The Clay Dreaming (60 page)

Bellowing out his triumph, he mimes victory – cooks the head of his vanquished enemy, scoops out the eyes and, lip-smacking, eats them, cheek-flesh too. Presenting a madcap dance,
Moo-by
pretends to trample the skull around, working himself into such a pitch that he picks it up and, hips thrusting, fucks its gaping sockets.

Exultant at the climax, he offers up his bare breast for the striking. A step forward and he bows his head, offering up a free hit. The death blow is invited, a mercy killing – invited, and refused. When no club falls,
Moo-by
snarls.

‘
Ma pitja! Ma pitja! Miriwa!
’

With a flick of the wrist he turns his back, derisively slapping at his buttocks.

‘Then begone!’

More than one fellow, overconfident, has turned to mock a foe he thought at safe distance, only for lightning and thunder to bring him down.

Body of destruction, a misshape rushes forward, clawed hands before its face. Not Deadman’s Spirit but an
In-gna
, three white hairs on the tip of its tail. Uttering a terrible cry, it seizes
Moo-by
by the throat. Fighting bravely, he chokes it back. Baggy flesh there, like that of a
goanna
– grey. Attempting to take in its power,
Moo-by
hugs it close. He is too weak. Raking claws open him up. A deep cut, breast to loins, and his bowels are exposed. Flesh ripping, his kidney is removed,
weeka
, his liver, torn to pieces and gobbled up – sweet meats. Fiendish appetite feeds the True demon’s red smile.

Fallen, Brippoki lies helpless. Looking down, he sees life’s blood pool in the hollow of his ribcage, where his innards used to be. The raw head of the
In-gna
dips, and it drinks.

As one dead, he feels no pain. He cannot move – doomed to watch his destroyer adorn its self before his own eyes.

Wearing his intestines for a necklace, the
In-gna
regards him dispassionately, before resuming its gruesome operations. His body is tugged open wider, and the fiend takes the fat from about his kidneys, rubbing itself liberally all over, pleasuring in its victory. Musculature glistens moist as an eel. Flipped over onto his back, Brippoki feels his skin being stripped. A chill on his ribs, and then limbs are wrenched behind and broken. Sharp teeth nip through his tendons.

Another few seconds and he will be on the fire. In a last-ditch effort he reaches for his
waddy
with his one good arm, takes it up and, raining down blows, beats the bloody demon into a shapeless mass.

Doom.

               Doom.

                             Doom.

Through the depths of the earth itself, Brippoki feels the pulse-beat of the world. Agony – it hurts too much to move, to even try and open his eyes. Events are too far gone. He has failed. Might as well stay.

No, he must open his eyes. He must move.

Brippoki opens his eyes.

The dead wood whirls in the rising winds. Insides afire, his head has been struck off, lodged between hot stones, and set to bake in the hollow of a tree.

Some hours after nightfall, Brippoki has lain himself down with the dead man under his bark sheet, and, log for a pillow, face towards the blank sky, prepared himself to Dream the sleep of death.
Curadjie
men say that anyone who dares spend a night like this will thereafter be free from the influence of evil spirits – if they survive it. They only know this through having survived it themselves.

A night successfully spent on a grave binds and lays that spirit to rest, for good or ill.

His magic was weak, as he is weak – his desire to harm not as strong as that of his rival.
Moo-by’
s race run and lost, Brippoki’s body lies unmoving on the ground. A cold rock hardens in his belly, his straggly beard clogged with dribbles of the drying clay he ritually ingested hours earlier – a lifetime ago. Head back on the log, he looks skyward. The cloud-cover only now begins to separate, scudding swift overhead.

He struck too early. There are still some hours to go before dawn.

Had he been successful, Deadman’s
Ludko
would have returned to
Pindi
, never to die or be born again. He has the feeling he has not entirely failed. Time will tell.

Brippoki sits up and examines his side. Far more frightening than having seen himself eviscerated, he has received a mortal wound, guts replaced and the wound sewn up with thread invisible to the eye.

A death Dreamed is a death in Truth. Death does not scare Brippoki so much as he is terrified of having been cursed.

The iron tongue of midnight echoed down the hall.

Lambert grabbed Sarah by the wrist.

Sarah yet stayed her hand. She would not give him succour, or comfort.
The women of my people have ye cast out from their pleasant houses; from their children have ye taken away my glory for ever
.

With a frenzied look Lambert turned his eyes to heaven, and then away.

Furious at himself for his inability to embrace death, he alternately raged and then lay mewling at its prospect. His high and holy words, that had been comfort to so many, were but a goad to himself. His convictions drained him of all courage.

To have lived a lie, and to die in doubt – where was God the Father in this, his own hour of need? Where was his Faith?

Sarah wrested her arm from his. She wished him dead.

Lambert knew the choices he faced: oblivion after having been burnt to ashes; or burning forever without end. Moreover, the choice was not his.

What should he dread but enfolding darkness, terror by night, the pestilence that walketh in darkness – unless it be the light; the arrow that flieth by day, the destruction that wasteth at noonday. He had made an enemy of God himself, to all Eternity.

Sarah’s back stiffened, her limbs chill even though fire crackled in the grate. She saw how fixedly Lambert stared ahead, and knew fear herself. If he died in this dreadful state – and it surely was dreadful – the blood would be on his head as it was on his hands; and his sufferings, everlasting.

Sarah crossed her chest – an ineffectual gesture.

‘“If our heart condemn us,”’ she said, ‘“God is greater than our heart, and knoweth all things.”’

She couldn’t be sure whether she made the effort in order to soothe, or with more pitiless intent – to slight him further, a man who held so tightly on to what he called his rights, over what he called his debts.

‘What was it all for?’ Lambert asked, weakly. ‘What is any of it for?’

God, or Death, was implacable, indiscriminate – good or evil it came to all, and nothing. In the greater scheme of things the human concept of time, the span of any one life and its achievements, was meaningless – time was on Nature’s side, a grand plan superseding all others; or else none. Given the circumstances, the idea of illimitable chaos no longer seemed so very terrible.

‘Was it for nothing?’ he asked.

‘It is God’s plan,’ she said.

‘…Of course.’

His soul, though it wandered, still aspired to heaven…where the wicked ceased from troubling, and the weary were at rest.

‘“The Lord is my shepherd,”’ he rasped. ‘“I shall not want.”’

Lambert’s voice threatened to falter, unheard – until Sarah’s joined with his.

‘“He maketh me to lie down in green pastures, he leadeth me beside the still waters.”’

They spoke together, two souls in Abraham’s bosom.

‘“He restoreth my soul, he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness, for his name’s sake…”’

The heart of the father must turn to the child, and the heart of the child to the father, lest the earth be smitten with a curse – and for the Final Restitution of All Things.

‘Remember,’ said Sarah, ‘what Jesus said to Martha. “Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die. Believest thou this?”’

Lambert wept silently.

‘
Believest thou this
?’ Sarah asked. Loyal beyond reason, she admonished him. ‘“Be strong in the Lord,”’ she said, ‘“and in the power of his might.”’

For here we have no continuing city, but we seek one to come
.

She leant further forward so he might see her better, her elbows resting on his coverlet.

‘“Open ye the gates,”’ she said, steadfast and strong. ‘“Let favour be shown to the wicked”,’ she asked. ‘“Therefore…”’ Sarah turned to address Lambert directly ‘“…prepare to meet thy God.”’

She took his palms and pressed them together, herself not so composed.

The kingdom of God – Lambert marvelled. ‘Lord, Lord,’ he said.

‘“Lord,”’ said Sarah, ‘“now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, according to thy word.”’

Lambert wept and gnashed his yellowed teeth. He overflowed with remorse. ‘I have used the head of an angel,’ he lamented, ‘for a writing desk.’

Sarah did not hear. Pious verses from childhood and
The Parent’s Poetical Present
replayed in her mind.

‘“Be then the Lamb of Atonement,”’ she directed. ‘“Seek ye the Lord while he may be found.”’

Their voices in cracked chorus pronounced the Apostle’s Creed. At the very middle point of their recital, the mention of hell, Lambert collapsed in abject tears. Sarah took the time to quieten and reassure, bringing him back to the point where they might continue – and finish.

Parched lips took in another gulp of air: he yet lived.

Lambert’s final decline was swift. Thin and wretched, skin nigh transparent, he shook with fever and chills, a bundle of bones kept in place by the dry parchment of scripture.

‘“In him was life,”’ said Sarah, ‘“and the life was the light of men.”’

She waited, hoping for some sign of response, but none came.

Her fingertip cleared his brow of matted hair. His eyes rolled back, in retreat from the light. The poor creature stood on the brink.

‘“The light shineth in darkness,”’ she said; ‘“and the darkness comprehended it not.”’

…systole, diastole, systole…diastole…

His lips moved, forming one last word.

‘…God.’

‘May God forgive you,’ said Sarah.

Fresh rain showers stop an hour or so before dawn, the sky filled with fastrunning cloud.

On deserted marshland above the Salmon’s-lane Lock, the last remnant of
gunya
collapses in on itself. It has not been built to last.

Four miles or so west, as the crow flies, leaves of discarded newspaper blow the length of Great Russell-street. Striking the iron gates that seal the grounds to the British Museum, they stick there, obscuring a sign that warns visitors of temporary closure.

Number 89 is in total darkness. All the windows are shut and the curtains drawn.

Frustrated, Brippoki turns away – but not before rummaging in the depths of his dilly bag to leave Thara something there. He would have liked to see her, one last time, gliding about in that mysterious way of hers.

‘
Parramatta
,’ he says, giving it his blessing.

He is afraid for her, when he should fear more for himself. Brippoki glances around the margins of the roof, where he squats, unwelcome. The shadows, they gather about him, too.

Today and tomorrow are finished. Taboo and Law broken, he accepts the guilty verdict. As long as little retribution is asked for, he is willing to die.

He is dead already. Time to move on.

The sun will rise again.

Alone walking the streets, Brippoki cuts a solitary figure. Hair shorn close to the scalp, his ceremonial garb starts to flake and fall off. Catching sight of his reflection, he sees that he looks diseased, like a mangy dog. Death in the desert so far from home is an ugly fate indeed.

Stabbing pains – he burns inside. Some agency of evil performs rites of magic on his footprint. Loud songs of vengeance declare their deadly desire: to do him irreparable harm.

He has been marked for death, and worse than death.

Between clouds, horned
Mityan
emerges. Even as his hopes swell at the sight, Brippoki chokes. The new moon shining before him is swallowed by an all-consuming shadow, and so close! So close to earth! The sky is falling!!

Brippoki runs.

‘
Yaal wanning
?’ he asks. Where am I going?

All of his short hairs stand on end. The air gathers at his back. His spine and chest crave release from this pressure.

Brippoki sprints full pelt, afraid for so much more than just his life. If an enchantment causes his death, the killer must be found, found and slain, or else Brippoki’s
itpitukutya
– his immortal Spirit – will never know peace.

He falls sprawling in the muck of the street, immediately rising into a low crouch, eyes and ears alert. He will not go easy, picked off like some useless straggler.

Calling on the Ancestors for strength, Brippoki speeds on. A short dash into regions unfamiliar and he corrects his course, set on his destination.
Parramatta
!

Gradually the ground falls away, the sweep of ancient hillside traceable in the curve of innumerable cave-like dwellings. Half a league onward, Brippoki comes to high ground above a natural dip he has crossed many times, east to west and back again, on his trips to and from the Guardian – never yet to linger there, nor run it north to south.

In the distance looms the Piebald Giant. He wears a spider’s face.

Standing on the rise, unable either to see it or to smell it, Brippoki hears the rush of water passing down below. Panting, he dangles each exhausted limb in turn, before heading on – into the valley.

Great earthworks piled to either side pen him in, constraining his course. He is confounded by a dizzying dimensional maze. Underfoot, overhead, rail, road, and watercourse meet. Fleet of foot he skips through thick and thin, across black pools, barely disturbing their surface. Through gaping sewer and exposed storm drain, he senses for himself the persistence of lost current. What was once a lively creek runs alongside, much reduced, a vile rivulet. Deep red in colour, it is filled with dung, and guts, and blood, dead cats and dogs and parts of larger animals. Fouled and foetid, the gas arising almost causes him to pass out.

He has stumbled blindly into the valley of shadow –
Pindi
, the ditch, a massive burial pit – through which runs the river of death.

Pure clear waters, gushing, a hillside of saffron, gardens sweet with herb; he despairs that a place something like home is come to this – leafless trees, warped rocks, a blunt depression where even weeds fail.

In perennial flow from one form into another, Brippoki’s vision of the landscape fractures and endlessly re-forms – silt rearranged by rain and flood, permanent echoes of itself. He often sees more than one shape at any one time, and sometimes, in the dizziness of near-blackout, none at all.

What is desert, saltbush and stone, was once swamp, filled with grass and long rushes, lake and fresh water. One Big Ant-hill Creek – London, before London – is a fine valley. Woods lie to the east, to the west green hills, a low ridge of forest rolling, open country out in front. A gentle incline, lush with grass, is sure sign he approaches water. There, ahead – full and flowing, and broader than expected – winds the river. Clear waters sparkle through the evergreen trees on its banks. Within those flashes of dazzlement Brippoki gains greater insight, fleeting glimpses of his former freedoms and a better life back in the World – the land of his birthright, so long denied him.

This is the Dream of the Clay – what was, what is, and shall be again.

Tide-marsh and inlet, the swamp itself swamped is still there, home to Frog, Bug, and Bird. Hawk, Sparrow, Fox, Owl and Mouse; the earliest settlers remain – still alive in the dead city, as he is.

Every time it rains, a little more soil is returned. Bird flying over shits out a seed. Seed lodges in the brickwork. Green shoots crack the stone paving; roots burst pipes.

All it takes is time.

Quality of light changing, the landscape shifts again. Brippoki shrinks back from the soft margins – mud, cold and grey.

A breath on the back of his neck makes his hackles rise. Whispering in his ear and he turns, wild-eyed. The air is still. He is alone. Penned in between festering timbers and rotten brick, he looks up. All that’s visible is a thin streak of purple – no sky, only a wound in blackness.

Impact.

He comes to, lying half in a puddle of filth. Dragging himself to his feet, rebounding wall to wall, a flinch at every touch, he staggers on.

Termite towers rise to the southeast, many hundred heads high. They are living in this way, piled one on top of another, shitting on each other’s heads. Briefly the apparitions glow in the half-light, and then fade.

A sharp brick escarpment dagger-points in that same direction. Crossing over a borderline only visible on maps, Brippoki passes into the parish of St Sepulchre. From the vale, through the gate of death, into the jaws of death – he emerges into a vast marketplace, a smooth field within the shadow of an ancient city wall.

He is enveloped in a billowing cloud of steam. As it clears, Brippoki turns on the spot, attempting to recover his bearings. An enormous building, red brick and limestone, now fills the space where the field stretched before. A long, white body laid out on the ground, it reminds him of the sailors’ Hospital in Greenwich – a palace. The walls are high, and so long their ends extend almost out of sight. Octagonal pavilion towers stand to each extreme. Warrior-women guard the entrance, and fire-breathing serpents. Beneath the triangular pediment, ornate iron grille-work shows off all the lurid hues of fresh bruising.

Curious, Brippoki moves closer, to peer through the bars of the gate.