. That kind of duality appealed to Mardo; he considered it the height of subtlety.’

  Korrogly continued to press her, but she would say no more and finally he gave it up. ‘Did Mirielle know about the work?’

  ‘I doubt it. Mardo’s trust of her extended to the material world, but this was something else, something magical. Something serious. And that troubled me. I didn’t want things to be serious, I began to be afraid. People vanished, conversations became whispered, the darkness inside the temple seemed to be spreading everywhere. Finally I couldn’t bear it. I started to notice things. Perhaps I’d always noticed them, but had preferred not to see them. At any rate, I realized then how dangerous a thing had been my boredom, how low I had let it drag me. I understood that for all his drive and intensity, Mardo Zemaille was an evil man . . . evil in the blackest of definitions. He sought to master wizardly arts that have died away for lack of adherents corrupt enough to dig in the night
soil where the roots of such power are buried.’

  ‘What things did you notice?’

  ‘Rituals of torture . . . sacrifices.’

  ‘Human sacrifice?’

  ‘Perhaps . . . I can’t be sure. But I believe at the least that Mardo was capable of it.’

  ‘Then you think that he was going to sacrifice Mirielle.’

  ‘It’s hard to credit. He doted on her. But, yes, it’s possible that he would feel he had to sacrifice the thing he most cared about in order to complete the great work. She may not have known it, but I think he may have had that in mind.’

  Korrogly watched leaf shadows trembling on the sunlit floor; he felt tired, out of his element. What, he thought, am I doing here, talking to an old lady about evil, trying to prove that a dragon has committed murder, what am I doing?

  ‘You mentioned trust between the two of them.’

  ‘Yes, Mardo made it plain to everyone that in the event anything happened to him, she was to lead the temple. There was something . . .’

  ‘What?’ Korrogly asked.

  ‘I was going to say I always suspected that there was a secret history between them, and that was another reason for Mardo’s trust. It was something I felt was true . . . but it was only a feeling. Nothing admissible, nothing you could use. Anyway, I suppose he drew up documents that would grant her some kind of legal succession. He was a stickler for that sort of detail.’ She tilted her head to the side as if trying to make out some indefinite quality in his face. ‘You look surprised. I’ve never known a lawyer whose expressions were so readable.’

  Failure, he thought, even my face is failing me now.

  ‘I had no idea the bond between them had been ratified in any way,’ he said.

  ‘Perhaps it hasn’t. I can’t be sure. But if I’m correct and it has, you’ll have no end of trouble unearthing the documents. Mardo would have never gone to a lawyer. If they exist they’re probably hidden in the temple somewhere.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘What are you thinking?’

  He made a noise of baffled amusement. ‘I thought this would be such a simple case, but everywhere I turn I come upon some new complexity.’

  ‘It is a simple case,’ she said, her wrinkled face tightening with a grim expression. ‘Take my word, no matter how villainous a creature you believe William Lemos to be, his act has made him an innocent.’

  One night shortly before the opening of the trial, Korrogly visited the constabulary headquarters to have another look at the murder weapon – The Father of Stones, as Lemos had named it. Standing alone by a table in the evidence room, looking down at the stone, which rested at the center of a nest of tissue paper within a tin box, he was as confounded by it as he had been by every other element of the case. At one moment it seemed to enclose profane fractions of encysted light, its surface clouded and occult, a milky bulge with the reek of a thousand-year-old egg trapped inside; the next, it would appear lovely, subtle, embodying the delicate essence of some numinous philosophy. And at its heart was a dark flaw that resembled a man with upflung arms. Like Griaule himself, it was a thing of infinite shadings, of a thousand possible interpretations, and Korrogly could easily believe that its point of origin was a cavity in the dragon’s body. He was, however, still unable to believe Lemos’ story; it, too, was flawed, and this flaw would be enough to lead the gemcutter to the gallows. There was just no good reason, at least none he, Korrogly, could discern, why Griaule would have wanted Lemos to kill Zemaille. Not even Lemos could come up with a good reason; he simply continued to insist that it was so, and mere insistence would not save him. Yet it was that same flaw, the lack of patness to the story, that kept forcing Korrogly to relent in his judgment, to be tempted to belief. What a case, he thought; when he was back in law school he’d dreamt of having a case like this, and now he had it, and all it was doing was making him weary, making him wonder if he had wasted his life, if every question, even the most fundamental, was as elusive as this one, and he just hadn’t noticed before.

  He picked up The Father of Stones and juggled it; it was unusually heavy. Like dragon scale, like ancient thought.

  Damn, he thought, damn this whole business, I should give it up and start a religion, there must be sufficient fools out there for some of them to consider me wise and wonderful.

  ‘Thinking about murdering someone?’ said a dry voice behind him. ‘Your client, perhaps?’

  It was the prosecutor, Ian Mervale, a reedy, aristocratic-looking man in a stylishly cut black suit; his dark hair, combed back from a noble forehead, was salted with gray, and the vagueness of his eyes, which were watery blue, set in sleepy folds, belied a quick and aggressive mentality.

  ‘I’m more likely to go after you,’ said Korrogly wryly.

  ‘Me?’ Mervale affected shocked dismay. ‘I’m by far the least of your worries. If not your client, I’d consider an attack upon our venerable Judge Wymer. It appears he’s not at all sympathetic to your defense tactics.’

  ‘I can’t blame him for that,’ Korrogly muttered.

  Mervale studied him a moment, then shook his head and chuckled. ‘It’s always the same every time I run up against you. I know you’re being honest, you’re not trying to underplay your hand; but even though I know it, as soon as the trial begins I become positively convinced that you’re being duplicitous, that you’ve got some devastating trick up your sleeve.’

  ‘You don’t trust yourself,’ Korrogly said. ‘How can you trust anyone else?’

  ‘I suppose you’re right. My greatest strength is my greatest weakness.’ He started to turn toward the door, hesitated and then said, ‘Care for a drink?’ Korrogly juggled The Father of Stones one last time; it seemed to have grown heavier yet. ‘I suppose a drink might help,’ he said.

  The Blind Lady, a pub in Chancrey’s Lane, was as usual crowded with law clerks and young solicitors, whose body heat fogged the mirrors on the walls, whose errant darts lodged in white plaster or blackened beam, and whose uproarious babble made quiet conversation impossible. Korrogly and Mervale worked their way through the press, holding their glasses high to avoid spillage, and at last found an unoccupied table at the rear of the pub. As they seated themselves, a group of clerks standing nearby began to sing a bawdy song. Mervale winced, then lifted his glass in a toast to Korrogly.

  The singers moved off toward the front of the pub; Mervale leaned back, regarding Korrogly with fond condescension, an attitude more of social habit than one relating to their adversary positions. Mervale was the son of a moneyed shipbuilder, and there was always an edge of class struggle to their conversations, an edge they blunted by pretending to have a fund of mutual respect.

  ‘So what do you think?’ Mervale asked. ‘Is Lemos lying . . . demented? What?’

  ‘Demented, no. Lying . . .’ Korrogly sipped his rum. ‘Every time I think I have the answer to that, I see another side to things. I wouldn’t want to hazard a guess at this stage. What do you think?’

  ‘Of course he’s lying! The man had every motive in the world to kill Zemaille. His daughter, his business. My God! He could have done nothing else but kill him. But I have to admit his story’s ingenious. Brilliant.’

  ‘Is it? I might have gotten him off with a couple of years if he’d pled some version of diminished capacity.’

  ‘Yes, but that’s what makes it so brilliant, the fact that everyone knows that’s so. They’ll say to themselves, God, the man must be innocent or else he wouldn’t stick to such a far-fetched tale.’

  ‘I’d hardly call it far-fetched.’

  ‘Oh, very well! Let’s call it inspired then, shall we?’

  Growing annoyed, Korrogly thought, you pompous piece of shit, I’m going to beat you this time.

  He smiled. ‘As you wish.’

  ‘Ah,’ said Mervale, ‘I sense that a trial lawyer has suddenly taken possession of your body.’

  Korrogly drank. ‘I’m not in the mood tonight, Mervale. What are you after that you
think I’m willing to give away?’

  Displeasure registered on Mervale’s face.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ Korrogly asked. ‘Am I spoiling your fun?’

  ‘I don’t know what’s got into you,’ said Mervale. ‘Maybe you’ve been working too hard.’

  ‘These little ritual fishing expeditions are beginning to bore me, that’s all. They always come to the same thing. Nothing. They’re just your way of reminding me of my station. You drag me in here and butter me up with the old school smile and talk about parties to which I haven’t been invited. I expect you believe this gives you a psychological advantage, but I think the false sense of superiority it lends you actually weakens your delivery. And you need all the strength you can muster. You’re simply not that proficient a prosecutor.’

  Mervale got stiffly to his feet, cast a scornful look down at Korrogly. ‘You’re a joke, you know that?’ he said. ‘A tiresome drudge without a life, with only the law for a bed partner.’ He tossed some coins onto the table. ‘Buy yourself a couple of drinks. Perhaps drunk you’ll be able to entertain yourself.’

  Korrogly watched him move through the crowd, accepting the good wishes of the law clerks who closed around him. Now why, he thought, why did I bother doing that?

  He waited until Mervale was out of sight before leaving, and then, instead of going directly home, he walked west along Biscaya Boulevard, heading nowhere in particular, moving aimlessly through the accumulating mist, his thoughts in a despondent muddle; the dank salt air seemed redolent of his own heaviness, of the damp dark moil inside his head. Only peripherally did he notice that he had entered the Almintra quarter, and it was not until he found himself standing in front of the gemcutter’s shop that he suspected he had tried to hide from himself the fact that he had intended to come this way. Or perhaps, he thought, I was moved to come here by some vast and ineluctable agency whose essence spoke to me from The Father of Stones. Though that thought had been formed in derision, it caused the hairs on the back of his neck to prickle, and he wondered, what if Lemos’ story is true, could I also be vulnerable to Griaule’s directives? The silence of the dead street unnerved him; the peaks of the rooftops looked like black simple mountains rising from plateaus of mist, and the few streetlamps left unbroken shone through the haze like evil phosphorescent flowers, and the shop windows were obsidian, reflective, hiding their secrets. It was still fairly early, but all the good artisans and shopkeepers were abed . . . all except the occupant of the apartment above Lemos’ shop. Her light still burned. He gazed up at it, thinking now that Mervale’s insulting and accurate depiction of his life might have motivated him to visit Mirielle, thereby to disprove it. He decided to leave, to return home, but remained standing in front of the shop, held in place, it seemed, by the glow of the lamp and the sodden crush of the surf from the darkness beyond. A dog began to bark nearby; from somewhere farther away came the call of voices singing, violins and horns, a melancholy tune that he felt was sounding the configuration of his own loneliness.