The Devourers by Indra Das Page B

hamrammr. *9 In your lands our tribes take the names of jotunn and troll, aesir and vanir. Names and stories khrissals spoke, and wrote, and carved, because they remember the titanic battles of our tribes before their history. Even in the sleep of their witless egotism they remember. And here you sit and write journals, like a limpid mortal Englishman.”
    “Limpid Englishmen have written their own tales of gods and blood, and they are no more mortal than Vikings.”
    “Well said. Tell me something, in honesty. Why do you write?”
    “Why? I write to record, to study. For curiosity. To keep our stories in the worlds beyond our bodies.”
    He laughs. “Yes, but for whom? A khrissal writes for other khrissals. But who does a shape-shifter write for? Do you think the tribes will read it and champion you as their great scribe? Or do you think khrissals will read your scrolls, your book, and worship you as their benevolent devourer, an Old Testament god-beast come to them bearing a—a what? A new Bible that seeks only to understand their poor benighted souls, and asks only for the occasional blood sacrifice?”
    I am chilled by these words, and hope I don’t show it.
    “I’m not the first of our tribes to keep a journal, Makedon,” I say. “No one need read it. You criticize because you’re bored. And remember as you do that you haven’t read a word I have written.”
    “Would you like me to read it, then, and give my honest judgment?”
    “No.”
    “Good. As you say, I’m bored, and I’ve no wish to be further bored.”
    “Leave him alone, will you? If he wants to write, let him write. You’re giving me a headache with your bilious wit,” says Gévaudan. He is still wearing around his shoulders a banded serpent that he throttled to death this morning, when it bit his ankle. “The pup speaks. Bilious indeed. Our prey was too steeped in bitterness. An unhappy fool practically begging to be killed, blundering along the countryside with not so much as a weapon to protect from bandits. His spleen has infected me with a distemper.”
    I see a fury run across Gévaudan’s soft face, and wonder at this passion.
    “Why try so hard to strip this man of dignity in death? Have you abandoned your ideas about khrissals and their destructive Promethean fire now?” I ask Makedon.
    He laughs without humor. “I find it difficult to believe that he cares if I mock him, in his current state as slurry in our bowels and pieces in our fardels.”
    “You may have lived longer than I, but do not underestimate man and his ingenuity, nor the growing venom of his fear for things beyond his ken,” I say.
    “Shall I not underestimate woman also? No, for man and woman both are equally succulent, and fear’s venom flavors them all the better by stirring the iron in their veins.”
    “We should give thanks now to the man who feeds us and strengthens our souls,” I say, yearning for quiet.
    “How about we give tribute to the whelp whose skin you write on, North-man? He had many lives within him yet, none of them ripened when we took him,” Makedon says, now playful.
    “And one of those lives was that of an orphaned beggar, wandering in misery on the streets of Lahore. Would he have liked to live that one?” Gévaudan asks.
    Makedon laughs again, this time more genuine. “He’s got your back, this one.”
    Gévaudan whispers tribute to our prey, touching the earth and blowing the clinging crumbs of soil into the air from his fingertips. I stroke the damp earth and do the same. Makedon removes the dark curls waving in front of his face, looking up at the stars. He gets up.
    “Where are you going?” I ask.
    Makedon walks a few feet from us and begins to shed his furs and raiment. “I’m going to hunt,” he replies, tossing his clothes on the ground. His eyes seem to glow already with fervor, the green of their orbs waking with reflections.
    “Again? We have remains in our fardels,” I say.
    “Then I’ll hunt to kill. What