Aleksey's Kingdom

by John Wiltshire

  WE COULD not even light a fire. Everything was wet from the breath of the falls, and we had nothing to light one with. Although I occasionally impressed Aleksey with some of my native skills and sparked fire from nothing more than sticks, I could not this night. It was bitterly cold. I was without boots.

  We were in a bad way.

  We discussed various ideas for escape for some time until we became too frustrated to continue. Gradually and cautiously we then began to talk about the mysteries that seemed to surround us. Listening to the other three casting their theories and speculating, I finally told them the idea that had been forming in my mind since Aleksey and I had stood upon the beach and seen the colonists’ rope cut. It seemed to me that we had been deliberately lured to this place. That far from us mounting a rescue mission, we had been brought here. It was no longer a spooky coincidence to me that the very things we found at the fort—strange messages in blood upon the walls, missing people, no disturbance—were exactly what had been predicted in the rumors and gossip in the colony. In other words, the suggestions had been planted deliberately, and I did not need to tell my companions who I thought had done this. Mary Wright had not come to the New World upon the ship from Southampton as she claimed. She had latched on to the reverend and his family when she had discovered they were to come to the outpost. This all seemed clear, but I could not put the final pieces of this dreadful picture together.

  Things became both plainer and more mystifying the next morning when a dreadful shrieking woke us, much as we had heard from the other side coming from this island. We were some feet back in the trees, not far from the shore where we had crossed. We rose as one and went to the beach.

  The dawn made the far bank visible, but I wished it had not.

  The devil stood upon the banks of the river, and he had his arms stretched wide as if summoning the morning light. On his right hand was Mary Wright and on his left the child. At his feet were the two trappers, and they had Reverend Wright between them and were tying him upon a hurdle. He was the one who had woken us with his cries of terror, and to be fair to the old man, I do not think it was the dreadful torment he was about to suffer that was making him scream so. I think it was that the devil wore the face of his oldest son.

  They pushed the old man into the river, and the current snatched him away as if it was starving and he was needed to feed its great maw. He howled all the way to the terrible edge.

  The demon raised his arms, his stolen face tipped back to the rising sun as if waiting for revelation. They stood there for some minutes until he shouted something we could not hear over the roar of the falls, and then he turned and walked back toward the cabins.

  The child stayed on the beach, staring at our small group, and then he lifted a hand and pointed.

  I felt a chill wash down my spine. The implication was clear enough to us all.

  Thus some things were answered for me, but some things confused me more. How had the devil spirited the woman and child and the poor old man back to the other shore, when we had seen with our own eyes that there were no other crossing points and ours had been destroyed? That was a new mystery. But I did understand the tableau I had just witnessed, and so I told the others.

  I believed the people in the colony had been sacrificed to the falls, for the devil was sick and was trying to heal himself through their oblation.

  I did myself no favors offering this explanation, but as they could not come up with a better one, it was what we had.

  I was proved right, but I wish I had not.

  They came for us that night.

  WE SPENT a terrible, miserable day, walking around the island, hungry and cold and desperate that we could not escape. The trap we had been led into was so complete that we did not even need to be restrained. I did not, could not, believe the woman and her bastard had flown off the island, so there must be a crossing point that we could not see. But search as we might, we could not discover it.

  By the time the light fell, we had exhausted ourselves and moved into a huddle in a small clearing on the far side of the island on the north shore, away from where we had seen the devil and his rites that morning. It gave the smallest appearance of safety.

  It was only an illusion.

  Two shots rang out, their sharp crack in the night air startling even against the thunder from the falls. We scattered, falling to the sides of our huddle. I realized I was not hit as I tumbled with Aleksey toward the shore. I lost sight of our two companions in the darkness. Military men all of us, in our own ways, we were silent and still once the dive for cover was over.

  Aleksey was immobile, mainly because I was lying upon him. I had little experience of musket balls, but I did not think they could travel through one man and hurt a second.

  “Whore’s cunt. I cannot see. Are you reloaded?” The voice was far closer to our hiding place than I had guessed, or we would not have heard this hissed whisper over the constant roar of water. Apparently our trappers’ aim had not improved. “Did you hit the blond whoreson savage this time?”

  I felt Aleksey shift beneath me, and I laid a hand over his mouth—gently, though, for I knew he did not really need my caution to stay motionless and silent.

  “Do I have eyes that see in the dark? He has the devil’s luck.”

  “Or you have the aim of a drunk pissing. Mayhap you have again bagged a wolf in his place.”

  I did not know whether I was relieved or furious that Faelan had not been the target of their attack on us on the journey. It was hard to know, however, that such a comrade had fallen in my place.

  At that, I put my mouth to Aleksey’s ear and spoke no louder than a heartbeat, for although the falls were ferociously loud, I had discovered a new respect for musketry. “They did not fly here.”

  Aleksey nodded beneath my hand. He understood my meaning.

  We now had a real chance, for even if I believed the witch and her unholy offspring had flown off this island, I did not believe these two men had flown onto it. They had crossed, and I was now determined to find out how.

  Still cursing their luck at missing me, they split up to search for us, which was a very stupid thing for them to do.

  Without needing further communication between us, Aleksey took one and I the other.

  I chose to follow the one who had laughed about shooting Faelan—we needed them alive, and I did not entirely trust Aleksey to remember this if he had the man’s life in his hands.

  I stalked my prey silently and took him down without him making a single cry of warning to his companion.

  Despite his bluster and courage when behind his gun, he was not a man as I was: raised in a savage world by savage people. He fought only with his head and his body, throwing this latter, large and powerful, into the mix with abandon: teeth, nails, feet, forehead. Head and body are not enough, however. I had learnt to fight with my soul, my whole being engaged in my desire to destroy an enemy; so, cold and starved even as I was, no boots and sick, he was no match for me.

  We stumbled through the trees, one chasing, one running, then wrestling viciously until escaping once more. And then he came to the river, and there was nowhere more for him to run. He picked up a rock, and, trust me, if you have never witnessed someone being stoned to death, then you may underestimate the threat from a fist-sized river pebble. If it hit my head, he would kill me. But he had not the aim or speed to inflict such a mortal wound, and it only glanced off my shoulder, and then I was on him once more.

  But then something unexpected happened that shows how deeply I was concentrating on him and the threat he posed. I had overlooked the river. It tasted him, and then it wanted him.

  One leg shifted the sand beneath him, and a hole formed. The current swung away from its course and filled it, and from that one nip, it wanted more. He was swept into the force of its greed, but I lunged and held his arm. I needed him to show me how he had come to the island—I was desperate to save him, and he to have himself saved, of course, but I felt t
he traitorous grit shift beneath my feet too. I was sitting then, trying to brace myself upon the shore. He was dragging me in. I let go with one hand and seized a root projecting from the bank behind me. His face registered the horror of our situation. Was I strong enough to pull him against the river with one arm? I might have been, but in his terror, he clawed his way up my arm—my burnt arm, and the pain made me cry out and open my hand. He was gone before I could blink, and I was holding only air. I felt the root start to give behind me. I was only in a few inches of water. It was incredible how powerful it was. Very cautiously, I twisted, grabbed another handhold, and heaved myself up onto the gnarled roots. I did not ever want to be this close to the river again.

  CAPTAIN ROCHESTER and Aleksey had captured the second man.

  The officer had become separated from Major Parkinson and did not know where he now was. I made an attempt to find the old man. I wondered if he had perhaps fallen and was lying injured unable to call out; he had not looked well for some time. I could not find him. It was too dark to continue my search. I only again found Aleksey by dint of locating the shore and following it around toward the north.

  Their prisoner was bound tight. He looked… wary, but not as frightened as he ought.

  We conferred in low voices. I told them that I believed we were alone and that, therefore, it did not matter what we did to this man. Aleksey did not like what he knew I was proposing, but he did not have to do it—I did. We desperately needed to know how he had got upon the island.

  I balanced my knife in my hand and considered this trapper—although by now I was fairly sure he was no trapper at all. This seemed like a good place to start. I asked him who he was. I dodged the spit. All men spit upon their torturer at the beginning of this adventure. I had spat upon mine. I did not think the less of this man for it.

  I asked again, and this time I encouraged a civil reply by slicing off his ear.

  Aleksey stood and went to look at the water. I did not want him to see me like this any more than he wanted to watch, but then, before I knew the outcome of my action, Aleksey returned and squatted down next to me, his hand upon my thigh. I felt the strength of his approbation, and we were as one once more.

  I told the man that if he did not tell us what we wanted to know, then the devil’s disfigurements would be as nothing to his.

  He told us.

  He related how on a Sabbath they had left the colony for the short walk to the falls to admire them: the families and a few of the soldiers. They had gone to the promontory upon which I had fallen clutching the grass for comfort. But they went there often and were familiar with the place.

  And then the devil had come to them. He had risen from the falls, exhaled on a breath from hell, and he had told them that he was come amongst them. “He wanted tribute—tribute of the most beautiful and the best—and we gave him—” He put his face into his bound hands and wept. “We gave him the girl who had come amongst us lately. She had been a captive of the Uron and had… she had a child with her that had been born from her terrible treatment at their hands. It was a foul thing… even so young…. We had found it with one of the colony’s cats and her new kittens….” He paused, deep in his memories. “So we gave Mary to him. She was fair of countenance, and we hoped he would not see into her heart before it was too late. He took her. He took them both into the falls with him, and we believed we had appeased the devil. Many of us then wanted to leave this place—abandon the colony. We could not stay here, and so we made preparation. But a foulness had come with the girl that had crept into the hearts of some of my brothers and sisters. They began to….” He paused, his face twisted not just from the pain of his missing ear but apparently from memories that were too awful to bear. “They performed unnatural acts… became wanton. Sin slithered between the cracks of our Church, and we were confounded. They would not leave this place, but we had not the heart to abandon them to their lusts.

  “And on the third day, the devil rose again. She had also risen and the child with her—he rode upon the devil’s back. They were on the island. And she was pleading with us to save her. She told us we would be absolved of all our sins—as she had forgiven us. We did not know what to do, but those who had followed her ways were restored at the sight of her and fell writhing and ranting upon the ground, speaking such blasphemies as will not bear the retelling here in the darkness.”

  I have rarely seen Aleksey’s eyes so wide, his face so concentrated on a tale. I held my counsel.

  It is always easy to recall as if merely a witness. I doubted not that this man’s knees were amongst those upon the sands.

  “The soldiers, seeing the divisions she was creating in our number, said they would cross to the island for her, and some of us said we would accompany them—to help.” He retreated once more into his dark thoughts. I wondered how he defined the term help.

  “So we slung ropes across and went.” His breath hitched. “She was gone. The island was deserted, and when we came to return, we could not, for the ropes had been cut. We had left them all on the other side—our wives and children… our babies. He—” The poor man began to rock in his distress, and for my part, I regretted cutting off his ear, even though he had tricked us to this place and shot at us. These things are complex. “He gave them all to the falls. Every morning as the sun crested the trees and hit the shore, he tied another to a log and sent them into the river. Our babies, our wives. And what did we do? We watched and tore at ourselves and could do nothing. Even those hellions in the witch’s thrall who helped and cursed the innocent were eventually sacrificed in their turn. The devil spared not even his acolytes. And then they were no more, and it was many days that we had been on the island, and there was no food. God help us, there was no food, and we became….”

  I let him rest for a moment, although our situation was desperate enough and we needed him to talk.

  “We fell upon each other, the strong upon the weak, son upon his father, and we took the nourishment we needed.”

  I licked my lips, perhaps unconsciously, and glanced at Aleksey. I could see in his face the same horror that was upon the man’s. Joking about such things when you are happy and riding in sunshine on an adventure is one thing—seeing the reality of it is quite another. He did not like his cannibal stories so much now. “After some days, he returned to us. He rose from hell and said he had come to prepare a place for us, and if we chose his path he would save us. We fell at his feet and worshipped him, and he fed us. But he said he needed to ascend, that he needed more sacrifice and wanted always only the fairest and the best….”

  Was it at that point that I saw the rest of the mystery unfolding before me? Perhaps it was so awful that I repressed the thought, only watching his lips as he spoke the words, disbelieving them even as I knew them for the truth.

  “One of us had been recently in the big colony on the seaboard, and he had seen one there….”

  I could see where he was trying not to look, but he could not prevent his eyes flicking for the briefest moment to Aleksey’s face.

  “One so fair of face that he was as an angel. But it was more than this. He had heard the angel say that he was a prince—of the most pure of all blood. And even beyond all this, he was virgin, for he lived with an old man who was as a father to him, and that he did not know a woman.”

  Aleksey sank back to sit upon the cold sand, wrapping his arms around his head as if he could ward himself from hearing this. It was not the stupidity of his words that had come back to haunt him, but that he saw for the first time the way things had stood, and that it had all happened because of him: all the death and all the misery.

  This is not how I saw it, you understand, but how I knew he would be seeing it. We understood each other very well. Sometimes this was a curse.

  “The devil said that if we brought this one to him, this angel of the pure blood, then we would be saved and released—that our tribute would not be needed. So he sent us to find this pure one and bring him to thi
s place. We traveled to the colony, and the woman found a family, and we made ourselves known, and we told of some of what had happened here, and we did not need to do more, for the horror of it spread and was enjoyed, as if our babies who had been placed… were sport for tales around the fire.

  “We wanted to bring only him and the family so we could travel without suspicion, but he had friends amongst the officers, and soon it was as a small army, and we were perplexed. And then the very worst thing.” I knew what was coming. He flicked his eyes to me but lowered them quickly. “You were not as he had described, and we feared all our plans would fail.” This was rather a feature of our relationship, I decided, but was in no mood to smile about it now. I pulled the man to his feet.

  “Show me.” He knew what I meant. He was shivering badly and stumbling, his head pouring blood where my knife had sliced. He staggered as we walked, but he had boots, so I spared him no sympathy. He led us to the center of the island and then farther toward the edge of the cliff. I feared he was planning to throw himself off, so held tight to his ragged shirt. We had almost reached the edge when he stopped and appeared about to speak. But then there was a sound. We turned.

  We saw the devil.

  He was there, suddenly, the earth spewing him out. He raised his hand and pointed at the poor, bleeding man. The man screamed, and I think my horror at seeing the devil so close, so unnaturally appeared, overwhelmed me, and I let his shirt slip from my fingers.

  He took himself over the edge of the cliff, and it felt, as we saw this, as if the devil’s pointing had taken him there.

  When we turned back from seeking for the poor man, the devil had gone.

  I was not sure by that time whether he had actually been there. How could he have been? Perhaps in our extremes, we had all conjured him in our minds.