Darkest heart (first chapter)

In the deepest depths of the forest live the Sahandran. No man is more powerful than Sahandran. No man is more cursed, yet no man is more blessed. Stronger than the blood of the living and more lifeless than the most forgotten soul.

   That is how Babay’s stories always started. Yan’s mother was a born storyteller. Already he yearned to relive those nights in the smoke-permeated longhouse.

   He sat up, cradled by the top of the nesting tree. Before him, the indomitable forest crawled up the night-blue hills. The half moon above him was accompanied by stars, closer than he’d ever seen them before. This was his land – the land of Darvasi. Here he had once been born in freedom, beyond the fence of the masters. By now, the world outside that enclosure had become alien to him.

   A shiver ran down his spine. Everyone knew that traveling the forests during nighttime could cost people their souls. With an annoyed gesture he shrugged off his fear. Nothing could stop him. He would find the Sahandran. The night crawlers would steal his soul and make him one of theirs, and he would be grateful. He didn’t ask Ay Pitu for wings. No – he asked him for a beautiful death and a new body, which would possess the strength to save his mother and the other members of his family from the masters’ hands. Ay Pitu, the god who never listened and who didn’t pity a single Darvasi.

   All that he knew lay behind him: Babay, his brothers, sisters – many of whom had been drowned in the pool by the masters. Only Anyi was still alive. The souls of his murdered sisters had found their peace once more in the waters of death. The smell of that water was insufficient to throw the bloodhounds off someone’s scent. He took the jar of death flower paste from his bag and rubbed the ointment all over his body from head to toe. For weeks, he’d been toiling to collect the dar-ha-dar blossoms and smother them in lard. The substance turned his dark-brown skin to almost black. The stench was overwhelming. His stomach revolted. He swallowed the spasm back down his throat and breathed through his mouth.

   With long strokes he erased his own scent. He turned to shadow.

   Only a few more hours until sunrise – that was when they’d notice his disappearance. Without delay he started his journey. Skillfully, Yan clambered from tree to tree. The tops of the nesting trees blurred into one. One moment he was climbing, then descending, in order to find the embrace of the next forest giant. A deafening orchestra of cicadas and tjir-tjars filled the air. Beneath him, in the nightly black, certain death awaited him at the slightest misstep. But dying was by far not the worst thing that could happen to him – if Master Rooijbosch ever got his hands on him after this escape attempt, he wouldn’t be allowed to die. Not for a very long time. Although he could already imagine feeling the breath of the bloodhounds burn down his neck, he kept calm and steadied his hands and feet.

   By the time the sun rose behind the hills in a trickle of fiery red, the distance between him and the plantation wasn’t nearly as big as he had hoped. Shielded by the branches of a nesting tree top, he took refuge. If that camouflage proved to be insufficient, running any further would be pointless. Besides, he needed rest.

   He applied a new layer of dar-ha-dar paste to the soles of his feet and the palms of his hands. Afterward, he covered himself with giant leaves to escape the worst heat of the day.

The whip snaked across his skin. A lash echoing through his flesh – a cry without end. The next lash came too soon. The scars that were being erased from his back screamed louder than the living skin he was losing. He looked up at the bright blue sky, beyond the pole that his hands were bound to, and prayed for Ay Pitu to see him. Warm drops of his blood doused the air, like a slow-moving formation of passing turtleneck geese that had lost sight of the sun. The world tinged red. Today, he was going to die. He was sure of it.

Fists no longer clenched. His rigid fingers pointing up at the sky, begging for mercy that wouldn’t be given. The sun burned down on his face and his pulped, shattered skin. The cries of agony had died in his throat a while ago.

   His mother was crying. His sister was beseeching their master.

   Master Strever Rooijbosch rolled up his blood-drenched whip, approached him, and grabbed his hair in one hand. The man pressed up against him. “Can you feel me? How hard you make me? I’m enjoying this. Next time I won’t call back the dogs – I’ll fuck your dead body like I fuck your sister.” His breath stank of sour milk. Blood was splattered across his pale, white skin. Bright blue eyes in a narrow face with thin lips seemed to look right through him. The man pulled his hair, jerking his gaze to another direction. “Look at your mother. Why are you doing this to her? You selfish piece of shit. Just accept your fate.”

   Rooijbosch let go of him and got out a handkerchief to wipe the sweat off his flushed neck. Shaking his head, he walked away from Yan. With a supple shake of his wrist he unfurled the whip once more and tirelessly resumed his work.

An enormous shadow attacked him out of nowhere. Yan jolted awake, his heart beating in his throat as he failed to remember where he was – high up in the treetops where sleep had wrapped its tentacles around him. He dashed away from the razor-sharp claws of the roqual and tumbled from the crown of the nesting tree. Branches cut into his skin. He wildly sought purchase with his hands like a man drowning in air. A thick branch hit him full in the spine. His body twisted. His hand almost grabbed a branch, but his fingers slipped. Blinded by pain he crashed down onto the ground. Smothering a curse, he lay still and stayed where he was, protected by the undergrowth. He stifled cries of pain while huddling down against the marshy forest soil.

   Pure instinct.

   They were close: his masters – the whiteheads. At least a half dozen men, accompanied by a pack of dogs. Lumbering bodies wading through dense thicket. The panting of man and beast. They stopped dead and watched as the roqual lifted off from the treetops with majestic laziness. The animal looked impressive with a wingspan of more than two grown men – it was the kind of carrion bird that could easily devour a leopard carcass by itself.

Strever Rooijbosch was barking out commands. The whiteheads blamed the ruckus they’d heard in the trees on the giant bird and started hacking away again with their machetes, clearing a path through the obtrusive green.

   Yan’s body gave in. He curled up into a ball and awaited what came next. Fear of the whiteheads coming back and fear of the pain whenever he moved paralyzed him.

By the time he finally risked stirring, the sun had already set. Contrary to the night before, this darkness and all the life in it was shrouded by an almost tangible silence.

   Yan scrambled to his feet. As soon as he was upright, he could feel someone’s gaze burning on him. It took him a while to make out the shape in between the shrubbery. A figure was standing there, grinning at him with stark white teeth that were gleaming in the moonlight. They were sharper than the canines of mongrols and tigers. His skin was darker than a starless, moonless night. He was near invisible – the figure didn’t breathe or move. He just observed Yan with that intense, black stare of his. Yan’s scent camouflage wasn’t fooling him.

   “Sahandran,” Yan stammered. He lowered his head in reverence. All the stories had told him the same thing: you just needed to ask to be made one of them. Reluctantly he also remembered many tales in which death was the only answer given to the one asking.

Petrified, he stared the demon in the bushes. Even the tjir-tjars had grown quiet. Suddenly the figure was gone. Yan spun around and a cold hand grabbed his shoulder. He screamed.

   Ay Pitu gave him wings.

   He hurtled through the thicket until the forest floor suddenly seemed to fall away from under his feet and he tumbled and rolled across the dry earth. His mad ride came to a stop in a clearing between the trees. Heart pounding and breath pumping, he lay there, the surging pain in his back incapacitating him.

   They were everywhere. Scores of them. He wasn’t sure whether they were all Sahandran or some of them were just animals. There was a panther, a screeching-bear and a lahassa. The latter had big ears and bulging eyes and stood on hind legs that were still human. The beastly shapes weren’t the most terrifying ones, though. Specters wrought during the most frightful nightmares huddled around him – creations of Habu, the misshapen god. Their flesh had been punished so much harder than his own whip-marked back. Further in the background he discerned a few human Sahandran, as though they weren’t part of the tribe, with their near-transparent skin and languishing facial expressions. Some were clothed while others were naked like the day they’d been given their new bodies.

   Yan struggled to his knees and sat there on the desiccated mud, the cramp in his back preventing him from fully getting to his feet. Panting with agony, he took the filthy bag off his back and started to take out his gifts, presenting them to the Sahandran. They watched, unmoved. The holy book he’d stolen from the masters… a bag of tobacco. The pages of the book were curling up and the tobacco smelled moldy. Even though he’d treated his bag with wax, it hadn’t been completely waterproof. Not only were his gifts pitiful – they were outright ridiculous.

   Sahandran craved one thing only and he knew it all too well. Yan took his knife. The blade was just a thumb’s length. The steel was of inferior quality. It was dented and blemished with the onset of rust. He wiped the metal clean with trembling fingers. It wasn’t nearly as sharp as needed. He put the cold blade against his wrist and cut himself – twice, because the first cut wasn’t accurate enough. Tears stung his eyes. His breath was laborious and he painfully swallowed down his cries of anguish. His heart beat frantically at the back of his throat. Bright-red blood beaded on his skin, which was still darker than usual because of the dar-ha-dar paste. He stretched his arm and balled his fist. His blood dripped onto the dried earth. “I hereby give my life. Make me Sahandran. I cast off my human body.” Of course they didn’t refer to themselves as night crawlers – it was the name the Darvasi had thought up for them. He’d heard the sound of their real name somewhere, but he wasn’t sure how to pronounce it. “I beg you, make me like you. Az’vacje?”

   Still they didn’t move. They didn’t even breathe. Their bodies had evolved far beyond such human needs.

   Yan held his breath. Had he offended them with his clumsy request? The black demon came closer. He stayed low, moving forward in a crouch that wasn’t quite walking.   Curiously he contemplated Yan.

   Yan heaved a sigh. Clearly he hadn’t given enough – not even now. He raised the blade to his neck, took a deep breath, looked up at the stars, and slit his throat.