“You told me there’d be giants, O’Brien?”
“And there will be. There will, I swear. But they’re rare, Cawley.”
“Can you see any reason why I should keep this one?”
The priest observed me. “He’d make poor dog meat.”
“Why?” said Cawley.
“He’s covered in scars. He must be quite the ugliest demon I have set eyes on.”
“Let me see,” Cawley said, raising his wide rear from the doubtless grateful boulder and approaching me, the stomach first, the man some distance behind.
“Shamit,” Cawley said to the yellow-hair. “Take Throat’s leash.”
“She bit me last time.”
“Take the leash, fool!” Cawley bellowed. “You know how I hate to ask for anything twice.”
“Yes, Cawley. I’m sorry, Cawley.” The yellow-haired Shamit took Throat’s leash, plainly afraid he was going to be bitten a second time. But the dog had other dinner plans: me. Not for a moment did it take its huge black eyes off me, drool running in streaming rivulets from its mouth. There was something about its gaze, perhaps the flames flickering in its eyes, that made me think this was a dog that had a touch of the hell-hound in its blood.
“What you staring at my dog for, demon?” Cawley said. Apparently it displeased him that I did so, because he drew an iron bar from his belt and struck me with it two or three times. The blows hurt, and for the first time in many years I forgot the power of speech and screeched at him like an enraged ape.
My noise incited the dog, who began to bark, his huge frame shaking with every sound it made.
“Stop that noise, demon!” Cawley yelled. “And you too, Throat!”
Immediately the dog fell silent. I scaled down my screeches to little moans.
“What shall we do with it?” Shamit said. He had taken out a little wooden comb and was running it through his golden locks over and over, as though he barely knew that he was doing it. “He’s no good for skinning. Not with so many scars.”
“They’re burns,” said the priest.
“Is that your Irish humor again, O’Brien?”
“It’s no joke.”
“Oh Lord, O’Brien, put away your wine and think about the foolishness of what you’re saying. This is a demon. We’ve snatched it out of Hell’s eternal fires. How could a thing that lives in such a place be burned?”
“I don’t know. I’m just saying …”
“Yes …”
O’Brien’s eyes went from Cawley’s face to the iron bar and back to Cawley again. It seemed I was not the only one who’d endured some hurt from the thing.
“Nothing, Cawley, nothing at all. Just the wine talking. You’re probably right. I should put it aside a while.” Having spoken, he did precisely the opposite, upending the flagon as he turned his back on Cawley and stumbled away.
“I am surrounded by drunkards, idiots, and——”
His eyes came to rest on Shamit, who was still combing and combing, staring wide eyed at nothing, as though the ritual had lulled him into a trancelike state. “And whatever this is.”
“I’m sorry,” Shamit said, snapping out of his delirium. “Were you asking me something?”
“Nothing you could have answered,” Cawley replied. And then, after giving me an unsavory glance he said, “All right, haul him up and get him out of the net. But be careful, you know what happens when you rush things and you give the demons room to cause trouble, don’t you?”
There was silence, but for the creaking of the rope that was now hauling me up again.
“Mister C. just asked you a question, you witless thugs,” Cawley yelled.
This time there were grunts and muffled responses from all sides. It wasn’t enough to satisfy Cawley.
“Well, what did I say?”
All five men mumbled their own half-remembered versions of Cawley’s inquiry.
“And what’s the answer?”
“You lose things,” Father O’Brien replied. He raised his arms as he spoke, to offer proof of the matter. His right hand had been neatly bitten off, it appeared to be many years before, leaving only the cushion of his thumb and the thumb itself, which he used to hook the handle of the flagon. His left hand was missing entirely, as was his wrist and two-thirds of his forearm. Six or seven inches of bone had been left jutting from the stump at his elbow. It was yellow and brown, except for the end of it, which was white where it had been recently sharpened.
“That’s right,” said Cawley. “You lose things——hands, eyes, lips. Whole heads sometimes.”
“Heads?” said the priest. “I never saw anybody lose——”
“In France. That wolf-demon we brought up out of a hole very much like this one, except there was water——”
“Oh yes, that sprang out of the rock. I remember now. How could I forget that monstrous thing? The size of its jaws. They just opened up and took the head off that student who was with it then. What was his name?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“But I was on the road with him for a year or more and now can’t remember his name.”
“Don’t start getting sentimental.”
“Ivan!” O’Brien said. “His name was Ivan!”
“Enough, priest. We’ve work to do.”
“With that?” Shamit said, looking at me down the narrow length of his pimply nose. I met him stare for stare, trying to bring a few contemptuous remarks to my lips, to be uttered in my best condescending tone. But for some reason my throat wouldn’t shape the words in my head. All that emerged was an embarrassing stew of snarls and jabbering.
Meanwhile, Cawley inquired, “When does the burning of the Archbishop and his sodomitic animals begin?”
“Tomorrow,” said O’Brien.
“Then we’ll have to work fast if we’re to make some money from this sorry excuse for a monster. O’Brien, fetch the shackles for the demon. The heavier ones, with the pins on the inside.”
“You want them for his hands and his feet?”
“Of course. And Shamit, stop flirting with it.”
“I’m not flirtin’.”
“Well, whatever you’re doing, stop it and go into the back of the wagon and bring out the old hood.”
Shamit went off without further word, leaving me to try and persuade my tongue and throat to make a sound that was more articulate, more civilized, than the noises that had escaped me thus far. I thought if they heard me speak, then I could perhaps persuade them into a conversation with me, and Cawley would see I was no eater of limb or heads, but a peaceful creature. There’d be no need for the shackles and hood once he understood that. But I was still defeated. The words were in my head clearly enough, but my mouth simply refused to speak them. It was as though some instinctive response to the sight and smell of the World Above had made me mute.
“You can spit and growl at me all you like,” Cawley