Chase the Morning полностью

The biscuit wasn’t that sustaining, but as we filed cautiously over the summit Jyp plucked dark fruits from a tree we passed and handed me one. I saw others doing the same, dug my thumbnail in and sniffed cautiously, and got something of a shock. It was a little avocado, far more fragrant than those leathery banes of business lunches back home. The pulp was so juicy and green I hardly missed the vinaigrette. Further on there was an orange tree, and though the fruits were sour they were good to suck for thirst. An hour or so later the moon, mad and burning, set beyond the castle. The air grew cooler, and in the warm damp dark beneath the fading stars the jungle began to stretch and stir expectantly. Chirrups and titters rose among the undergrowth, and an eared dove began cooing in a weird little minor tone, awakening relations and neighbours along the way. By the time an orange sunrise touched the paling sky the air rang with a real dawn chorus, every call imaginable from the chipping of wren and kiskadee to the manic whoops and cackles of things Jyp called Corny-birds – I found out later the name was corneille. As we came downhill the trees changed; we passed through a long grove of calabash trees, and down towards the river whole thickets of mangoes, their fruit dangling disturbingly from long green cords.

‘Uh-huh,’ said Jyp. ‘Thought so. Been cultivated, way back – plantation for the castle up there. Pity they’re not ripe yet.’ He shook his head. ‘Though maybe they’d stick in my gullet. Any plantations here they watered with blood.’

Small parrots or parakeets popped up among the branches like live flowers, or swung upside-down to peer at us, screeching mockingly. Then they took fright at something and flew up with a rush and a flutter, and the rising sun struck flame from their plumage as they wheeled. The air swiftly grew very warm, and the cool rush of the stream drew us like a magnet; we stumbled towards it, hardly noticing the soggy half-marsh that plucked at our boots. Until, that is, the legions of flies descended in a discordantly droning cloud, and sent us bolting and slipping through the stony-bedded stream, beating ineffectually, and up onto the far slopes, steeper and drier, where they didn’t follow. We flung ourselves down to rest, a miserable, muddy and bitten crew; only Mall, who’d brought up the rear, seemed completely untouched.

‘Knew we should’ve brought Stryge!’ I sighed. ‘One whiff of him and they’d have forgotten the rest of us!’

One of the foretopmen grunted. ‘Aye, an’ dropped darn dead t’moment they bit ’un!’

‘Or his little friends –’

‘Like hell!’ said Jyp with soft savagery. ‘Don’t even wish it!’

I was nettled. ‘Okay, okay! They give me the creeps, too – but they saved some necks in the boarding, didn’t they? Mine included. So what’s the matter with them.’

‘You don’t want to know,’ he said bluntly.

‘Hey, come on – I’ve seen a few things too now, remember? The girl – I can’t imagine; but Fynn’s – I don’t know, some kind of werewolf, isn’t he?’

‘No,’ said Mall softly. ‘He is a dog. A yellow cur of the gutters, vicious and strong, deformed by warlockery into the shape of men. Held so by the power of Stryge’s will – as habitation for another mind.’

Even in the sun I shivered. ‘Whose mind?’

‘One dead – or one who has never lived. Either way, a force from outside. From the further regions of the Rim. A spirit.’

‘And the girl? Some animal, too?’

‘No. Peg Powler is an old country name, from my day, for the spirit of a river.’

‘A river?’

Jyp growled. ‘A devouring, drowning spirit. That the old fiend trapped somehow, in the body of one of its victims – a suicide, maybe, or just plain accident. Hope so. But from what little I know, he’d have had to be real close by at the exact moment she died. And well prepared.’

‘Oh Christ,’ I said, wishing I’d never asked. ‘That slime she spouts …’

‘A polluted river,’ spat Jyp, with an irritated glance at Mall. ‘Like the one runs down to those docks of yours, maybe. C’mon, let’s move!’