“‘Yes, Mama!'”
“She twisted it the other way. And this?'”
“Finally, it was too much for the child. He let out a hissing sound, and spat from his erection several spouts of semens. Its sharp stink made the Duke’s eyes sting.”
“Lilith waited until the boy had finished ejaculating, then she drew out the sword. The goat-boy sank back on the wet earth, with a look of satisfaction on his face.”
“‘Thank you, mama,’ he said, as though well pleasured by what had just happened.
“The wound on his belly was already closing up, the Duke saw. It was as though it were being knitted by agile and invisible fingers. So too the wounds on his hands, incurred when he had seized the blade. In a matter of perhaps half a minute the goat-boy was whole again.”
“So if the child wasn’t dead,” Todd said, “why was the Duke guilty of murdering him?”
Katya shook her head. “He’d committed the crime. The fact that the boy was an immortal was academic. He’d murdered the child, and had to be punished for it.”
Todd’s gaze went again to the trees where the Duke and his men had disappeared, picturing the look of hope that had appeared on the men’s faces when they’d heard the sound of the child’s cries. Now all that made sense. No wonder they’d ridden off so eagerly. They were still hoping to find the boy, and earn their release from the Devil’s Country.
A wave of claustrophobia came up over Todd. This was not the limitless landscape it had first appeared to be: it was a prison, and he wanted to be free of it. He turned, and turned again, looking for some crack in the illusion, however small. But he could find none. Despite the immensity of the vistas in all directions, and the height of heavens above him, he might as well have been locked in a cell.
His breath had quickened; his hands were suddenly clammy. “Which way’s the door?” he asked Katya.
“You want to leave? Now?”
“Yes, now.”
“It’s just a story,” she said.
“No it’s not. I saw the Duke. We both saw him.”
“It’s all part of the show,” Katya said, with a dismissive little shrug. “Calm down. There’s no harm going to come to us. I’ve been down here hundreds of times and nothing ever happened to me.”
“You saw the Duke here before?”
“Sometimes. Never as close as we saw today, but there are always hunters.”
“Well ask yourself: why are there always hunters? Why is there always an eclipse?”
“I don’t know. Why do you always do the same thing in a movie every time it runs — ”
“So things are exactly the same, every time you come here, like a movie?”
“Not exactly the same, no. But the sun’s always like that: three-quarters covered. And the trees, the rocks … even the ships out there.” She pointed to the ships. “It’s always the same ships. They never seem to get very far.”
“So it’s not like a movie,” Todd said. “It’s more like time’s been frozen.”
She nodded. “I suppose it is,” she said. “Frozen in the walls.”
“I don’t see any walls.”
“They’re there,” Katya said, “it’s just a question of where to look. How to look. Trust me.”
“You want me to trust you,” Todd said, “then get me out of here.”
“I thought you were enjoying yourself.”
“The pleasure went out of it a while back,” Todd said. He grabbed her arm, hard. “Come on,” he said. “I want to get out.”
She shook herself free of him. “Don’t touch me that way,” she said, her expression suddenly fierce. “I don’t like it.” She pointed past him, over his right shoulder. “The door’s over there.”
He looked back He could see no sign of an opening. Just more of the Devil’s Country.
And now, to make matters worse, he once again heard the sound of hooves.
“Oh Christ … ”
He glanced back towards the trees. The Duke and his men were riding towards them, empty-handed.
“They’re coming back to interrogate us,” Todd said. “Katya! Did you hear me? We need to get the hell out of here.”