'O Angels, hear me! I am in jeopardy of my soul — '
I left her to it and, dressed in my purloined clothes, I strode out from behind the boulder and down the slope towards the field.
So, now you know how I came to walk the earth. It's not a pleasant story. But every word of it is true.
So now are you satisfied? Have you had enough confessions out of me? I've admitted to patricides. I've told you how I fell in love, and how quickly and tragically my dreams of Caroline's adoration were snatched from me. And I've told you how I kept myself from killing off the Archbishop's daughter, though I'm sure most of my kind would have slaughtered her on the spot. They would have been right to do so, as it turned out. But you don't need to hear that. I've told you enough. Nor do you need to hear about the Archbishop and the bonfires on Joshua's Field. Believe me, it wouldn't please you. Why not? Because it's a very unflattering picture of your kind.
On the other hand… maybe that's exactly why I should tell you. Yes, why not? You've obliged me to uncover the flaws in
Consider how many genocides are under way as you sit reading this, how many villages, tribes, even nations, are being erased. Good. So listen and I'll tell you about the glorious horrors of Joshua's Field. This one's on me.
As I descended the slope, I took in the vista below. There were hundreds of people assembled for the eight o'clock fire lighting, kept in check by a line of soldiers, their halberds pointed at the crowd so as to slit from navel to neck anyone foolish enough to try and get a closer look at the scene. In the large open space the soldiers were guarding a semicircle of woodpiles that had been raised, twice as tall as their builders. The three woodpiles in the center of the crescent were distinguished by having inverted wooden crosses raised above them.
Facing this grim array were two viewing stands. The larger of the two was a simple construction resembling a flight of deep, tall stairs, which was already almost full of God-fearing lords and ladies who had no doubt paid well for the privilege of watching the executions in such comfort. The other construction was very much smaller, and draped and canopied with lush red velvet, to protect those who would be seated inside from wind or rain. A large cross was raised above the canopy in case anyone would be in doubt that this was where the new Archbishop and his entourage would be seated.
Once I got down to the base of the slope, however, my own view was entirely blocked. Why? Because though it irks me to admit it, I was shorter than the peasants all around me. It wasn't only my vision that was besieged; so was my sense of smell. I was pressed upon from all sides by filthy, flea-infested bodies, whose breath was sickening and whose flatulence, its source of which I was regrettably closer than most, barely short of toxic.
Panic seized me, like a snake weaving its way up my spine from bowels to brain, turning my thoughts to excrement. I began to flail wildly and the sound my mother made in the depths of her nightmares escaped me, as shrill as a spitted baby. It opened cracks in the mud beneath me.
My noise inevitably drew the unwelcome attention of those in my vicinity who knew where it had issued from. People retreated from me on every side. Their eyes, in which I had until now only seen the dull luster of ignorance and inbreeding, now gleamed with a superstitious horror.
'Look, the earth cracks beneath his feet!' one woman yowled.
'His feet! God in heaven, look at his feet!' another yelled.
Though the mud had done something to disguise my feet, it wasn't enough to conceal the truth.
'It's not human!'
A frenzy of terror immediately seized hold of the crowd. While the woman who'd begun this furor shrieked the same few words over and over —
I took advantage of their terrified state and deliberately unleashed another of Momma's Nightmare Cries, one so loud that blood ran copiously from the ears of many of those around me. I seized the opportunity to run, deliberately heading towards the woman who'd begun all this. She was still shrieking
With the job done I drove my way into the crowd, still trailing the last of my ear-popping shriek. The crowd before me parted as I ran. With my head down I had no idea of my direction, but I was certain that if I ran in a more or less straight line I would eventually reach the edge of the crowd, and open ground. Indeed I thought I had done so when the noise of the crowd suddenly diminished. I looked up. The crowd had not disappeared from around me because I had reached its limits but because two soldiers, armoured and helmeted, had arrived and had their halberds pointed directly at me. I slid to a mud-splattered halt a few inches short of their weapons' points, the last of my Momma's shriek faltering, then dying into silence.
The larger of the two soldiers, who was easily a foot and a half taller than his companion, lifted up the hinged faceplate on his helmet to see me better. His features were barely less imbecilic than those of the crowd surrounding me. The only light flickering in his gaze was fed by the knowledge that with the one lunge he could run me through and pin me to the ground, allowing the crowd to do their worst.
'What's your name?' he said.
'Jakabok Botch,' I told him. 'And please believe me — '
'Are you a demon?'
There was a burst of accusations from the rabble. I'd murdered an innocent woman, whom I'd cursed into Hell. And I'd made sounds that had left people deaf.
The noise diminished, and the soldier repeated his question. There seemed little point in denying what would be only too apparent if he obliged me to remove my clothes. So I owned up.
'Yes,' I said, raising my arms as though in surrender. 'I am a demon. But I'm here because I was tricked.'
'Oh, the pity of it,' the soldier said. 'The poor little devil was tricked.'
He poked me with the point of his halberd, aiming for the bloody stain where the original owner of these clothes had stabbed me. It was only a minor wound, but the soldier's prodding made it bleed afresh. I refused to let out a single sound of complaint. I knew from overhearing the idle chatter of Pappy G.'s torturer friends that nothing satisfied them more than to hear the shrieks and pleas of those whose nerve endings were beneath their gouges and brands.
The only problem with my silence was that it inspired the soldier to further invention in pursuit of some response. He pushed the halberd's blade still deeper, turning it as he did so. The flow of blood increased considerably, but I still refused to give voice to a single plea in pursuit of mercy.
Again, the soldier dug and twisted; again there was an issuing of blood; again I remained silent. By now my body had started to shake violently as I struggled to repress the urge to cry out. Taking these spasms as proof that I was in swift decay and as such no longer a threat to them, a few of the crowd, mostly women, hags of twenty or less, came at me, clawing at my clothes to tear them off me.
'Let's see you, demon!' one of them shrieked, catching hold of the shirt collar behind my head and tearing it away.
The burn scars on the front of my body were virtually indistinguishable from those on the body of a man; it was my unharmed back that told the true story, with its array of yellow and vermillion scales and the tiny black spines that ran up the middle of my back to the base of my skull.
The sight of my scales and spines brought cries of revulsion from the crowd. The soldier put the point of his halberd at my throat now, pricking me with sufficient enough force that blood ran from there too.
'Kill it!' somebody in the crowd yelled. 'Saw off its head!'
The cry for my execution quickly spread, and I'm certain the soldier would have slit my throat then and there had his companion soldier, the shorter of the two, not come to his side and whispered something to him. The other made some reply, which apparently carried the day because my tormentor raised his armoured hand and yelled to
