The Burning Altar

by Sarah Rayne

The stone table was not a table at all; it was a huge open clay oven, fired from below: crude, but effective. Its surface was already throwing out fierce heat, and thick meaty-smelling smoke was beginning to drift across the courtyard. Lying along the centre of the oven was a long narrow terracotta pan, lipped and rimmed and slightly concave, fitting into a shallow depression scooped out of the oven. Even from here Lewis could see that the pan was exactly the shape and size of a human.

  Cal had been right all the time. These people were Flesh-Eaters: they were cannibals and down there was their roasting oven. Dear God, I must get out of here before they come for me . . . I shall send for you in an hour’s time . . . Lewis looked at the door. Supposing it was locked? Supposing there was no escape?

  There was a flurry of commotion at the courtyard’s far side and a door was flung open. Lewis turned back to see, and through the door came four of the black-haired men, half carrying, half dragging a struggling prisoner. He was naked and his hands were bound in front of him, but he was holding them cupped protectively over his groin in a piteous attempt to preserve a final shred of dignity. A rope halter was about his neck so that if he tried to escape he would be throttled.

  Lewis recognised the prisoner at once, even though his features were distorted with terror, the eyes starting from the head with panic. Cal, the guide who had brought him here and then fled into the night. They had caught him. Did they have scouts out for lone travellers? Panic gripped him more fully and he was across the room and turning the door handle. It stuck and resisted at once. Locked. But you knew it would be. He walked slowly back to his post at the window.

  Two of the men lifted Cal bodily and carried him shoulder-high towards the terrible oven. Lewis, gripping the sides of the small window so tightly that the stones cut into his skin, felt a violent surge of anticipation from the watchers. This was what they had been waiting for; this was their feast. The drum-beat increased: it built to a pulsating vibrancy, filled with sensual greed and swollen with crude sexual anticipation. Lewis was starting to feel very sick, but also dreadfully compelled by curiosity.

  Cal knew what was going to happen to him. He was being carried towards the oven in horizontal native-bearer fashion, his head pointing towards it, and he had twisted round to stare at the glowing clay pan. As they bore him forward, he began to scream: terrible trapped-hare screams, pleading for mercy, fighting his gaolers and bringing up his bound hands in an attempt to claw his way free. But he won’t do it, thought Lewis, in horror. They’ve got him in a grip of iron. Can I get through the window and somehow down the wall to him? But the courtyard was a sheer drop and the wall all around and beneath the window was smooth bland stone.

  The watchers were swaying and Lewis caught a low chanting from them, a hypnotic measured resonance that reverberated all around the courtyard. The scene shimmered and blurred in the spiralling heat from the clay oven and the flaring torches, like an ancient portrayal of hell, and Lewis remembered Patrick’s description of the giant gates of hell. I’ve passed through them, and I’ve descended into the fiery caverns. And there at the centre is the burning furnace . . .

  The four men reached the oven and hoisted Cal above it, and Lewis saw his skin turn instantly scarlet from the fierce heat. There was a moment when they held him aloft, and when his body began to scorch, blistering and cracking and running with thick colourless fluid: human fat – the subcutaneous fat melting and oozing to the surface. As the smeary fluids dripped down over Cal’s body and on to the hot clay, there was a furious spitting. A low murmur went through the watchers, and despite the belching heat from the Altar, Lewis felt cold sick terror fasten about his vitals.

  The men had started to lower Cal: in ten seconds – five – he would be in that grisly clay pan and there was nothing Lewis could do to stop it. Cal was screaming, but his cries were almost drowned by the fierce heat-sizzle and the crowd were pressing forward, swaying with excitement, the chanting louder.

  With a final smooth movement the four men dropped Cal straight into the waiting heat of the terracotta pan and a sigh swept the courtyard. The oven spat frenziedly, almost drowning the anguish of the creature already roasting to his death, and a greasy pall of smoke rose up.

  Behind Lewis, a key scraped in the lock and as the door of his room opened he turned. Kaspar, with four of the black-haired men, stood there surveying him.

  ‘Well, Englishman,’ said Kaspar, the cruel curving smile lifting his lips, ‘you have seen a little of our ways.’

  ‘The Burning Altar,’ said Lewis, still staring down into the courtyard. ‘That’s what that is, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes. One of the most ancient rituals in the world.’

  ‘And,’ said Lewis, turning to regard Kaspar, ‘one of the punishments of the Tashkara Decalogue?’

  Kaspar became very still. At last he said, ‘You know the legend of the Decalogue?’

  ‘I do.’ But please don’t let him ask me how much I do know, thought Lewis in silent entreaty. Because what I know could be written on a postage stamp! Patrick, you bastard, why didn’t you bequeath a bit more about that side of your journey instead of listing all the women you screwed?

  But he held Kaspar’s stare, and after a moment Kaspar said, ‘The Burning Altar is the punishment for what we call jackals. Those who guide spies into a forbidden place.’

  ‘It’s also an echo of the ancient cult of hunting the gods and feasting on their cooked limbs,’ said Lewis. ‘And the roots of that religion are somewhere deep in ancient Egypt. Am I right?’

  ‘Yes. How do you know that?’

  ‘How do you?’ countered Lewis.

  ‘We are descended from a very ancient people. We follow customs that are older than Osiris himself.’

  ‘How convenient,’ said Lewis politely, ‘that this particular custom fits so neatly with your inclinations.’

  Kaspar smiled. ‘All religions can be adapted,’ he said. ‘And we are sworn to guard the secret city of Touaris from intruders. Our reputation is known in Lhasa and only the very inquisitive or the simple-minded ever approach the palace.’ The insult was implicit but it was clear. ‘You preserve your Christian religion,’ said Kaspar. ‘Why should we not do the same with our religion?’

  ‘Then,’ said Lewis, ‘Touaris still lives.’

  ‘Oh yes, she still lives.’

  Lewis glanced down at the courtyard. Cal was not quite dead; his body was the colour of half-cooked meat but he was still struggling feebly. His legs had curled up helplessly, drawn in by the heat like an insect’s, and his hands were scarlet shrivelled claws.

  Lewis turned back to Kaspar, the fragile outline of a plan beginning to form. It would probably be the biggest gamble he would ever take and it would depend on how superstitious these people were. But it was worth a try. He said, ‘How can you be sure that you won’t incur Touaris’s wrath if you sacrifice me on the Burning Altar?’

  ‘Why should we?’

  ‘Have you never heard,’ said Lewis, ‘of the prophecy of the Traveller from the West? The One who will come to Tashkara and save it from a great catastrophe?’ I’m very nearly in biblical country now, he thought. Dare I start in about plagues and scourges and seven-year curses? No, you fool, you’ll ruin the whole thing! His heart was racing and his palms were wet with sweat but he met Kaspar’s eyes levelly.

  Kaspar said, ‘There is no such prophecy,’ but Lewis caught the note of doubt, and hope sprang up. I’ve rattled him! He doesn’t really think I’m anything other than an ordinary traveller but he isn’t sure. Oh God, I’m walking on ice so thin it’ll probably crack at any minute and then they’ll fling me into that grisly thing and I’ll die in slow screaming agony. But if I keep my head I might just get away with it.

  He said, ‘You can’t be sure. How many travellers would know of Touaris and the Decalogue? Remember I mentioned them both before you did.’

  ‘Prove what you claim!’ said Kaspar challengingly.

  ‘That my coming here was foretold?’ And no
w I’m descending into outright blasphemy!

  ‘Yes,’ said Kaspar. ‘Prove it!’

  ‘How?’

  ‘Join our banquet.’

  ‘As a victim?’ said Lewis sarcastically.

  ‘As a participant.’

  The silence closed down again, and now there was something extraordinarily intimate about it. He knows exactly what I’m thinking, thought Lewis, staring at Kaspar. He knows what I’m thinking and I believe he knows what I’m feeling as well. What the hell do I do?

  Several lifetimes ticked away and then he heard his own voice saying, ‘Very well.’

  ‘You are willing to eat from the table of the Burning Altar? To eat the flesh you have seen cooked tonight?’

  Lewis said, ‘I am willing.’

  Chapter Fourteen

  Extract from Patrick Chance’s Diary

  Tashkara, June 1888

  This is an eerie place, quite aside from its being a colony of lepers.

  The leper who met us (have not yet established his nationality but his name is Fenris and his English is excellent), says the palace has been used many times by nomad tribes: they live here for a few years, or a few generations, and then move on. It’s fallen into strange hands during its long history, he says; evil hands. This I can believe, because I’ve never encountered a place so filled with brooding menace.

  ‘But it is not the evil from the past that overshadows us, Patrick,’ says Fenris. ‘It is the evil that stalks us from the future, that waits for us in the shadows of our unfolded life, that we have most to fear.’

  On reflection, do not think I have ever heard quite such a macabre pronouncement.

  Later. Fierce argument with Theo who thinks we should stay safely shut away in our stone hut and set off at first light without seeing or speaking to any of the lepers.

  ‘Because it’s a sinister, hungry thing, leprosy,’ he says, as if he visualises some kind of ravaged-faced Middle Ages Death symbol prowling the night in search of prey, rattling its crumbling bones and huffing its diseased breath through the cracks in the windows. ‘A few hours here is as much as we dare risk, Patrick.’

  But I’m curious about these people, and – although I haven’t admitted this to Theo – I would like to feel more comfortable about them. To ignore them tonight and walk away in the morning would only make me feel even worse.

  (Wonder if this is the feeling that really charitable people experience. Like giving your last coin to a starving beggar, because it’s less agonising to feel hungry yourself than to imagine someone else doing so.)

  Anyway, when I saw a small fire being lit in the courtyard and a huge black cooking pot slung gypsy-fashion over it, I stumped off, leaving Theo to please himself what he did, and approached the group of people. (Did not do so without a qualm of apprehension, but this is an admission I make only in these pages.)

  They appeared to be preparing their evening meal. Several of them were building the fire, and two were stirring the contents of the cooking pot. It smelled savoury and good.

  They looked around as I approached and fell silent, and it was left to Fenris to say in his mocking blurred voice, ‘You are either very brave or very unusual, Patrick. Most people would barricade themselves in the stone building and scuttle off at first light.’ (He’s either a mind-reader or was listening through the keyhole when I was arguing with Theo.)

  I said, ‘I can’t see that an hour or so spent talking with you is any extra risk. And it might be that we could arrange for help to be sent out to you – medicines, clothing. Perhaps we could talk about that. Is this your supper time? Am I intruding?’

  ‘Yes, it is our supper hour and no, you are not intruding,’ said Fenris. ‘Unless in extreme pain, or suffering from physical sickness, we all gather to eat the evening repast together, usually in this courtyard, but occasionally in the stone hall in the east wing. The palace is big enough for us to live a little apart from one another, but we all meet each evening.’

  ‘We like to do so,’ put in another of them, a bit hesitantly. ‘It means we can bring to the supper table the details of our day, and hear how the day has been for others.’

  ‘A time for sharing,’ said a third. ‘Little pieces of news about our work, or perhaps an amusing or an interesting occurrence.’

  ‘You save it all up for the evening,’ said one of the women. ‘You know the others will be doing the same.’ She was ravaged and thin, but it was possible to see that she must have been very good-looking once. I glanced at her with interest, and she smiled. There was a fleeting impression of dark slumberous eyes and of an immense inner tranquillity.

  Two other women sat with her and I saw that although they were helping with spooning out the food, the men were joining in with the task. The dark-eyed woman studied me and I had the feeling that she had heard my thoughts. When she said, ‘You see that all are truly equal here,’ I knew I had been right.

  ‘You all help with the work?’

  ‘Yes, for as long as possible. Those who can no longer walk are carried here. Those who no longer have the use of their hands are fed. We do not shut ourselves away to suffer and die alone.’

  I remained silent, and Fenris said, ‘Sridevi is right, Patrick. It is important to preserve normality for as long as possible.’

  It was pitiful. It was brave and admirable but it was so pitiful I wasn’t sure I could bear it. But they had to bear it. I said, ‘There is – forgive me – there is pain and sickness at times?’

  ‘Yes. As the disease progresses. But it is not,’ said Fenris firmly, ‘a discussion to have whilst eating. If you are determined to stay, Patrick, will you sit here? There will be a portion of stew ladled for you.’

  It was an extraordinary experience to sit there with night stealing across the mountains, and to watch these poor spoiled, cursed human beings crawl out of their doorways and across the courtyard. Several had to be helped to the fire, some leaned heavily on sticks, and three or four could not walk at all. These last were brought on a kind of litter which the others carried. I had to repress the urge to jump up and help them all, because I guessed this would be wrong. They clung to independence for as long as they could. In the end, they had all congregated around the fire, some half lying, some propped up, and food was ladled into small wooden bowls and passed around. It was mostly rice – what’s called tsampa out here – but it was flavoured with apricots and nuts and some kind of local vegetable. There was a wedge of coarse-grained bread to go with it, and it was all surprisingly palatable. Theodore was probably skulking supperless in the stone room. Serve him right.

  ‘Are you self-sufficient here? What happens about food?’

  ‘Some of us are still able to work the land a little,’ said Fenris. ‘We can grow much of our food. And there is milk from our goats and sometimes we can make cheese.’ His voice was so full of patient acceptance that I wanted to cry or throw things about. In his place I would probably have hurled the cooking pot across the courtyard and smashed things to pieces out of sheer frustration. But probably he had gone beyond that point. ‘There is no cure for this curse, you know,’ he said.

  Curse . . . So he saw it like that as well.

  I said, ‘Is there nothing that could be done to make life easier for you?’

  ‘No. No cures, no medicines. We shall die early,’ said Sridevi. ‘We shall not suffer easy deaths, because this is not an easy disease.’

  ‘There is the corroding of bones, the eating away of flesh and muscle,’ said Fenris. ‘A gradual loss of sensation. Perhaps blindness or deafness—’ From the deep hood, his eyes caught the firelight.

  ‘But we have accepted it,’ said Sridevi. ‘And we are more comfortable than you would think.’ She made a quick gesture with one impossibly thin, but still beautiful hand, taking in the people seated in the circle of firelight. ‘We are amongst our own people: creatures who will not shrink from us in disgust. No one makes us walk the land with a bell about our necks to proclaim our filth so that people can scur
ry away. We tend our own, and that is more of a comfort than you can imagine.’

  ‘We exchange whatever skills we have brought from the outside world,’ said Fenris. ‘That is why some of us know a little English. And there are evenings when we celebrate birthdays or other events we remember from our earlier lives. Sometimes we have a story-telling evening, sometimes music.’ He studied me, the hooded head on one side. ‘Occasionally,’ he said, with a sudden glint of amusement, ‘there is even the pleasure of sharing a bed.’

  ‘Ah. Indeed?’

  ‘Not all the senses vanish, Patrick,’ said Fenris, and the wry humour was there again. I saw him exchange a sudden smile with Sridevi and I wanted to sit down and cry again.

  One of the lepers who had not spoken until now, leaned forward and said in careful hesitant English, ‘Will you try a little of our wine? We keep it for special occasions.’ He held out a small stone jug.

  ‘And to have a guest with us for supper is a very special occasion indeed,’ said another.

  There was such pride in their voices that I felt the twist of pity all over again, not in the heart this time, but in the gut. Pity is an emotion that ought to stay in the region of the heart; it oughtn’t to gouge unromantically into your bowels like a twisting white-hot knife.

  The wine was absolutely terrible. I sipped it and then downed it in one go, hoping they would take this for eagerness rather than the wish not to let the taste linger on my palate any longer than necessary. When I had stopped being cross-eyed, one of them was saying something about the palace being a gateway to the real Tashkara.

  ‘The Forbidden City?’ I said.

  ‘Yes. We are permitted to live on the boundaries, because we form a natural barrier.’

  ‘We are therefore treated generously,’ said Fenris expressionlessly.

  ‘By who?’

  The lepers glanced uneasily at one another, and then the one who had proffered the wine said, in a whisper, ‘By Touaris.’

  I set down my dish. ‘Who,’ I said, ‘is Touaris?’

  ‘A what?’ said Theodore, sitting up crossly and glaring at me across the dim stone room. ‘You are proposing to search for the temple of what?’