‘I gathered the adherents in front of the skull and brought them into a trance state. The dragon’s mind and my own were in perfect unity, interpenetrating. His thoughts were mine, and mine his. What was about to happen might be seen as horrific, an event to rival Jonestown, as you had said, but all I saw was the perfection of Griaule’s design and I felt exalted to be part of it. The air grew warm, uncomfortably warm. Several people fainted – I remember fretting about them, but my main worry was whether they needed to be conscious for the miracle to take place. And then my clarity went away, my mind clouded over. When I regained my senses I discovered that I was wandering in the jungle, far from the skull. It was still hot and seconds later a burst of heat boiled through the trees, like the heat from an explosion, knocking me off my feet. I made my way to the clearing as rapidly as I could manage. The shelters had been flattened and the adherents were gone. The skull, too, was gone, yet the trees and the bushes were virtually undamaged, and there was no sign of scorching or charring. I was distraught. The deaths of hundreds of people, no matter I had anticipated this outcome . . . how could I feel otherwise? But my feelings may have been due less to grief than to the fact that I had not witnessed the miracle. All those years laboring to create it, and I had missed it! Where was the result? Had nothing happened apart from a mass disappearance? I looked around the clearing, hoping to find some evidence as to what had taken place. I think I was on the verge of losing my mind. I stumbled about, going first one direction and then another, beating aside the brush, becoming frantic, until at last I spotted Jefe. He lay curled up on a patch of emerald moss, close to where the jawbone had rested. A beautiful little man, naked and perfect. I had believed the dragon would be reborn in his original form, but I knew him at once. The sight was so serene and lovely, it was like a balm to me. It had the quality of myth. His milky skin against the oval of vivid moss, his fists clenched like a newborn infant’s. I went to him and cradled him in my arms. He woke to my touch and gazed about in confusion, unable to speak, clinging to me. Once he was able to stand I helped him out to the road. Shortly thereafter the PVO showed up and brought us to Tres Santos.’
Yara drew a deep breath and released it slowly.
‘In the years since,’ she continued, ‘he’s made unbelievable progress. He’s learned to speak and perform as a human. It wasn’t learning, really, I don’t think. I’d teach him one thing and within a day or two he’d display a complete spectrum of behaviors. As if we’d given him a key and he unlocked a door behind which a store of knowledge was hidden. Yet his instincts are different from ours and he doesn’t understand us very well. He assists the PVO with their schemes – he has an amazing grasp of politics and is a brilliant tactician. He has no memory of his life prior to his rebirth, yet he does recall the plan for political dominance he developed and he knows something is not as it should be. He talks about a recurring dream, a vision in which he stands in an arena before thousands of people and says that when that dream becomes reality he will undergo a change – from what I gather he’s referring to a second alchemical act, a more radical transformation, one that will enable him to regain his original form and fly as once he did, without the need for mechanical aids.’ She laughed merrily, a laugh that seemed misplaced to Snow. ‘He’d spend all his time flying if I let him. Neither the PVO nor I have been in a hurry to illuminate him about his past. Rushing the process would damage him, I believe, and their concern is fueled by a desire to keep him ignorant and under their control. They think that once he’s done his duty for them, they’ll get rid of him. They haven’t accepted the fact that their control is limited . . . if it exists at all.’
Yara winced as she adjusted her posture. ‘That’s the story in brief. It sounds mad, I know, but . . .’ She shrugged.
It did sound mad, classically delusional, and Snow would have liked to pass it off as madness, but sufficient evidence existed to suggest that it was not and he believed to a certainty that he was in imminent danger. He had only half-listened to much of her account, consumed by worries about his future, but one sentence in particular had attracted his notice: ‘He’d spend all his time flying if I let him.’ From this he deduced that Yara was capable of influencing Jefe.
‘So your position here is . . . what?’ he asked. ‘Surrogate mother?’
‘In the beginning, yes, that would have been an accurate description of my function. But as he’s matured I’ve become more of a nurse, a servant. He turns to me for advice now and then, and he trusts me. I doubt that’ll change.’
