The Dragon Griaule

by Lucius Shepard

  ‘No, I . . .’

  ‘Or did you say . . .’

  ‘He knew what it meant!’ she shouted, standing up in the box. ‘He knew!’ She stared with fierce loathing at Lemos. ‘He killed him for the money! But he’ll never . . .’

  ‘Sit down, Miss Lemos!’ said Judge Wymer. ‘Now!’ Once she had obeyed, he warned her in no uncertain terms to restrain her behavior.

  ‘So,’ Korrogly went on, ‘in the midst of an argument you blurted out some incoherent . . .’

  ‘Objection!’

  ‘Sustained.’

  ‘You blurted out something, you can’t recall exactly what, about the will. Is that a fair statement?’

  ‘You’re twisting my words!’

  ‘On the contrary, Miss Lemos, I’m simply repeating what you’ve said. It appears that the only persons who were absolutely clear as to the contents of the will were you and Mardo Zemaille.’

  ‘No, that’s . . .’

  ‘That wasn’t a question, Miss Lemos. Merely the preamble to one. Since you are likely to benefit greatly from your father’s conviction, since that will in effect prevented him from initiating a competency hearing, doesn’t that color your testimony the color of greed?’

  ‘I never wanted anything except Mardo.’

  ‘I believe everyone within earshot will second your characterization of Mardo Zemaille as a thing.’

  ‘No need to object, Mister Mervale,’ said Judge Wymer; then, to Korrogly: ‘I’ve given you a great deal of leeway. That leeway is now at end. Do you understand me?’

  ‘Yes, Your Honor.’ Korrogly crossed to the defense table, picked up some of his notes, and leafing through them, walked to the witness box and stood facing Mirielle; her face was tight with anger. ‘Did you believe in Mardo Zemaille, Miss Lemos?’

  ‘I don’t know what you mean.’

  ‘I mean did you believe in what he said, in his public statements, in his theological doctrines? In his work?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What was his work? His great work?’

  ‘I don’t know . . . nobody except Mardo knew.’

  ‘Yet you believed in it?’

  ‘I believed that Mardo was inspired.’

  ‘Inspired . . . I see. Then you accepted his precepts as being the code by which you lived.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Then it would be illuminating to examine some of those precepts, might it not?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Oh, I think it would.’ Korrogly turned a page. ‘Ah, here we are.’ He read from his notes. ‘“Do what thou wilt, that is all the law.” Did you believe that?’

  ‘I . . . yes, I did.’

  ‘Hmmm. And this, did you believe this? “If blood is needed for the great work, blood will be provided.”’

  ‘I don’t . . . I never knew what he meant by that.’

  ‘Really? But you accepted it, did you not, as part of his inspired doctrine?’

  ‘I suppose.’

  ‘And this? “No crime, no sin, no breach of the rules of what is considered ordinary human conduct, shall be considered such so long as it serves the great work.”’

  She nodded. ‘Yes.’

  ‘And I assume that included under the label of sin would be the sin of lying?’

  Her stare was hard and bright.

  ‘Do you understand the question?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well?’

  ‘Yes, I suppose. But . . .’

  ‘And included under the label of crime would be the crime of perjury?’

  ‘Yes, but I no longer hold to those beliefs.’

  ‘Don’t you? You’ve been heard recently to characterize Mardo Zemaille as a paragon.’

  Her mouth thinned. ‘Things have changed.’

  Korrogly knew he was invading dangerous territory, that she might make specific reference to the changes he had brought to her life; but he thought he could make his point and clear out before damage was done.

  ‘I submit that things have not changed, Miss Lemos. I submit that the great work, whatever its nature, will go on under your aegis. I submit that all the miscreant rules attaching to that work still hold, and that you would tell any lie, commit any . . .’

  ‘You bastard!’ she cried. ‘I’ll . . .’

  The courtroom was filled with babble, Mervale was objecting, Wymer pounding his gavel.

  ‘And commit any crime,’ Korrogly went on, ‘in order to assure its continuance. I submit that the great work is your sole concern, and the truth is the farthest thing from your mind.’

  ‘You can’t do this!’ she shrilled. ‘You can’t come to my . . .’

  Judge Wymer’s bellow drowned her out.

  ‘No further questions,’ said Korrogly, watching with mixed emotions as the bailiffs led her, still shouting, from the courtroom.

  Shortly after beginning the examination of the first witness for the defense, the historian and biologist Catherine Ocoi, a striking blond woman in her late thirties, Korrogly was summoned to the bench for a whispered conversation with Judge Wymer. The judge leaned over the bench, pointing at the various displays that Catherine had brought with her, indicating with particular emphasis the huge painting of the mountainous dragon set beside the defense table.

  ‘I warned you not to turn this into a circus,’ he said.

  ‘I scarcely think that displaying Griaule’s image . . .’

  ‘Your opening statement was a masterpiece of intimidation,’ said Wymer. ‘I didn’t censure you for it, but from now on I will not allow you to intimidate the jury. I want that painting removed.’

  Korrogly started to object, but then saw virtue in having it done; that it was deemed important enough to be removed only gave added weight to his thesis.

  ‘As you wish,’ he said.

  ‘Be careful, Mister Korrogly,’ Wymer said. ‘Be very careful.’

  As the painting was carried out, the jury’s eyes followed it, and once the painting was out of sight, they expressed a visible degree of relief. That relief, Korrogly thought, might be more valuable than the oppressive presence of the painting; he would be able to play them, to remind them of Griaule, to let them swing between relief and anxiety, and so exercise all the more control.

  He led Catherine Ocoi through her testimony, the story of how she had been manipulated by Griaule to live inside the dragon for ten years, the sole purpose being for her to oversee a single event of Griaule’s internal economy; then he let her testify as to the marvels to be found within the dragon, the drugs she had distilled from his various secretions, the strange and in some instances miraculous parasites and plants that flourished there. She had no knowledge of The Father of Stones, but the wonders to which she was able to testify left little doubt in the jury’s mind that the stone could have been produced by Griaule. Her exhibits – every one of them taken from the interior of the dragon – included a glass case filled with spiders in whose webs could be seen all manner of fantastic imagery; cuttings of a most unusual plant that was capable of creating replicas of the animals who fell asleep in its coils; and most pertinently, nodes of an amber material, very like a mineral form, which she claimed was produced by the petrification of Griaule’s stomach acid.

  ‘I have no doubt,’ she said, ‘that Griaule could have produced this.’ She held up The Father of Stones. ‘And touching it now, I know it is of Griaule. I had ten years to become intimately familiar with the feeling that attaches to his every element, and this stone is his.’

  There was little Mervale could do to weaken her testimony: Catherine Ocoi’s reputation was above reproach, her story and discoveries celebrated throughout the region. However, with the witnesses that followed, philosophers and priests, all of whom presented opinions concerning on Griaule’s capacity for manipulation, Mervale was not so gentle; he railed and ranted, accusing the witnesses of wild speculation and Korrogly of debasing the legal process.

  ‘This does seem to be degenerating into something of a me
taphysical debate,’ said Wymer after calling the attorneys for consultation at the bench.

  ‘Metaphysical?’ said Korrogly. ‘Perhaps, but no more so than the debate that underlies any fundamental point of law. Our laws are founded upon a moral code which comes down to us through the tenets of religious faith. Is that not metaphysics? Metaphysics are rendered into law based upon a consensus moral view, the view nourished by religion and commonly held in our society as to what is right and appropriate as regards the limitations that should be placed upon men in their behavior. What I’m establishing first and foremost is that there is a consensus regarding the fact of Griaule’s influence. I could go out into the street and not find a single person who doesn’t believe to some degree or another in Griaule. That kind of unanimity can’t even be found as relates to a belief in God.’

  ‘This is ridiculous!’ said Mervale.

  ‘Secondly,’ Korrogly continued, ‘I’m establishing through expert testimony the consensus regarding the extent of Griaule’s influence, the range and limitations of his will. This is simple foundation. Essential to any decision regarding the validity not only of my client’s claim to innocence, but also to the validity of the precedent. If you disallow it, you disallow the plea. And since you have already allowed the plea, you’ll have to allow foundation to support it.’

  Wymer appeared to be absorbing all this; he glanced inquiringly at Mervale, who sighed.

  ‘All right,’ he said, ‘I’m willing in the interests of brevity to stipulate that Griaule’s influence exists, that it is . . .’

  ‘I’m afraid the interests of brevity are not altogether congruent with those of my client,’ said Korrogly. ‘In order for precedent to be established, I wish to lay a proper foundation. I intend to make the jury aware of the history of Griaule and his various acts of influence. I think it’s absolutely essential they have a complete understanding of his subtlety in order to arrive at an equitable judgment.’

  Wymer heaved a sigh. ‘Mister Mervale?’

  Mervale’s mouth opened and closed; then he threw up his hands and stalked back to the prosecution table.

  ‘Carry on, Mister Korrogly,’ said Wymer. ‘But let’s try to keep the floorshow to a minimum, shall we? I doubt that anything you produce here is going to outweigh the evidence of the will, and there’s no point in wasting time.’

  It came to be late in the day, but Korrogly did not ask for a recess; he wanted Lemos to tell his story, to give the jury a night to let it sink in, before exposing him to cross-examination. He conducted Lemos through some background testimony, allowing him to get a feel for the witness stand and the jury and then asked him to tell in his own words what had happened after he had bought The Father of Stones from Henry Sichi.

  Lemos wet his lips, gazed down at the rail of the witness box, sighed, and then, meeting the jury’s eyes as he had been coached, said, ‘I remember I was in a great hurry to get home with the stone. I didn’t know why at the time, I just knew I wanted to examine it more closely. When I reached the shop, I went to my workbench and sat with it awhile. The part you see now was gripped by what appeared to be claws of corroded-looking orange material, whose color came away on my fingers; it was flaky, soft, rather like old wood or some other organic matter. As for the stone itself, I couldn’t tear my eyes away from it. Its clouded surface seemed so lovely, so mysterious. I became certain that an even greater beauty was trapped within it, beauty I knew I could unlock. Usually I will not cut a stone until I have lived with it for weeks, sometimes months. But I was in a kind of trance, invested with a strange confidence that I knew this stone, that I had known it always, that its internal structures were as familiar as the patterns of my thoughts. I cleaned off the orange material, then clamped the stone in a vise, put on my goggles and began to cut it.

  ‘With each blow of my chisel, light seemed to fracture within the stone, to spray forth in beams that penetrated my eyes, and these beams acted to strike sprays of images from my brain, as if it too were a gemstone in process of being cut. The first image was of Griaule, not as he is now, but vital, spitting fire toward a tiny man in a wizard’s robes, a lean, swarthy man with a blade of a nose. There followed another image that depicted both dragon and man immobilized as a result of that battle. Then other images came, too rapidly for me to catalogue. My mind was alive with light, and the ringing in my ears was the music of light, and I knew with every fiber of my being that I was cutting one of the great gems. I would call it The Father of Stones, I thought, because it would be the archetype of mineral beauty. But when at last I set down my chisel and considered what I’d done, I was more than a little disappointed. The stone was flashy, full of glint and sparkle, but had no depth and subtlety of color. Indeed, it appeared to have a hollow center. Except for its weight, it might have been an intricate piece of blown glass.

  ‘I was distressed that I’d wasted money on the thing. I couldn’t imagine what I’d been thinking – I should have realized it was worthless, I told myself. The shop was already in danger of going under, and I’d had no business in making the purchase under any circumstance. Finally I decided to present the stone to Zemaille. He’d been harrassing me to come up with something unusual for one of his rituals, and perhaps, I thought, he would allow the superficial brilliance of the stone to blind him to its worthlessness. And I also hoped I might get the chance to see Mirielle. I wrapped the stone in a velvet cloth and hurried toward the temple, but when I reached it I found the gates locked. I knocked again and again, but no one responded. I’ve never considered myself an intemperate man; however, being locked out after having walked all that way, it seemed a terrible affront. I paced up and down in front of the gates, stopping now and again to shout, my anger building into a towering frustration. Finally, unable to contain my rage, I set about climbing the temple walls, using the creepers that grew upon them for handholds. I pushed my way through the garden – if such noxious growths as flourish there can be called such – becoming even more angry, and when I heard chanting coming from a building that stood at a corner of the compound, I rushed toward it, so angry now that I intended to fling the stone at Zemaille’s feet, to cast a scornful look at Mirielle, and then storm out, leaving them to their perversions. But once inside the building, my anger was muted by the barbarity of the scene that met my eyes. The chamber into which I’d entered was pentagonal in shape, enclosed by screens of carved ebony. The floor was carpeted in black moss and declined into a pit where lay an altar of black stone worked with representations of Griaule. It was flanked by torches held in wrought-iron stands of grotesque design. Zemaille, robed in black and silver, was standing beside the altar – a swarthy hook-nosed man with his arms lifted in supplication, chanting in company with nine hooded figures who were ranged about the altar. Moments later, a door at the rear of the chamber opened, and Mirielle was led forth, naked except for a necklace of polished dragon scale. She was in an obvious state of intoxication, her head lolling, her eyes showing as crescents of white.

  ‘I was so appalled at seeing my daughter in this pitiful condition that I was stunned, unable to act. It was as if the sight had ratified all the hopelessness of my life, and I think for awhile I believed that this was proper, that I deserved such a fate. I watched as Mirielle was stretched out on the altar, her head tossing about, incapable – it appeared – of knowing what was happening to her. The chanting grew louder, and Zemaille, lifting his arms higher, cried, “Father! Soon you will be free!” Then he lapsed into a tongue with which I was unfamiliar.

  ‘It was at this point that I sensed Griaule’s presence. There was no great physical symptom or striking effect . . . except perhaps an intensification of the distance I felt from what I was seeing. I was absolutely unemotional, and that seems to me most peculiar, because I have never been unemotional where Mirielle is concerned. But I was nonetheless certain of his presence, and as I stood there overlooking the altar, I knew exactly what was going on and why it had to be stopped. This knowledge was nothing so s
imple as an awareness of my daughter’s peril, it was the knowledge of something old and violent and mystic. I can still feel the shape it made in my brain, though the particulars have fled me.

  ‘I stepped forward and called to Zemaille. He turned his head. It was strange . . . never before had he displayed any reaction to me other than disdain, but there was tremendous fear in his face then, as if he knew that Griaule and not me was his adversary. I swear before God it was not in my mind to kill him before that moment, but as I moved toward him I knew not only that I must kill him, but that I must act that very second. I’d forgotten the stone in my hand, but then, without thinking, without even making a conscious decision to act, I hurled it at him. It was an uncanny throw. I could not have been less than fifty feet away, and the stone struck with a terrible crack dead center of his forehead. He dropped without a cry.’

  Lemos lowered his head for a second, his grip tightening on the rail of the witness box. ‘I had expected that the nine gathered around the altar would attack me, but instead they ran out into the night. Perhaps they, too, sensed Griaule’s hand in all this. I was horrified by what I’d done. As I’ve stated, the knowledge of what was intended by the act had fled, had flown from my brain, evaporated like a mist. I knew only that I had killed a man . . . a despicable man, but a man nonetheless. I went over to Zemaille, hoping that he might still be alive. The Father of Stones was lying beside him. Something about it had changed, I realized, and on picking it up I saw that the center was no longer hollow. At the heart of the stone was the flaw that you can see there now, a flaw in the shape of a man with uplifted arms.’ He leaned back and sighed. ‘The rest you know.’

  Mervale’s cross-examination was thorough, incisive, yet if it had not been for the will, Korrogly thought after the day’s proceedings had been concluded, he would have had an excellent chance to win an acquittal; the weight of the material evidence would not have impressed the jury any more than his witnesses and Lemos’ account. But as things stood, the fact that Lemos could not put forward any reason why Griaule had wanted Zemaille dead, that seemed to Korrogly to tip the balance in favor of the prosecution. He stayed late at the courthouse, running over the details of the case in his mind, and finally, just after eleven o’clock, more frustrated than he had yet been, he packed up his papers and set out for the Almintra quarter, hoping that he could mend his fences with Mirielle; perhaps he could convince her of his good intentions, help her to understand that his responsibilities had demanded he treat her roughly.