the drums, with the pipes that now played a distinct and menacing melody. How could he have been so foolish as to come? And the cave lived and breathed just over his shoulder.
Help me. Where were those who obeyed his every command? He had been a fool to separate himself from them and climb to this terrible place alone. His pain was so sharp that he made a soft sound, like a child crying.
Down he went. He didn’t care if he stumbled, or if his coat was torn, or if his hair was here and there caught. He ripped it loose and went on, the rocks beneath his feet hurting him but not stopping him.
The drums were louder. He must pass close by. He must hear these pipes and their nasal pulsing song, both ugly and irresistible. No, don’t listen. Stop your ears. On down he climbed, and even though he had clamped his hands to his head, he could hear the pipes, and the grim old cadence, slow and monotonous and pounding suddenly as if it came from inside his brain, as if it were emanating from his very bones, as if he were in the midst of it.
He broke into a run, falling once and ripping the fine cloth of his pants, and pitching forward another time to hurt his hands on the rocks and the torn bushes. But on he went, until quite suddenly the drums surrounded him. The pipes surrounded him. The piercing song ensnared him as if in loops of rope, and he turned round and round, unable to escape, and opening his eyes, saw through the thick forest the light of torches.
They did not know he was there. They had not caught his scent or heard him. Perhaps the wind had been on his side, and was with him now. He held to the trunks of two small pines as if they were the bars of a prison, and he looked down into the dark little space in which they played, dancing in their small and ludicrous circle. How clumsy they were. How horrid to him.
The drums and the pipes were a hideous din. He couldn’t move. He could only watch as they jumped and pivoted and rocked back and forth, and one small creature, with long, shaggy gray hair, moved into the circle and threw up his small, misshapen arms, calling out above the howl of the music in the ancient tongue:
“O gods, have mercy. Have mercy upon your lost children.”
Look, see, he told himself, though the music would not let him articulate these syllables even inside his imagination. Look, see, do not be lost in the song. See what rags they wear now, see the gunbelts over their shoulders. See the pistols in their hands, and now, now they draw their guns to shoot, and tiny flames burst from the barrels! The night cracks with guns! The torches nearly die in the wind, then bloom again like ghastly flowers.
He could smell burning flesh, but this was not real; it was only memory. He could hear screams.
“Curse you, Ashlar!”
And hymns, oh yes, hymns, and anthems in the new tongue, the Romans’ tongue, and that stench, that stench of flesh consumed!
A loud sharp cry ripped through the din; the music came to a halt. Only one drum sounded perhaps two more dull notes.
He realized it had been his cry, and that they had heard him. Run, but why run? For what? Where? You don’t need to run any longer. You are not of this place anymore! No one can make you be of it.
He watched in cold silence, his heart racing, as the little circle of men grew together, torches blazing very close to one another, and the small mob moved slowly towards him.
“Taltos!” They had caught his scent! The group scattered with wild cries, and then drew close to make one small body again.
“Taltos!” cried a rough voice. The torches moved closer and closer.
Now he could see their faces distinctly as they ranged about him, peering up, holding the torches high, the flames making ugly shadows on their eyes and their cheeks and their little mouths. And the smell, the smell of the burning flesh, it came from their torches!
“God, what have you done!” he hissed, making his two hands into fists. “Have you dipped them in the fat of an unbaptized child?”
There came a shriek of wild laughter, and then another, and finally a whole crackling wall of noise going up around