 
### Masks and Demons

By Garth Chandler

Copyright 2016 Garth Chandler

Smashwords Edition

Thank you for downloading this ebook. This book remains the copyrighted property of the author, and may not be redistributed to others for commercial or non-commercial purposes. If you enjoyed this book, please encourage your friends to download their own copy from their favourite authorised retailer. Thank you for your support.

First Published 2011 (paperback)

Based upon a screenplay concept by Attie Visser

Cover Art: African Mask v. 2.0 by Andrey Bobrov and Kirill Moskalev

### Table of Contents

Prologue

Part One

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Interlude

Part Two

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Part Three

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Christine's Song (Predator)

About the Author

More from the Same Author

The Salvation Murders

Frewin

### Prologue

Africans believe that ancient, malevolent spirits called Tokolosh prowl the dark. Many have experienced inexplicable misfortune. The Tokolosh usually takes the form of a particularly well-endowed midget, its masculinity far advanced in proportion to the Tokolosh itself. Often, the victim of a Tokolosh will only begin to suspect the unwanted attentions of the spirit because of a sour streak of luck. It is well known, even amongst the white inhabitants of the Dark Continent, that an African should be terrified to discover tiny footprints in or around his home. Muti, which is African magic or medicine, wears a number of mantles, from mundane herbalist medicines to various degrees of the occult. The African traditional healer, or Sangoma, is often the only one who can free the victim of a Tokolosh's attentions. Many Africans sleep with their bed on bricks so that the spirit cannot reach them.

Of course, this is a load of codswallop – it takes much more than bricks to deter a Tokolosh.

### Part One
Chapter One

The year is 1853. Half a world away, to the west, the slaves in the great plantations of America are working the fields, dreaming of their chains falling away and of whips in their own hands while the masters scream and pray to the benevolent God, who assures the faithful that everything works towards the greater good. Thousands of miles to the north, it is snowing, and the poor and the oppressed of Europe, the human coal for the fires of progress and industrialism, huddle under what few blankets and shelter they can afford, while the parties in the royal palaces churn out music and polite conversation. The king still considers it better manners to have a chamber pot brought to the table than to abandon his civilised guests, much to the disgust of the courtiers next to him. In the Far East, the emperor stirs fitfully in his sleep, dreaming of the Taiping rebellion in the south, unaware of the cavalry bands plundering the north, killing his armies and setting up their strongholds.

On the South African veldt, evening brings relief after what the shivering inhabitants of Europe would call 'another glorious sunny day'. The usual sunny day in Africa is scorching, parching hot, with the heat enough to turn a face unprotected by hats, cosmetics and the great indoors to leather. Tribesmen run from shade to shade, unwilling to let feet linger too long upon the scalding earth. In other parts of the world, there are people who are considered somehow spiritually endowed because they walk on coals to achieve the same effect. Grass pokes itself out of the ground, defies the sun with a thirsty blade for a short time, and wilts to brown. In Africa, a really nice day brings rain.

Insects twitter and frogs croak, heralding the night. A leopard slinks up a tree with her bloody prize, a gazelle, formerly the slowest sprinter in the herd. The cat's eyes, reflecting the waning remains of the orange sun, open wider, and her panting pauses; she pricks her ears across the grassy expanses as distant drums begin to beat. A creek meanders insolently through the primal African veldt, its path taking it to a rural village, or kraal, where the vibration of the drums disturbs some of its quieter pools. The kraal's defences consist of thick, high walls of thorny branches, protecting the grass huts within, like a mother snake around her yet-to-hatch eggs. Spaced along the walls are rickety, wooden lookout towers, platforms with torches lighting up the deep South African night. Within the kraal, the rhythm of the drums builds to deafening and somehow frightening volumes. Atop the lookout platforms, watchmen, clad in various animal skins and armed with wooden spears, are torn between sentry on the veldt, and the happenings inside the village. This is the home of the Batlhaping, a small, peaceful bunch who are largely insignificant on the world stage. For now.

In the common area within the kraal, a huge crackling fire blazes. A woman ululates as sweating drummers bang out a hypnotic primal African rhythm on their hide-covered drums. The rest of the villagers, from very young children to old greyheads, shuffle and dance. Central dancers brandish hide shields and wooden spears. When one of the dancers treads heavily on a thorn and starts hopping about on one leg, many of the younger revellers start to emulate him. As he sits heavily and tries to pick the thorn from his foot, some of the youngsters copy him again. The woman ululates again, and the deafened man next to her sticks his finger in his offended ear, wishing she would simply shut up.

Chief Malole is in his hut, waiting for the appropriate time to make his grand entrance. The chief's hut is bigger than the others, with pride of place near the centre of the kraal, as befits his station. He takes a swig of fermented _marula_ juice from a clay gourd, wipes his face with a meaty hand, and strides out, dressed in his magnificent tribal chief's outfit of feathers and lion skins. The noise hits him like a pack of wild dogs. He waves a hide shield and spear, and holds up his hand.

The drummers quiet down, and gradually the revellers slow and shuffle to a halt. All eyes turn to the chief as he moves towards the central bonfire. Malole halts before an ornate silver mask with closed eyes and bovine horns atop a wooden pole. The face is vaguely human, but for certain anthropomorphic exaggerations typical of Southern African art; surreal, bloated appendages protrude at noticeable angles. The metal shines rich and deep, and reflects every possible bit of light, as though polished.

The revellers take their cue from their chief and reverently bow before the silver idol. Kwazi, nearly of the age to undergo the warrior's initiation ceremony, risks an upward glance and grins at what he sees. There is a pretty young woman in front of him in a short and revealing grass skirt. An effeminate man next to him notices his wandering attention and smacks him on the back of his head. The sound cracks into the silence left in the wake of the drums. In the distance, the leopard looks up at the sudden quiet, and licks her bloodied jowls.

Nothing within the kraal moves. Malole slowly, softly, begins to sway before the idol and chant in an unknown tongue. As his chanting becomes louder, a lone drummer drums a new beat.

***

Dim, smoky torchlight reveals the walls of an arcane, stone passage where large, rocky chambers and more passages branch off irregularly. The place reeks of age and brimstone. Anybody looking for the torches casting their flickering lights would search in vain, because the smoke does not owe its grey existence to any fire. Arcane, bushman-like symbols and writings are etched upon the walls. These are not bushman legacies, though. The subjects of bushmen paintings are easily identifiable – a hunt, a ceremony, or a few lewd scenes quickly removed by older and more conservative bushmen. The images on these walls are difficult to describe, with frames of reference outside the borders set by the mundane experiences of the African people. Prominent amongst the painted figures is a horned beast, with the body of a man and the shaggy head of a bull. Shadows move along the walls of the cave disconcertingly, making it difficult to tell whether the shadows or the paintings themselves are moving.

***

The drumming gains momentum again. Kwazi, behind the young woman, smiles surreptitiously once more, his thoughts obviously on more mundane matters. The effeminate man scowls at him and he assumes a more respectful attitude. Over by the pole, Malole's chanting reaches a crescendo.

***

Within the passages of stone, a flickering shadow, seemingly of a man with a bull's head, becomes more distinct, less like an epileptic belly dancer under a strobe, and passes quickly.

***

Malole finishes his ministrations and lies prone before the mask at a final drum beat, his backside high in the air. Kwazi quickly averts his gaze from this sight, which is far less appealing to him than the one that had previously held his interest.

The silence descends upon the veldt again; even the impudent frogs and insects display an uncharacteristic hush. Not a whisper of a breeze stirs the air.

The villagers raise their eyes expectantly towards the silver mask. A wind arises in the distance, breaking the stillness, rustling across the African veldt like a visitor approaching with a large entourage in wide, dragging skirts. As the rustling reaches the kraal, the hitherto inanimate mask's eyes snap open, and the metal takes on a liquid character, no longer rigid and lifeless, but alive. The villagers have seen this before, but rare familiarity has not bred boldness, so the tribe is still awed, and there are a few audible sharp intakes of breath. Malole rises to his knees and outstretches his arms in a supplicating attitude. The pole starts to shake as the wind's rustling becomes a vicious howl, penetrating the kraal walls as easily as ectoplasm. The villagers squint against the unnatural force; some hold their ears against the noise. The howling consumes itself with a last, powerful blast, like a match thrown into a pit of methane. The villagers avert their faces, blinking from the gust. Sudden silence blankets the kraal again. As the villagers turn their attention back to the mask, they see that it is no longer attached to the pole, but floating freely, in defiance of all the laws of nature.

***

Within the passages of stone, the bull-headed shadow stretches its arms in an attitude of triumph.

***

The mask erupts in a flaming glare. Villagers shield their assaulted eyes, the after-image of the mask etched inescapably behind their eyelids. The bonfire flames higher, as though fuelled, though nobody has added so much as a single dry twig. As the light recedes, the villagers regain normal vision. The mask rests on the face of a black shape, stretching its arms in mimicry of the shadow in the passages. The shape towers above the assembly, three times the height of a man, powerfully built. It is two-dimensional, but somehow simultaneously more than a shadow, the dimensions of shadow shouldering aside the dimensions of space. It hurts the brain to try to see the flat edges of the shadow, because there are none.

The moment of quiet stretches.

The watchmen high in their wooden towers pay absolutely no attention to the veldt, due to the fact that they are instead dutifully staring open-mouthed at the excitement within the kraal below.

The effeminate man faints with a slight gurgle. Malole stands and turns his back to the unnatural darkness towering above him. He is unafraid, as a son would be unafraid of a powerful but loving father. He lets the moment stretch just a little longer, for dramatic effect, before he addresses the villagers, "The Boipakeng warriors are getting ready now as we speak. We know that they will attack us again soon, just as they have so many times before." He gathers his skins about him, careful not to spoil the effect of a wise and regal chieftain by tripping and falling on his face in the sand. Malole walks amongst the tribe, meeting as many gazes as he can without going cross-eyed, a showman down from his stage, mingling with an enraptured audience. The masked shape observes his passage with the attention of a single-minded predator, but makes no move to follow.

Malole halts near the middle of the throng of villagers, and pauses again before he continues speaking, "Their fat, stupid chief, Makore - that bloated sack - and his warlords, plot again, just as they always have." He peers around as though their enemies could emerge from the walls at any minute. "They want to take our silver mask, steal it like the common thieves they are. But we know the Boipakeng." His finger stabs the air for emphasis. "We are familiar with their envy and their schemes. We do not need to fear, we Batlhaping. They can't take the mask from our kraal so easily. How could the Boipakeng hope to take such a power unwillingly from its home?" As Malole reaches the effeminate man, sprawled dramatically on the ground, he holds his expression wooden and steps over him, thinking how satisfying it would be to stomp on the annoying face. "The Boipakeng will be sent running, with their tails between their legs again, running like the curs they are. How foolish that they even think about attacking us – they are no match for the spirit of the silver mask." He indicates the silver-faced shadow lurking near the pole.

The mask surveys the assembled villagers as they look at it, half fearful, fully awed. The shape lowers its arms slowly, but lifts them again, like a darting snake. A sound like a knife being sharpened hits the villagers, almost as a physical force. The shadowy fingers are elongated - sharp, pointed hands made of knives. Let it never be said that the spirits have no sense of drama.

The assembly gasps as one and draws back as the shape strides through them - a deity demanding worship. Malole's bearing is assuring, and his words calm and encourage the people. He does not have to speak loudly - they could not be more attentive if he was holding them tightly by the collective crotch. "Victory, Batlhaping."

He nods sagely, quite the inspirational leader in his own opinion, speaking his words like a prophet, certain that he has spoken the future. "We will have victory over the evil Boipakeng. The spirit of the silver mask will keep us safe and defeat the enemy, as it always has. Tonight, we will celebrate with the spirit of our silver mask. He will bless us with his presence, and he will help us prepare for the battle." The people start to relax. The shape melts away like the shadow it possibly is, and without bothering to move through the intervening space, the mask is back on the pole as though it had never left. The drummers start to drum again as Malole walks amongst the villagers, a warm glow in his heart. This is his tribe; the spirit of the mask is good; the Batlhaping have nothing to fear – not from the envious plotting of their enemies and certainly not from the supernatural masked spirit present at their celebrations. The enemy is foolish. The silver mask will never abandon its chosen worshippers. He sees the effeminate man again, and wonders what the man's father would have thought.

***

Upriver from the Batlhaping kraal is another kraal, its defences not dissimilar to those of the Batlhaping. Inside this village, painted warriors sharpen their spears. However, the atmosphere in this village is gloomy, more resigned than eager. The warriors ready themselves for battle in small groups, but they seem immensely lacking in confidence. Women and sullen children watch from the sidelines. The unity and homeliness to be seen in the Batlhaping kraal, the sense of family, is not present here. There is a darkness here that the fires cannot dispel, a coldness of the heart that they cannot warm. A wintry canker hangs over the Boipakeng. From a grass hut emerges the chief, Makore, ducking through the doorway. Makore is grossly overweight, and his ample gut wobbles with every step. Next to him walks the resplendently clad Boipakeng Sangoma, holding a staff of office hung with oddments and bones. He has distended earlobes and a warthog's tusk through his nose. Skins from gazelles, ornamented with dead-animal trinkets, make him jingle slightly. He is emaciated, and his thinness is made more noticeable next to the jelly-like bulk of the chief.

A warrior turns from sharpening his spear and nudges his companion. "Aardvark-arse has decided to join us." The companion looks up and groans, "Oh shit. Here we go again."

Makore holds up his hands, demanding audience. He is ignored by all present. After a moment, he clears his throat, but the warriors still ignore him.

The Boipakeng Sangoma shakes his head and steps forward. When he speaks, his voice is like the rasping of nails. As much as any listener would want to ignore it, it is impossible to do so; his voice is small as his frame, but still intrudes upon the consciousness of the people. "Warriors of the Boipakeng."

The warriors reluctantly stop what they are doing and give him their attention.

"Makore, your chief, will speak now."

The men, with as much diffidence as a pride of lions in the presence of a young and isolated gazelle, look at Makore, who awkwardly lowers his arms. The sputtering flames of the village bonfire cast Makore's shadow behind him, somehow enhancing the perception that there is little to him but stomach.

The villagers and warriors shuffle impatiently whilst Makore assembles his disrupted thoughts before eventually continuing, "Tonight we face our greatest test."

An anonymous voice interrupts discreetly, "Our greatest test is putting up with a donkey like him."

Makore doesn't hear the comment, but his eyes narrow in irritation as he observes a ripple of laughter moving outwards from one of the warriors. The warrior smiles insolently at the chief, who continues in annoyance, "Tomorrow we march on Chief Malole and the accursed Batlhaping. We have fasted and readied ourselves for two days."

At this point, someone burps long and loudly, causing Makore to falter in impotent anger.

The Boipakeng Sangoma moves forward amidst muttering and giggling from the warriors, stepping in front of the speechless chief. "Listen to the wisdom of Chief Makore." The men mutter louder, their demeanour threatens open revolt at any moment, and clearly they think that the wisdom of their chief is akin to the wisdom of the ostrich burying its head to avoid danger. But the Sangoma is wily; he knows how to make men think what he wants them to think, to believe in fake medicines, and imagined threats. He is a political force, the wisdom behind the throne. It is practically a job requirement. Somehow, he commands respect just as the fat chief commands none, if fear can also be called respect. Nobody has the courage to show open contempt towards him; at least, not yet.

The seething insolence of the assembly relents to grudging attention at Boipakeng Sangoma's words. "Health, and the wealth of great herds. These are what the Batlhaping have because of the silver mask. Why should our enemy have this wealth and not the Boipakeng?"

The men are more interested, despite themselves. In the kraal cow-pen, a bull snorts and tosses his head up and down as though in agreement.

The tusked, reedy Sangoma knows he is jerking the only string that will keep the men in line, for they are in no mood to suffer fools lightly. "The bones have told me that the silver mask is the source of the Batlhaping wealth. Their prosperity, their cattle and their fertile women are all gifts from the mask."

The men are more receptive, but a few of the women scowl. Some roll their eyes; they have heard this before. It seems that this is the single-minded passion of the tribe, and most of the women wonder whether things would perhaps be better if the men just got on with their own lives instead of wasting all their energies in jealous plotting against the tribe along the river.

"Always, always when I throw the bones, the mask is there. The spirits of our ancestors make it clear – we must take the mask, or it will destroy us." The Boipakeng Sangoma stops speaking, surveys the crowd, determines that he has their attention, and retreats.

Makore stands stupidly for a moment, and the Boipakeng Sangoma surreptitiously, but with some exasperation, motions him forward. Makore understands and steps towards the warriors. Their lips tighten a little, but they will listen now, such is the power of their medicine man. Makore assumes an air of authority and for a brief while the fat chief becomes an orator and a leader. "Tonight we feast, for tomorrow we take the silver mask." Makore clasps at the air as though grasping the mask. "The time of the Batlhaping is over. The time of prosperity and wealth for the Boipakeng is at hand."

The warriors regard him in silence, but at a threatening glare from the Sangoma, first one warrior, then two, then more, and finally the multitude, beat their shields with their spears. They work themselves up, as mobs always do in the face of overwhelming empirical justification that they are in fact doing exactly the wrong thing, and when the Sangoma throws his skinny arms to the night sky and screams, they also bellow their mindless approval. They brandish their spears and start to dance madly. The Boipakeng Sangoma waits for a moment, to be certain the fire is roaring and he does not need to fan it further, before he speaks under his breath to Makore, "If you weren't my sister's husband, I'd use your scrotum to throw the bones."

Makore smiles stupidly back.

### Chapter Two

The day's first sunshine lazily stretches its rays, as it does every morning, then snuggles in the comfortable pre-dawn, not quite willing to get up just yet, but soon decides to gingerly inspect what is over this side of the horizon. It finds the Batlhaping men digging holes with crude tools. The women pass by with refreshments and drinks from calabashes as the men dig. Kwazi looks up from the trench he is digging as the same young woman from last night's festivities walks past, and he smiles broadly. The effeminate man notices and slaps the back of his head again. Eventually, as the work continues, someone strikes up a song, and the tribe take up the chanting tune, like a forgotten chain gang. It is a mournful lay about a jilted lover who kills himself by fiercely attacking an enemy tribe on his own. The song fails to specify how many from the other side went down with him.

Malole sits in the shade of a tree, supervising the work. He does not notice as a passing bird bulls-eyes something unspeakable into his drinking gourd. Nearby, the Batlhaping Sangoma, invariably to be found sporting some form of loincloth, today is also wearing a western-style hat. Diligent detective work around this odd ensemble would reveal that the Dutch East India Company had been operating for some years, sometimes rather far off the beaten spice track, and had not built their incredible wealth by trading down. He had gained his prize hat right off the head of an adventurous Dutch explorer for the laughable cost of a couple of skins and a shiny stone. For some reason, the fool had been more excited about the stone, but that's the white man for you. Malole is upbeat. He is confident that his tribe will fend off any Boipakeng attacks, as they have done so many times in the past. This attitude has ever been popular amongst generals. Less successful ones are well known to have made comments like 'this city has always stood firm, so it will again; now tell me what is this thing they call a catapult that I've heard so much about?', but Malole has reason to be confident. With the silver mask on their side, how could the savages stand a chance? Still, fortune favours the prepared, and he scans the horizon regularly.

He is not yet quite completely informed about the silver mask's battle plan, having only been instructed to dig a bloody big trench, and is getting curious. He walks over to where the Sangoma is busily directing some of the preparations, from the comfort of his backside on soft ground in some shade, to quiz him. Malole plonks himself down next to the medicine man, and eyes the gourd before striking up the conversation in a casual tone. "So, we fill the trenches with sand, then what?"

The Sangoma takes a long swig from his own gourd before he answers, "When the evil sons of bitches attack, the mud will become like fresh cow dung."

Malole snorts. "You're shitting me."

The Batlhaping Sangoma raises his eyebrows and says nothing.

Malole considers both the mental image, as well as what he has just said. "That's disgusting." He starts laughing loudly.

The Batlhaping Sangoma also chuckles, but with more dignity. The Sangoma gets to his feet and sways, eyeing his gourd suspiciously for a second, then approaches the workers, leaving the chief to anticipate the outcome of this strategy. The Sangoma is well loved, so nobody really minds him palming off his share of the hard labour, and none object when he stands at the edge of the pit spouting helpful comments like 'work hard, men, the enemy is marching towards us' or 'the spirit in the mask will use these pits to defeat the Boipakeng, but you must hurry'.

***

Along the river, the Boipakeng warriors jog out from their kraal towards the Batlhaping village. Makore is carried on a litter by six bearers. He wobbles as his men run heavily, and often has some difficulty not falling off. He would be right in suspecting that this is not always purely accidental. The fact that they are bearing more weight than the average litter-bearer ever should is not lost on the bearers. He doesn't hear some unidentified grumbling from beneath the litter. "I wish he would lose some weight." Nor does he hear a voice of bitter agreement. "Yes, it would do him a lot of good to get some exercise." Makore feels that it is now necessary to scream encouragement to his troops. "My fittest and bravest of warriors, tomorrow we will celebrate with our silver mask." He is blissfully unaware of the continued theme of the conversation beneath him, as he nearly falls over first one side, then the other, of his litter. "My head feels like my wife broke a drinking gourd over it."

One of the anonymous speaker's five comrades is the very model of sympathy, but that is easily explained by the fact that the self-same comrade has his eye on the first speaker's sister. Others are more forthright in their commentaries. "Shut up and run."

"I think fat-arse can celebrate some more on his own."

"Shut up and run."

"I wish the sun was a little less bright today, as well."

"That shit we drank has a kick like a giraffe." The warriors run with their bare feet through a pile of fresh dung concealed in the grass. Apparently, a large buffalo with a stomach ailment had passed by shortly before, having not made it to the mud flats on time.

"Damn. I think I just stepped in something."

They run through the veldt, past a pride of lions. A male lion with a huge, shaggy mane licks his chops, but the troupe passes unimpeded. They startle a small herd of gazelles, which thunders off across the African plains. At least, the herd would thunder if there were more of them, but as it happens, they make the sound of perhaps a determined, but ultimately light, afternoon sprinkle.

The Batlhaping sentry sees the small cloud of dust approaching. Shielding his face from the sun, his eyes widen as he recognises the approaching attack. His reaction is the usual intellectual response reserved for use by military tacticians when seeing an enemy force approaching on the savannahs - he decides to call for help.

"Hai!" He starts beating a small drum, but on the first beat, the drumstick breaks. He looks at the broken stump briefly, swears under his breath, then screams into the village, "The Boipakeng! The Boipakeng!"

The Batlhaping warriors swarm onto their walls, armed with their spears and bows. Malole puffs his way to the centre of the rampart as the women hurry the children into the huts where, presumably, it will be a lot safer.

It is unknown why primitive villagers from every civilisation, at one point or another, when under attack by a barbarian horde, have sought refuge in flammable grass huts. It's not as though an enemy who fights his way through defences is likely to not poke an inquisitive nose into the structures to see what loot may be on offer, or set fire to the huts just for the hell of it. Some behaviour is just universal.

The Boipakeng deploy a way from the entrance to the Batlhaping kraal, just beyond the prepared trenches. They are grim, knowing what odds they are up against, and that some are unlikely to make it home. Still, the Sangoma consulted the bones. The group spreads out, keeping a concerned eye out for Batlhaping arrows. The approach to the kraal offers little in the way of concealment, so the only way will be to rush in a horde and hope enough survive to take out the defenders. The walls always look higher than they really are to attackers, and lower than they really are to defenders. If it wasn't for the Sangoma's dire warnings about the necessity to possess the mask, and the infallible messages from the bones, nobody would be twit enough to try this stunt.

The warriors of both sides brandish their weapons at each other. Archers on the ramparts and on the veldt prepare and wait for the command to fire. As Makore is helped from his litter, his posterior squishes into one of his litter-bearers' faces. He nearly falls, but recovers, and someone hands him his spear, with which he immediately nearly skewers his own foot before he steps to the front of the group. Inside the kraal, the silver mask is again on its pole. Its eyes are closed, but it opens one just a little. Atop the walls, Malole silences his men with a gesture. The Boipakeng also quiet to hear what the Batlhaping chief wants to say. Malole sniggers; he's going to enjoy this. "As a young man, I went on the hunt. I earned my spear and my manhood by bringing down the biggest and toughest animal I could find. I hunted Ndlovu, the great, tusked elephant. And as I hunted from behind Ndlovu, the elephant lifted his tail, and there I saw the likeness of Makore, chief of the Boipakeng, for under the elephant's tail is the biggest asshole in mother Africa." The warriors of the Batlhaping laugh so hard they can barely hold their weapons. The corners of the silver mask twitch upward ever so slightly, and a breeze appears to shake its pole.

Within a Batlhaping hut, an indignant woman places her hands, too late, over a child's fragile ears. But Malole's words are clear and loud, and some of the young ones titter, despite stern looks from the adults.

To the noble Makore's disgust, some of the Boipakeng men also find it difficult not to laugh. There is a snort and, when the chief whirls to glare at his mob, his gaze launches a concentrated epidemic of influenza symptoms, as hardly a warrior is not immediately overcome by the urge to cover his mouth and cough.

Lindo is a burly Boipakeng officer. His frame is not all rippling muscles and poster pin-up proportions, but Lindo's is the kind of solid strength one usually associates with baobab trees. Lindo is a solid, immovable traditionalist in stature and in outlook. He may find Makore as obnoxious as anybody, but there is a certain military necessity for men to follow orders, and respect the rank, however undeserving the incumbent. Lindo cannot stomach disrespect, particularly in the full view of an enemy laughing itself into a stupor atop their walls. If Makore is not respected, what does that make he who follows him?

Lindo's foghorn voice rips through the sniggering, bad discipline like a meteor landing in a kiddie's paddling pool, "This sweaty baboon insults us all, including your mothers and mine, and you think it's funny?" Lindo leans close enough to one of the men to treat him to years of nurtured halitosis. "When he insults the chief, he insults all the Boipakeng! Is this what the warriors of the Boipakeng have become? Your fathers would rather have had their manhood cut off and let the tribe die out than see you like this!"

The Boipakeng warriors sober up whilst the Batlhaping, atop their thorny walls, lean on their spears and enjoy the show. Down below, the Boipakeng shake their heads and stand a little straighter. Even Makore finds himself standing to attention when Lindo comes closer. Lindo stops in front of the chief, turns, and sneers at the assembled warriors on the walls of the kraal. "Are we going to stand here all day or do what we came for?"

The men start yelling and stomping, tightening their grips on their weapons.

Up on the defences, a Batlhaping warrior's grin fades to sobriety. "They're really going to attack."

His companion nods and spits, hefting his spear. "The Boipakeng – more stupid than the time whatsizname sat on the ant heap."

"You mean Pensa, the half-wit?"

"That's the one."

"Heh, heh. He couldn't sit properly for days." "Har, har. Remember that big soldier ant that attached itself to his.... Whoops! Here they come."

Below, Lindo holds his spear high and, without so much as a by-your-leave to his chief, screeches at the men, "Then kill them all, and the silver mask will be ours!"

Most of us, at some time or other, usually courtesy of a parent's exasperated wisdom, have had to ponder the question of whether or not, if so-and-so leapt into a fire or off a cliff, we would follow. This is a basic lesson taught to children everywhere, as common to all cultures as the instinct to hide in a flammable hut. The so-and-so referred to is always someone like Lindo - brave, inspirational, a true leader, and characterised by the tendency to do stupid things like charge, without much of a plan, against high, strong walls, protected by countless sharp arrows and a magic spirit, which has succeeded, without breaking into a sweat, against all attacks for as long as anyone can remember. It wouldn't occur to Lindo to perhaps nudge and wink a bit, and then loudly say something like 'well, well, look at the size of those walls. This is a suicidal waste of time; let's call this stunt off', and launch a sneak attack from the rear in the dead of night. No, Lindo would lead a daylight charge and the mob would follow, frothing at the mouth. Inside the kraal, as the Boipakeng charge, the silver mask's eyes snap fully open. A shimmering silvery magical mist starts to filter from the mouth and the mask floats free.

***

In the smoky torchlight, deep within the passages of stone, the snorting breath of a heavy animal, probably with horns, can be heard. In the gloom, two green eyes snap open.

***

As the Boipakeng warriors charge over the hidden pits, screaming and salivating, the shimmering mist beelines from the mask to the battlefield, and disseminates over the traps. The attackers find themselves running, without warning, in what appears at first to be quicksand. The fearsome war cries falter as the warriors find they have to concentrate on lifting their feet with a squelching, sucking sensation and matching noise. The ground, seemingly dry and hard, is darkening and softening as though water is seeping up from the sandy depths, and it sucks at them. Judging by the aroma, everybody else seems to have gone a bit heavy on an excessively spicy breakfast.

In the kraal the silver mask, free of the pole, rests on what could only be the face - couldn't it? - of the same shadowy shape from the previous evening's preparations. The shadow writhes uncomfortably as it tries to fit into three dimensions, gives up on this impossible task, and starts walking towards the gates. Its heavy footfalls vibrate the sand, and boom out from the kraal. The Batlhaping men look behind them towards the noise. The shadow-shape points to the attackers, who belatedly consider all the good advice they got from their wives and mothers about being careful and making it back in one piece. The Boipakeng, now face to face with the horror, decide that perhaps disobedience to the Sangoma is the lesser of two evils after all, and turn and try to run. Even Lindo, overcome by a sneak attack of clarity and common sense, reviews his military strategy. Nevertheless, the running gets more difficult as the ground gets worse. As they run, the flatulent, sucking noise from their footfalls can be heard from the walls. The shadow stoops through the gate of the kraal as the Boipakeng warriors philosophically start to consider their situation and options, and voices ring chaotically from multiple directions, each edged with increasing levels of panic.

"This smells like cow turd."

"It is cow turd."

"I know the mask makes them rich, but they don't have this many cattle."

"What the hell is that?"

"It's the silver mask!"

"Oh shit!"

"Stuff this, I'm going home!"

"Wait for me!"

The Boipakeng warriors hold their noses and drop their weapons, disgusted and dismayed, as the stench moves up on the stink scale. The rising panic engulfs them along with the noxious fragrance.

Chief Malole remembers the promise of the Sangoma \- it will become like fresh cow dung \- and he hopes to blazes the effects are short-term; after all, that's right outside the main gate and it stinks from here. On the walls, when the effeminate man screeches girlish laughter, his fellows freeze for a second, and then, in synchrony, turn their collective attention upon him. He is suitably abashed, and quiets down, hunching his shoulders.

Makore turns to flee, like the rest of his brave band, Lindo leading the charge to the rear, but because the chief's centre of gravity is rendered off-centre by his stomach, he trips and falls head first into the shit pit. One of his dauntless crew, holding his nose, runs over the chief's head, squishing his face down further. Makore gags as the noxious, brown, semi-solid gunk oozes into his mouth and nostrils. His eyes start to water. Another fearless warrior stomps on him in a blind, desperate flight, causing an instantly regretted inhaling reflex. The men of the Batlhaping laugh as the Boipakeng retreat in disorder. They are all some way off already when Makore heaves his bulk from the pit and wobbles after his feeing infantry, hands spreading muck over his face in a futile attempt to wipe it all away.

The shadow-thing watches, leaning nonchalantly on the wall of the kraal.

***

Evening sidles its way into the Boipakeng kraal. The plains are alive with the distinctive sounds of the South African night air. There is life everywhere in Africa. Insects and mammals create a harmonious backdrop melody, and in the distance, a die-hard bird chirps out a defiant sundowner before tucking its beak under a blanket-wing. The tribe is not interested in insects or birds, though; they wonder where the warriors are. Their minds fill with horrible fancies about which of their men will not be coming home. As usual, the Sangoma has not gone with them, instead remaining safe with the women and a token defensive force. The tribe all loathe the Sangoma, but none dare cross him - he has the protection of the spirits, after all. The women comfort the children, who wonder where their brothers and fathers are. A cry goes up as movement out over the veldt is eventually seen. The warriors are coming home and it is soon apparent that, incredibly, nobody is missing. Jubilation erupts. Children caper and scramble, while the women, catching sight of their loved ones, hang their heads, exhaustion suddenly grabbing them as relief pushes away the stranglehold of nervous and ominous expectation.

The defeated Boipakeng warriors, still covered in excrement, stumble into the kraal. The welcome turns sour almost instantly. A dog sniffs the air and runs off yelping, a cat hisses, a woman holds her nose. The villagers greeting the defeated soldiers can barely stomach the smell, and their smiles turn to grimaces. Some start running away. The cattle in their pens start lowing in distress, while a small sounder of pigs moves towards the far side of their pen. A child tugs at his mother, whose face is aghast. "Eish.

Mama, why does Daddy stink like that?"

The mother grabs him and starts running away. Makore is furious, and covered in more filth than any other. The warriors, in particular Lindo, have trouble meeting his gaze. Makore marches to the mouth of the Sangoma's hut, fury radiating from him like the shimmering heat of a baking savannah summer. "Sangoma! Sangoma! Get your skinny backside out here before I stake you out with honey for the ants." The Boipakeng Sangoma, trying not to gag, approaches, covering his nose with a piece of hide. Makore's finger is shaking with rage as he points it accusingly at the Sangoma. "We have washed, we have walked in the river, and we have rolled in the sand. Jabu even went and kicked the backside of a skunk to get some relief, but this stench keeps coming back."

A horrific thought occurs to the Sangoma. "You washed in the river - the one we drink from?"

Unseen by the villagers, a dead fish floats down the river, rejected by the scavengers, which swim from below or swoop from the skies above.

The filthy warriors gather around the chief, joining him in treating the Sangoma to looks of undisguised hatred, their eyes widened with rage. Some are even baring teeth. The Sangoma, never before having experienced this level of overt, undisguised, personal hostility, swallows and wisely decides that even the greatest men need humility once in a while. He has studied the spirit magic, and he knows exactly how well his diagnosis is going to be received. He takes a deep breath, instantly regretting it.

The chief's arms are folded, his foot is tapping on the sand, and he looks ready to commit murder. Children make animated exaggerations of the effects of the smell, irritating the warriors even further, as children are so skilled at doing.

"My Chieftain," The Sangoma looks at the ground, reluctant to speak. "This stink will go, but it will take at least three days."

The men clamour their discontent. The Sangoma is unsure whether or not he heard some references to himself as the principle player in a grizzly snuff scene.

"Three days!"

"You mean we must stink like this for three days?"

"I'd rather inhale the breath of a hyena."

In the distance, a pack of hyenas feed. One looks up, its jaws bloodied, with a hyena's toothy, smiling expression. "I say we kill the little shit right now!"

"The ants are going to feast tonight!"

While the warriors all contribute noisily and simultaneously, Makore remains still and silent, glowering at the Sangoma, not even looking at the warriors. Many powerful communicators have learnt that silence so often not only says what one wants to say, but slaps a bit of paint over it, dons a horror suit, adds in some terrifying mood music to fill any spaces still left in the imagination, and suggests, most eloquently, the worst things the listener can think of, as well. Makore's silence clangs across the village with far more force than the clamour of the infuriated troops. The Sangoma can barely speak, and the men stutter into silence to await the judgement of the chief.

Makore turns away and pushes through the warriors. The Sangoma watches him go and manfully controls his bladder as the warriors return their attention to him. One spits at the Sangoma's feet. After a minute, they seem to reject murder, and leave, one by one, grumbling, towards their huts. The other villagers look upon this fetid approach with revulsion. More run away, but Makore's wife approaches, holding her nose, and waggling her finger at him.

She shakes her head firmly. "Hai kona, Husband, if you come anywhere near my hut stinking like that, I swear by all the spirits of all the ancestors that you will never have another opportunity to have an heir."

Other wives murmur agreement, and shoo the men away. Eventually, the men wander a little way from the kraal, and sulkily start setting up a temporary camp.

### Chapter Three

Morning has not brought any relief or cheer; the mood is still sour as a cart full of lemons.

Makore stalks away from the group of filthy men, who have spent the night outside and downwind of the kraal. He notices some children playing, re-enacting the battle. A band of children watch a second group approaching from behind a grassy pretence fortress, as behind them a boy disguised in a toy mask waves his hands. The second band of children – erstwhile attackers - starts swimming in the sand then holds their noses as the first group watches them run away. The children laugh loudly. Makore's eyes narrow and he stalks through the gates towards the Sangoma's hut. Makore stalks into the hut without protocol. The Sangoma, puttering about inside, is alerted more by his sense of smell than by his ears to the arrival of the chief. He turns slowly, wishing he could hold his breath. He also wishes that he could tell the chief to take his stench out of his hut, but doesn't fancy his chances if he does. Makore is well aware of this, and takes his time, sitting, to the dismay of the Sangoma, on a grassy mat. That, notes the medicine man, will have to be thrown away. The tusk in his nostrils quivers, betraying his olfactory discomfort.

Makore is far from happy. His voice is low with menace, and gone is the gelatinous buffoon the Sangoma knows so well. "Now listen to me, and listen very well. If you want to remain here as Sangoma..." He manages to force the word out like a derisive insult, practically spitting it at the thin man. "You better give me some damn good advice about what to do about this mask." Makore leans closer in a conspiratorial fashion, enjoying the way the Sangoma gags and leans back. "Or your scrotum will decorate..." He shakes his head and waves vaguely. "...Something. I don't care what."

The Sangoma feels a well of desperation. He fancies he has lost control, and does not like this reversal of fortune. Makore waits for a satisfactory answer, but the Sangoma has none. "Er, perhaps their magic is just too strong for us." He screams a high, shrill shriek as Makore leaps forward and grabs him by the tusk through his nose. "Hey, let go! Ow!" He stretches on tiptoes as the fat chief pulls the tusk right up to his own face. The putrid stench makes the Sangoma's eyes water more than the pain in his nose.

"It's too late for that, you diseased hyena. I looked like an idiot and our whole tribe was humiliated. If this is not addressed soon, you will not live to regret it." Outside, some of the people stand in open-mouthed shock as they hear Makore. This is a new chief. The fat man has turned. "All right. All right." The Sangoma wishes his toes were a lot longer, and he is very aware of the audience lurking on the threshold. His schnoz is starting to feel like an elephant's trunk. Makore lets him go abruptly, and he sits down, rubbing his offended nose. It is difficult to see when one's eyes water like this; nobody has ever dared lay a hand upon witchdoctor before.

Makore sits back and the witchdoctor eyes him sullenly for as long as he dares. It seems the bastard will not leave until he has a solution. He spots an item on the floor, a small trinket he has had since... Since he first started in the ways of magic, and now he remembers the stories. The Sangoma recalls the tales of power, and how he, a skinny little victim, started on his own quest for knowledge. Ancient names float to the surface of his memory, names tainted with corruption and blood - names of power.

The Sangoma deliberately keeps his expression neutral, determined not to betray his internal relief at spotting a possible solution. "All right. There is one possibility I can think of. You sure you don't want to go sit outside and discuss this? All right then. Since the beginning of time, even before the lion first tasted buffalo, a witch, a spirit witch, a magician with the power to summon a Tokolosh..." Even the Sangoma lowers his voice at the mention of the demon, though Makore betrays no sentiment. "...has lived in a cave on the side of the great mountain." The Sangoma waves in the direction of the purple mountains many miles distant. He glances at the doorway, holds up a cautionary finger, and goes to shoo the milling owners of too many flapping ears away. He draws some welcome fresh air before turning back into the pungent interior. He sits down cross-legged to talk to the chief. Makore senses the weight of what is on the witchdoctor's mind, and leans closer. The Sangoma leans back, and continues, "There are some things, Makore, which are too potent for the ears of ordinary men to hear." He indicates the rabble outside, and takes some small satisfaction that this secret discussion will restore some of his lost standing in the eyes of the tribe. "This spirit witch is said to live half in our world of air, and half in a world of stone. His magic is strong and as irresistible as the changing of the seasons. Only the wisest Sangomas know about him, but we've all heard rumours. Children play games and we all fear him at night." The Sangoma gives a dramatic shudder to emphasise his point.

Makore rocks back, releasing another waft of stench.

"This spirit witch, and the Tokolosh, they are real?" The Sangoma glances past the chief through the mercifully open doorway. He is uncomfortable talking about this. There are some things perhaps even the devils fear. He lowers his voice to a reedy whisper. This has the unfortunate effect of inducing Makore to lean even closer to listen. "As real as the silver mask, Makore."

Makore considers this information. He calms down a little. The kettle is no longer boiling, but that, of course, does not mean it can't burn an incautious, curious hand. The smelly chief lowers his voice, too. "And this witch can help us?"

The Sangoma nods, trying in vain to hold his breath for a little while.

"Tell me what you know about the spirit witch. And don't think about messing with me anymore. I have had it up to here with you." Makore indicates a point as far above his head as his fat arms can reach.

The Sangoma nods, and continues, "His name is Ratsitanga, and he lives in a cave that is a gateway to the realm of the Tokolosh. This realm is, so the wisest Sangomas believe, passages of stone. I cannot go there." He holds up his hand as Makore opens his mouth to object. "I can't. The witch would kill a Sangoma for his magic powers. But I will draw you a map on a skin."

The Boipakeng Sangoma takes a piece of hide and some writing tools. His drawing is hastened by Makore lingering to watch, leaning, unwelcome, over his shoulder. When he is finished, the Sangoma proffers the hide to the chief. "Take some warriors with you, and many cattle to pay him. Do not try to bargain the spirit witch's price. The spirit witch will make you strong magic to defeat the Batlhaping and their mask. This is my best advice. Remember..." He takes a deep breath and instantly regrets it, coughs, and continues, "The witch looks as much a man as you or I, but it is not a human."

Makore widens his eyes. He says nothing, merely snatches the hide with the map and leaves. Behind him, the medicine man knows the stench will remain, cheerfully strangling the clean air in and around his hut for a long time. He imagines a fetid green cloud hanging over his home. The Sangoma stumbles outside like an escape artist when things haven't gone quite according to the script, certain that this is a great time to take in some of the sights and sounds of the outdoors. He leans on the wall of the hut, glowering at the people around him. They still fear him at least. He pulls a fierce face at a small child, who runs away with a strangled exclamation.

***

A week passes quickly, on the grounds that it would much rather not be anywhere near the stink. The smell gradually bids a fond farewell and, like a relative who has long outstayed his welcome, the warriors are glad to see the back of it. Life in the Boipakeng kraal returns to a sullen normality, of sorts.

The Sangoma has experienced pranks played upon him by the village children, a hitherto unthinkable experience.

***

Makore and four of his men, leading some cattle with a grass whip, walk towards the mountain. The four are: Lindo, the burly officer; Olerile, an extroverted man who tends to speak before he thinks, providing much entertainment on a regular basis as he continually attempts to extricate his feet from his mouth; Obakeng, an older warrior who is steadfast and dependable; and Motwedi, a skilled hunter. Makore no longer feels the need to be carried around in a litter; he is tired of the bearers' attempts to upset his balance. A rhinoceros bumbles by, and the nervous warriors ready their spears, but they are allowed to pass unhindered.

The march takes a day and a half. Makore's feet are not used to such long journeys, and he has blisters on both when, eventually, the party arrives at the destination indicated on the map. The mountain towers above them, the lower slopes deceptively gentle and inviting. There is a good deal of swearing as the men try to locate the cave entrance. After two hours, Obakeng throws down the map and stomps on it. "Of course, we should never have listened to that little turd. He's going to say 'I told you I've never been there'." The warrior spits angrily and squats on the ground. "At least Makore didn't have to be carried around again," observes Motwedi discreetly.

Makore is furious. The men's moods oscillate between enraged and dejected, but Makore maintains a cold, sullen fury that his men find quite out of character.

"Let's split up and look around some more," suggests Lindo. "The Sangoma never came here himself, so perhaps his map is only a little off." He picks up the discarded skin and shakes off the dust.

After much grumbling and prophetic declarations about what lies in the limited future of the tribal so-called healer - may he rot - the men agree to take a short break and then continue searching in groups of two.

Night falls and still they have had no luck. They squat around a fire, tired, irritated and disappointed. A little way off, the cattle chomp peacefully on the grass. Makore listens to the angry discontent of his warriors; their voices carry clearly in the night air.

"I'm going to stake the bastard out for the ants for sure."

"I'm not even going to bother. I want the pleasure of wringing his scrawny little neck with my own hands."

"What's that?"

"Just a bat"

"A bat?"

"Hai!"

The men jump up and look towards the bats flying out of the mountainside. A small out-jutting of rocks impedes their view of exactly where the bat cave must be, but it must be large for such a swarm. They gawp at each other in disbelief. Makore starts laughing; a low chuckle that prods a small toe into the potentially frigid waters of the world, determines that there is no danger, and emerges completely as a loud, raucous, carefree bellow. The laughing is infectious, and soon all the men are almost crying with relief.

Makore wipes his eyes and settles down. The men grin, tension ebbing away, and stretch comfortably around the fire. "Tomorrow, I will go into that cave." Makore's tone is sombre. "This is something I, as the chief, must do alone. I will find the spirit witch, if he is here at all."

The men's mood sobers. There is contemplative silence from the party as they listen to the crackling of the fire, the romantic calls of insects and the occasional shuffling and wet squelching of the cattle doing their part for the ecosystem. Makore looks up at the stars in the clear African sky. The cold of the night demands his attention, like an impatient creditor at his back, as the fire warms his front. He wonders fleetingly if this will be his last night, looks towards where the cave remains yet hidden above the rocky outcrop, and shivers. He alone will have to face the spirit witch. Even the Sangoma is too afraid to do that; not a comforting thought. He lays his head down, and sleeps, his troubled dreams filled with malign spirits displaying long leopard-fangs, silver masks that stink like a cesspit, and dark, foreboding caves full of chittering bats. In his dreams, the caves are lit by a smoky torchlight, and a pair of green eyes watches him. Below the eyes, lips part, revealing a smiling, snarling set of teeth. An old man cackles by a fire, and gnarled fingers ending in sharp claws seem to beckon him closer. The face of his tribal Sangoma floats behind him, scared and impotent. In the dream, Makore moves towards the old man by the fire, whose teeth are fangs as sharp as the claws on his hands. He starts to panic, and then his dream fades away, leaving him to more mundane nightmares.

***

Makore turns to look back down the mountainside at the upturned faces of his warriors, who watch him in the first light of the new day. He turns back from the warriors towards the wide cave mouth, hidden above the ledge, and waits a few moments for his breath to return to normal. His plenteous stomach has not been much of a help in getting up here; this physical exertion is not something the fat chief is used to, and he leans heavily upon the outcropping, in total ignorance, narrowly missing one of the deadliest scorpions on the continent. The cave mouth lurks like one of those insect eating plants – 'here, come into this place so I can kill you, little insect'. He peers into the gloom, waiting for his vision to adjust from the harsh morning glare. When he speaks, his speech comes out as a squeak; he clears his throat, and tries again. "Is anybody here?" Makore is fully aware that most normal people would feel self-conscious and stupid for asking such a question to an echoing cavern so far from the nearest human habitation, but he came all this way believing his Sangoma, so he might as well show faith for at least a little while more. Right now, though, that does not seem like the epitome of wisdom. A faint hissing returns from the cave, turning the back of his exposed neck cold. At the corner of his vision, Makore thinks he sees a darting shadow, but it is gone too quickly for him to be sure. He looks back again, in the direction of his guards, hidden now behind the rocks, and wishes they could come with him, yet somehow, in his vast gut, he knows this would not be acceptable. He looks at the crude map drawn by the Boipakeng Sangoma, swallows, and takes his first nervous step into the cave. Nothing bites his head off - so far, so good. He walks deeper into the cave, and cannot quite decide whether or not he can hear chittering and scurrying from the gloom within.

***

In the smoky semi-dark, the light flickers, as from guttering torches. A wind-like, howling moan makes its way from the furthest reaches of the passages, its origin unknown. The shadow of a small man, sitting cross-legged, cocks an ear and giggles.

***

Makore starts as he hears the same howling moan, but much reduced, like a wind blowing from far away. He sees a dull, greenish glow. The glow grows and, as his eyes become better used to the gloom, he can make out a small fire. Makore sweats, not only because of the temperature and exertion of the climb; he has never seen fire of such a hue before. Behind the flame sits a dark shape, which pushes Makore's mind back to his dreadful dream. He directs his gaze longingly back towards the entrance, shakes his head, steels himself, and ventures further in, towards the glow.

"Hello. I am looking for Ratsitanga, the cave witch? Ah, a spirit... WiiiOOOAW!"

He slips and falls, sliding down a slippery slope, straight towards the green glow. He lands hard on his wide, well-padded posterior, his stomach taking a few moments to realise that the rest of him has stopped. He comes to a halt just before the green flames, his legs splayed on either side of the fire. He quickly moves away, patting his testicles worriedly. In the dimness, he can barely make out an old man with white, blinded eyes, wrapped in a dark cloak, hunched behind the fire. The hunched figure sniggers, and Makore gulps, checking for the razor claws of his nightmare. The figure points upwards with a perfectly normal finger. "In caves like this, you get lots of bats. Bat guano is a bit slippery if you aren't careful."

Makore looks to where the man indicates, but cannot see where the ceiling is, let alone what nests there in droves. Next to the old man rests a simple wooden bowl, and as Makore's eyes become more used to the dimness, he makes out something writhing in it. The old man, as though detecting Makore's interest, plucks a mopane worm from the wriggling mass, swallows it, then beckons the chief closer as Makore tries to conceal his fear.

The old man smiles without mirth. "If I was going to harm you, I would have done so by now."

Though the white eyes stare past Makore in a disconcerting way, the fat chief has the distinct impression that the old man is quite capable of staring directly at him if he wants to.

Makore remains before the green fire with his legs splayed out, making no effort to move away or adjust position further. "I am... I am looking for Ratsitanga." The figure gulps another worm before responding, "And who is Ratsitanga?"

"I was told of Ratsitanga by the healer of my tribe. He said that Ratsitanga is a powerful Sangoma. I heard he is immortal; Ratsitanga, I mean, not my tribe's Sangoma." In the ominous gloom, Makore does not find his own words at all odd, though he does have the presence of mind to be aware that he is babbling.

"And what do you seek of him?" Another worm disappears down the throat.

Makore jerks his head as, beyond the light, something skitters. He searches hard, eyes narrowed, uncertain of whether or not he sees two green, glowing eyes staring back at him from the benighted recesses of the cave. He recalls the eyes staring at him from his own dreams. The skittering sounds again, but softer. Makore blinks towards the darkness, drawing the moment out, but the old man has patience, waiting for Makore to get over his awkwardness and deliver his answer in his own good time.

Makore finds it hard to look into the gloom and at the hunched figure at the same time, but his unease allows him to manage. Taking firm control of his recalcitrant voice, he addresses the old man, "I am Makore, chief of the Boipakeng." The figure savours this. "Makore. Makore. Boipakeng. Names are useful to know."

Swallowing, Makore continues, "I need a spell to help defeat a magic mask our enemies use against us. My tribe has attacked and done all that men can do, but we cannot get close to our enemies; their magic mask-spirit keeps us away. The old man leans closer, interested. "You seek a magic spell to defeat a magic mask?"

Makore's voice is much steadier than he would have expected. To himself, he sounds brave. His face is respectful, his bearing unafraid. This, too, is a mask. "Please, Grandfather, do you know where I can find Ratsitanga?" Another worm disappears. "Tell me of this mask." "It is a mask of silver; a magic mask. When we attacked as the spirits directed us, it turned the land to wet dung, and we could not get past it." Did the old man just snigger? "It is kept on a pole in the kraal of our enemies, the Batlhaping. While the mask remains in their clutches, the Boipakeng can never walk in peace, or hunt in freedom; we will always wonder when the Batlhaping will attack us and destroy our home. The spirits of our ancestors have spoken to our Sangoma. They tell him we must defeat the Batlhaping and destroy their mask, and I wouldn't want to anger my ancestors by disobedience, so I seek the help of Ratsitanga to fulfil their instructions."

The skittering becomes definite. Makore is startled to his feet when he also hears a deep, menacing growl, but the old man flaps at the darkness and the noise quiets. After a pause, during which Makore searches the darkness beyond the green glow with wide eyes, the old man wriggles his fingers at the fire, and it glows brighter. In the brighter light, Makore sees maggots infesting the old man's ragged clothes. The chief pulls his mouth in distaste, and for the first time he detects a faint smell, like rotting meat, coming from the old man. "You are him, aren't you? You are Ratsitanga, the immortal spirit witch?"

The old man ignores Makore's question, choosing instead to hunch his foul blankets closer around himself. He settles into the attitude of a venerable elder about to tell a story and impart wisdom to his junior, and therefore, by definition, to his inferior.

Makore leans forward involuntarily to listen as the man starts to speak. "The silver mask is of an ancient power, linked in the spirit world to the spirit bull. I know this spirit; it lives in the passages of stone deep under the ground, where the ground of our world becomes the lands of the stone spirits. The mask is the manifestation of the bull of the depths in the world outside the passages of stone. There is some aspect of the bull crafted into the mask, yes? A bull's nose, or some horns, perhaps?"

The chief recalls the small horns on the silver mask, and imagines that, yes, the face is somewhat bovine. He remembers that little weasel the Sangoma babbling something about passages of stone, as well. This is the right place; his calm, respectful exterior belies his excitement.

"This is true, wise one. The mask has horns, like a bull."

Makore waits for a while in silence, and when it seems his host will not volunteer any further information without a prompt, he asks, "How can we defeat this silver mask?" The old man clicks his tongue in irritation. "Are you not listening to me? You battle the spirit bull, not a mask. The mask is merely an object the bull has infused with his own power in this world of men. It is like the small finger you see around the doorway of your hut, when the whole creature is lurking on the outside, bigger and not known." Makore digests this information, considering the image, and swallows. This was not the news he wanted to hear. "Is there something we can do?"

The old man's expression becomes thoughtful. "The spirit bull has given all his power and his personality to the silver mask in this world. Here, there is practically nothing you can do to one so powerful. However..." The foul old man raises a finger and waggles his brow. "He is not alone in the passages of stone under the world."

"You mean that there are more like him, other spirits?"

The old man smiles. _The fat one is not as stupid as he looks; although, he muses, that's probably not hard_.

Outwardly, he shrugs and feeds a brittle twig into the fire. The light flares and the skittering is heard again, for a moment, from the dark recesses. He pops another wriggling worm into his mouth, savours it, and swallows before continuing his conversation with the chief.

"Like him, or not like him; makes no difference. The dwellers in the stone passages, powerful spirits, each with their own ambitions and purposes, usually don't co-operate." He chortles. "It is like that when dealing with minds who all regard themselves as king. No passage is big enough for any two such powers, and so they battle constantly for supremacy and territory. The power in silver mask in this world may perhaps be defeated by summoning another power, making another mask or talisman with a single purpose - to consume the power of the silver mask. If such a second mask has more of its owner's aspect than the silver mask has of the spirit bull's, and the right focus..." He shrugs again and takes another worm, as Makore contemplates the possibilities. The chief's whole being is screaming that he should just abandon this course and leave now, but he cannot bear the thought of returning to his kraal with his mission unfulfilled. Besides, the accursed Batlhaping seem happy and protected by their mask, so why should a mask made to defeat their enemies not be the ally of the Boipakeng? What's good for the one tribe is good for the other. Makore asks carefully, "And who could make such a mask?" The old man throws his head back and cackles maniacally.

"Foolish boy. You want another demon familiar in this world?" Makore's response is calm, quiet and confident, despite the insects flittering about in his gut. "If that is the only way, then I have no choice."

The old man giggles, spitting bits of half-eaten mopane worm. "If that is your request, then I will help you for only a nominal payment – twenty-three cattle."

It is not lost on Makore that the witch has asked for the exact number of cattle he has brought with him, tethered at the bottom of the mountain, just outside and a world away, but his decision is instantaneous. "Done. We have an accord, spirit witch."

Ratsitanga makes a dismissive motion. "Make a fire and sleep outside Ratsitanga's cave. Do not come back in before three days have passed, then you will have your weapon." The old man's white eyes gaze directly at the chief. Makore knows in his innermost soul that there are still many things being concealed from him, and questions he should be asking, but he does not know what they are. He casts about; the small circle of greenish light seems a very small defence against a very large and encompassing gloom. "Thank you, wise one." Makore stands and inclines his head respectfully. As he starts to back away, he slips again on the guano, hefts his bulk inelegantly, and is halfway to his feet when a growl from the darkened depths of the cavern freezes his feet to the floor. This is a growl that means business. Makore looks into the gloom, and sees two green eyes approaching. As the eyes come closer, he can make out a huge dog, slavering uncontrollably, leaving a sticky wet trail on the cavern floor. Its coat seems to be not quite black - blue? Its eyes glow greener as it nears, reflecting the fire. Makore feels the stare of the dog pulling on his sanity, stripping at it like a weight that will inevitably break a brittle reed. The dog moves to Ratsitanga, who feels for it, and grasps the scruff of its neck as his blind eyes stare past the chief again. The old man's smile is everything that is sinful, deceitful, repugnant and evil. Makore stuffs his fist into his mouth just in time to stifle a scream, and flees, scrambling out the cave, dignity be damned.

Ratsinga's voice buffets him, "Three days and twentythree cattle. You have a bargain with Ratsinga, little chief; beware he who fails to keep his pact with Ratsitanga." The laughter resumes, not maniacal, but genuinely amused, which is a lot scarier. The dog's snarl underpins it, and the skittering becomes louder. Makore imagines the source of the skittering to be an uncountable horde of things multiple legged, carapaced and mandibled; things never seen even under rocks, rushing to intercept him before he can leave the cave. Makore scrambles out from the gloom in fright, into the friendly daylight of a different world. He brushes himself as though something vile was on his person, and looks back at the cave as his men watch him.

Makore feels the need to say something, but can't manage much more than, "Hau!" He feels physically drained; mentally, he is exhausted. The realisation of his actions flickers in his mind. Makore is, after all, only human, and he has only an inkling of the full extent of his bargain. He lowers his head in his hands and mutters, "What have I done?" After a few minutes, when it becomes clear that their corpulent chief is under some stress, and is in need of some moral support, his four Boipakeng warrior-companions climb to the ledge and, gently taking Makore by his arms, lead him down to where the cattle turn grass into fertilizer.

All their lives, they have been brought up on the fringes of African magic. The witchdoctor educated them in the realities of the spirits and the ancestors, but it was always somehow theoretical. Today, their chief crossed a boundary that even the Sangomas shy away from. They have an itching feeling, like a pilgrim who has ventured past some unseen, unknown boundary and is now trapped and can never go back. How right they are.

### Chapter Four

The three days of waiting pass. The merciless infinity of the South African veldt does not change; the dawns and evenings turn the landscape to a colour cacophony of reds, oranges, browns, yellows and blacks, and during the days, the sun bakes down like the bully it is, challenging the moisture hiding in the ground and in the plants to get up and fight. It is time to return to Ratsitanga's cave. Makore hasn't spoken much of what he has seen, nor enlightened them as to the terms of their bargain any more than needed, and the men wisely feel that they probably shouldn't know. Makore, armed with a torch, enters quietly into the hole, steps gingerly about the guano, and tries to call out, but like before, only a squeak emerges. He clears his throat and calls softly, "Ratsinga? Wise man, are you here?" He hears the same low growl, and starts. His eyes are wide and white in his dark face, and his breathing is a lot louder than he would prefer. He wants to cry, but continues shakily. A green flame flares ahead of him in the darkness, and he almost gets whiplash jerking his face towards it, where Ratsinga sits again at his fire.

The white eyes stare past Makore, but Ratsitanga beckons him, leaving little doubt that the old one knows exactly where he is. "Come closer, little chief."

Makore obeys, looking about him. The witch motions him to sit, which he does. He realises he has sat in the guano again, but stays still, worrying that any sudden movements on his part might make the black - or possibly blue - mutt nervous, and that that would in turn make the chief's nerve fail, and then he'd soil his skins. The dog is nowhere to be seen, which, instead of comforting him, merely makes Makore wish that he also had eyes in the back of his head. Next to Ratsitanga is a wooden trunk of the white man's style. The witch pokes at the fire with a stick. The unnatural green light is disturbed by something dark and writhing in the flames. To look at the vision hurts all the way to the back of the eyes, so Makore makes sure he pays his attention elsewhere. The old bugger is enjoying this. Watching his host poking at a fire, saying nothing, Makore has no doubt that the witch knows exactly how nervous his guest is and is relishing every second. He forbears, waiting for his host to speak first.

"Little chief, in the stone passages lurk many dark and dangerous spirits. The spirit of the silver mask, the spirit bull, has powerful enemies, more than he alone can defeat. With some effort, these can be tricked into all believing that the bull is their paramount enemy. The spirit bull flees from them in the gloom below the earth, to where it can hide in the darkness. Across the plains and over great waters, the pale people have stories, ancient stories, of spirit bulls wandering in the stone passages, but their stories are only shadows of the truth. They think their ancestors made the passages, and imprisoned the spirit bull in them." Ratsitanga pauses and smiles at some bit of knowledge Makore does not share.

He, the chief, couldn't care less about the pale people. His only observations of them have been of rank ignorance anyway. He would expect them to have the butt-end of the truth.

Ratsitanga beckons Makore to lean closer, and whispers, more for effect than for genuine danger, "Your enemies are the same. They also don't understand the mask or what's behind it."

The chittering is noticeable by its absence. It strikes Makore that everything that was down here on his last trip making a noise is now either listening very carefully to this campfire tale, or has fled for safer darkness. His attention snaps back as Ratsitanga continues his revelations. "No, the pale people have it wrong. There is a spirit, half man and half beast, and it does wander around in a maze of passages, just like in their legends, but they are wrong about two things. They think the passages are beneath the earth, and they think, just like you, little chief, that the spirit bull is evil. But the spirit bull is not evil. It is a good spirit trapped in the stones of evil." The old man looks past Makore and smiles wickedly.

As Makore looks fearfully into the silent darkness, the old man makes a sudden movement, just stoking his fire, but Makore's wide eyes snap back to Ratsitanga, almost paralysed with fear.

The old man is not yet finished talking. Makore suspects he was enjoying rubbing his nose in the knowledge that the Boipakeng have totally misperceived the nature of the Batlhaping guardian.

Ratsitanga leans back and continues at a more conversational volume, "But the spirit bull uses the silver mask to escape into the light for short times. Into your... into our world. The problem, for him, is that in this world there is no place dark enough to hide. There are no passages of stone in which to seek safety. The silver mask has enemies, oh yes. And you have caused them to be summoned here. Here where there are no passages, and no darkness to hide in. The spirit bull has enemies, powerful, dark, spirit enemies." The old man pauses. "Tokolosh enemies."

Ratsitanga again waits for a few moments to let what he has said sink in.

Makore becomes aware that his mouth is open and that he is drooling. He licks his lips, and, quieter than Ratsitanga can hear, he whispers the unwelcome knowledge, "I am the villain?"

Ratsitanga twirls his stick in a complex movement, whirling too rapidly for Makore to follow. Again, as he tries to watch, he gets a distinct and painful impression that his eyes are not quite adequate to see what is before him. Reality bends, and Ratsitanga pulls a small, dark shadow from the flames. The shadow writhes in his hand like a solid thing. Makore is strongly reminded of the shadows he saw manifested about the silver mask, and he attempts vainly to hide his face. Ratsinga's cruel laughter assails him and he cannot make it stop. The cavern rocks vibrate faintly as the echo reverberates around the vast chamber like a lost soul. Makore uncovers his eyes, peeping through a slit between two fingers, and regrets it. A fetid wind whips about the cavern, playing a monstrous, surreal type of tag with the sound, calling to mind the smell of a battlefield or an open grave. The shadow congeals about Ratsitanga's face, so that it is difficult to tell whether the shadow is attacking or obeying the spirit witch. The shadow becomes more solid, like a black mask on the face of the witch. The witch, or the mask, opens its mouth and howls - a piercing, nails-on-blackboard type of noise. The wind and the noise abruptly stop. Ratsitanga lifts a solid black shadow mask from his face. Its features are Ratsitanga's, but its expression is far more maleficent. The witch holds it out for his guest to examine. "The black mask; your weapon."

Makore becomes aware of how idiotic he must appear; peering out between his fingers like a toddler, and shakily lowers his hands.

Ratsitanga pulls the wooden chest closer. He places the mask inside the chest and binds it tightly with a stout cord, all the while still staring beyond Makore with his white eyes. About the chest, an almost imaginary, mystical black shadow-mist can be seen.

"Be warned, Makore of the Boipakeng, your weapon is a talisman, which focuses the darkest, the most ancient evil. It will bring bad muti to anyone else who possesses it. You have seen only the beginning. By the time the sun is high in the sky, none may gaze upon it."

Ratsitanga holds the wooden trunk to Makore. Makore gets onto his unsteady legs, and grunts with the effort of taking the trunk, though the old man does not seem to notice its weight.

"Thank you, wise one." Makore inclines his head respectfully.

He looks at the trunk reverentially, and an idea knocks on the door of his mind. After a while, the chief lets it in to lounge around and occupy the place, "Wise one, how do I get rid of the black mask when its work here is done?" Ratsitanga's little sigh of satisfaction is disturbing. He adjusts himself to sit comfortably before responding with obvious relish. "In the darkness of Ratsitanga's stone walls was it conceived. Here was the magic worked that bound the Tokolosh to the black mask. Here it was birthed, and only here can it be broken to banish the Tokolosh inside again. Only I can do that." Ratsitanga leans closer. He beckons Makore, who leans forward, backside sticking out awkwardly, and stomach swinging outwards above his loincloth. "But I won't." Time stands still for a split second as the horror almost dawns upon him. Then Makore's little idea shrugs, and his mind activates a tried and true mental defence mechanism - it pretends it isn't there. Ratsitanga's malign grin is, Makore notices, no longer focussed behind him, but directly on his face; he just knows he has made a deal with evil. He has two choices - make a dignified retreat as though in control, or drop the trunk and make a break for it. Unfortunately, dignity wins.

"Thank you, Ratsinga."

Ratsitanga grins even wider, displaying distinctly pointed teeth. Green pinpoints close from behind him, and the blue hound appears at his side from the gloom, materialising like smoke. They both eye Makore silently, predatorily, as he scrambles back.

Makore bursts from the cave as fast as he can, struggling with the wooden trunk, into the unspoilt early morning. A fresh breeze carries the various scents and biological aromas distinct to the great grasslands. His guard looks at him with a new-found respect.

Motwedi offers him a helping hand down the steep incline.

"Nkosi, you are brave to go to the cave of the spirit witch." Makore puffs himself up; his stomach seems to rise to his chest. He passes the trunk to Lindo to carry, and starts to issue instructions, understandably as eager to leave as a salesman straight after the cheque is cleared. "Leave the cattle tied here for the witch, and take this. Soon, we will destroy the silver mask, and the Batlhaping with it." The men grin broadly and comply without hesitation. Perhaps the Sangoma saw the future after all. Finally – a chance to defeat their enemies. Makore cherishes the feeling of his commands being obeyed, definitely one of the most palatable aspects of being a chief. They heft their light travelling packs and weapons, and move off.

***

Adam and Eve were kicked out of Eden for disobedience. It is an unavoidable human condition that we can never do as we're told, despite threats and warnings from higher powers, or even solid belts alongside the head.

Makore halts his guards for a rest, enjoying subtle looks of respect the men give him. He squints at the high, blazing orb as he lounges upon a convenient rock, and rubs the sweat from his brow with a forearm, and thinks, the witch said the _magic should be finished its work now. The weapon in the trunk is ready._

Makore adopts a pose better suited to contemplation – he draws his knees in, rests his elbows on them, and rests his chin on his fist, assembling his thoughts. He finds it easier to mutter out loud, "What did the spirit witch say exactly? 'None may gaze upon it'. 'Gaze' surely means a long, hard, stare, not a quick peek. The weapon is mine; I bargained with the witch and I commissioned the talisman, so surely I am exempt from this warning? Surely the trunk must be opened somehow, else how will my tribe use the weapon? He said no one else may possess it, so only I can control it, surely? Yes, that must be it."

His mind made up, Makore, Boipakeng chief and leader of men, lumbers to his feet, leaving the rock stained wet with sweat where he sat. A flock of birds flap by overhead, oblivious to the drama unfolding on the grasslands beneath them. Makore beckons the warriors closer and, as they gather round, he pulls the witch's chest deliberately before him. He is satisfied to hear an anticipatory intake of breath. "We may not stare long at it, so I will take a quick, small look only. I'll look inside, and you stay ready to slam the lid shut quickly, just in case."

The guards gather eagerly, little flies around a pile of dung. Makore has not yet shared with them the nature of the weapon, as he prefers to be a little mysterious about it. Olerile looks at the others, and clears his throat to take the lead. "What is inside, Makore?"

Makore looks at them for a long, suspenseful moment. He enjoys letting their anticipation escalate before he decides on a simple response. "Inside is a demon spirit – a black mask."

"A black mask?" Olerile's eyebrows shoot up. Makore nods. They consider this a while, then shrug and nod. Who are they to question the wisdom of chiefs and medicine men? It makes some sense, after all – their enemies are empowered by a mask; why shouldn't the Boipakeng have one, too?

Makore claps his hands, and rubs the palms together, eagerness competing with his desire to appear insouciant. "Let's look inside."

The guards take positions behind the trunk, ready to close it quickly. Makore squints again at the sun belting down like a super-hot ball of fire in the sky. He unties the rope binding the box. A monkey troop in a nearby tree looks on inquisitively, punctuating the air with their periodic chatter. Makore nods and Motwedi opens the trunk. Nothing special happens, so Makore bends down, and carefully peeps into the murky interior. With a loud bang the lid snaps shut on Makore's head, tendrils of black, possibly smoke, puff out around his neck. His backside is raised high in the air, like that of a nervous ostrich. He starts kicking and tugging, but can't get free because his head is firmly trapped. "Help! Oh Shit! No! Oh Ancestors! Help!" Makore's panicked screech is like a hunting eagle in the mountains –shrill and distant, dampened somehow by more than just the wood of the chest.

The guards take the lead from their great and fearless leader, and panic along with him. Lindo and Obakeng grab Makore's legs to pull, but, though his legs may easily be moved, in this case from underneath his wildly convulsing bulk, his head remains firmly wedged inside the trunk, ensuring that he falls heavily on his fat stomach, wobbling. The monkey troop's chattering reaches a new frenzy in the excitement. Lindo, despite the immediacy of the problem and his concentration on the chief's flailing appendages, notes the animals, and is irritated by the way they appear to laugh. Olerile scratches his head. "Eish!"

Motwedi tries to break the trunk by banging on the lid with a rock.

Makore's voice is muffled. "Ow! Don't do that! You're squashing my head, you idiot. What is this thing? Let go! No! Help! Shit! Shit! Shit!"

The warriors are completely baffled, and their panic levels start to increase.

Motwedi drops the rock. "How do we open this thing?"

Olerile's voice starts to rise in pitch. "The demon! The black mask! It's eating the chief!"

Lindo listens to his companions, looks at the chief's wildly waving bottom, and shakes his head uncharacteristically. "Once an idiot..."

Makore screams and babbles. The monkeys jump between the branches of the tree in agitation, baring their teeth and screeching along with him. Obakeng rushes to the tree, picks up a branch from the ground, and uses it to try to lever the trunk open. It breaks off in the trunk. He stares at it stupidly.

Makore's screaming rises up a notch. "Ow! That was my ear, you fool."

Lindo and Obakeng grab Makore as the others attempt to pry the trunk lid open. Makore pops out, but the warriors do not see his face at fist. As the impediment is dragged painfully free, the lid clatters shut, and the trunk shudders to rest on the ground.

Obakeng places his hand on the chief's shoulder. "Are you all ri... Eish!"

He jumps back as Makore pivots towards him, for on Makore's face is an ugly black mask.

Makore is out of the trunk, but still up to his eyeballs in trouble. Free from the wood's grip, he finds that he is now able to move sufficiently to run around in small circles, clutching his face and screaming like a maiden: "Get it off! Get it off! Something's sucking my face off!"

Makore starts dancing about. The guards try to pull the mask off. This seems to hurt, and Makore screams louder. He stops, stands still for a ghastly moment, and turns his face, which is fleetingly the visage of an old man with white eyes and pointed teeth, towards his warriors. The eyes on the mask narrow, and Makore's tongue flicks out. Was it forked? The warriors back away. An unseen force picks up Obakeng and throws him towards the monkeys' tree. He hits, spread-eagled, about two metres up, and slips down the bark like jam from a spoon, sustaining a nasty splinter in a most tender part of his anatomy. The monkeys scatter, screeching their annoyance. Lindo's face contorts and he grabs at his crotch, falling weakly. It takes no great powers of detection at all to realise that something invisible to the human eye is attacking them and that it is strong and very skilled at fighting dirty. Motwedi and Olerile's heads are bashed together by the unseen assailant, like footballers contesting an airborne ball. Makore squalls effeminately, and again runs in a circle, clutching at his face. He runs straight into the tree and falls over, dazed but still yelling and trying to pull the mask off. The warriors are hit hard repeatedly by the unseen assailant and, after several seconds of inhuman screaming from everywhere at once, and some distinctly human screaming from the vicinity of each warrior, manage to run away from the widespread physical abuse, tripping and stubbing toes in the treacherous veldt, making more noise than the monkeys, and batting at the air as though it was filled with a swarm of psychotic wasps.

***

Within the arcane passages, shadows play on the smoky walls as light from unseen torches gutters. Wild, high-pitched laughter shrieks out in the hollow stone. The shadow of a small man, with an impossibly gigantic appendage hanging between his legs, darts past.

***

Makore repeatedly butts a tree with his head. This is not of his doing. Something very strong seems to have him by hair he could swear was never short enough to get a grip on. An unseen hand lifts him by his arm and loincloth, crushing his testicles in the process, and dumps him head first into a hollow in the tree. He screams and pulls away followed by a small and very offended arboreal mammal. He is once again lifted into the air, impossibly high, and his posterior deposited into a hive in the tree. He screams some more, leaps to the ground, and runs a short distance before scraping his buttocks on the ground like a dog. By this time, Makore's voice is raw, but that doesn't stop him from dumping several more decibels into the midday heat. As he drags his stinging backside along, the ground turns to a dreadfully familiar consistency. The smell is reminiscent of the earth outside the Batlhaping kraal on that fateful day. Makore sinks into the dung again, screaming and blubbering.

Apparently, the black mask has a wicked sense of humour.

***

Shadows dance on the rough, ancient walls. The cackling laughter gets louder. The shadow of the small man with the gigantic appendage looks backwards as a horned shadow appears. The laughter stops, and the small man runs off, blurring the walls and hurting the eyes even more with supernatural speed.

***

The black mask flies from Makore's face back into the trunk, pausing only to open it like an obscene, animated crowbar. Makore crawls weakly to the trunk and slams it shut. With the last of his strength, he almost ties the cord again, but cannot manage it, before he collapses over the lid and passes out. His face is a mess of welts, his posterior is still speckled with insects' poison sacks, he is covered in excrement, and he is all alone.

***

It is evening in the Boipakeng kraal.

The villagers have been keeping watch ever since the four shaken warriors returned the previous day, stumbling and babbling, without the chief. The people are sullen and apprehensive, and well-armed search parties have not found Makore.

The sentry, alerted by a movement out in the grass, squints against the late afternoon glare, and shades his face with his hands to see better. The villagers are as taut as a bowstring, so it won't do to raise any kind of alarm until he is sure. That might be old man baboon come to steal again, for all he knows, or some other animal. However, as the figure gets nearer, the sentry's face breaks into a smile so wide he barely has enough cheeks to host it.

He bangs his drum jubilantly, and capers about on his sentry station. "It's the chief! It's Makore! The chief is back!"

The villagers run to the entrance. Makore's wife exits her hut, a vacant expression on her face. She has spent the last day frightened that she was a widow. So hard has she prayed to the spirits and waited for this news that she now almost cannot believe it. A woman grabs her, smiling broadly, and drags her in a euphoric daze to the gate. Makore stumbles up, clutching the bound trunk. As the mob shouts and stamps, the Sangoma breathes a huge sigh of relief. The warriors do not attempt to contain their elation, and laugh loud and hard, clapping each other on the back and punching playfully. Makore's wife, pushed through the parting crowd, pauses for just a moment to savour the joy of her husband, the great hero, coming home, then runs towards him. She stops short. His face is a mess, and he looks terrible, but there is something else about him that is far more noticeable. He is covered in brown muck and her traitorous memory flies back to the day of ignominious defeat, when the warriors returned as rancid as a polecat from the cursed Batlhaping village. He pongs exactly the same now as he did then. Her face screws up in abject disgust. A dog sniffs and runs off yelping, a cat hisses, and a small sounder of swine moves to the far end of their pen. The villagers hold their noses.

Makore remembers well his girlish screaming in front of his faithful warriors out on the veldt, those four who lit off as fast as a cheetah, and he is in no mood to take lip from anyone. He snarls at the villagers, as if daring any of them to challenge his right to enter, smell or no smell, and deliberately places the trunk on the ground in front of him. "Get me the Sangoma."

Lindo and Obakeng guards run up, but as Lindo makes to speak, Makore stops him by holding up his hand. "One word from you and I'll spend the night in your hut, on the same mat as you. In fact, I think I'll hold you in my arms."

The guards slink back as the Boipakeng Sangoma scurries forward, holding his nose.

### Chapter Five

In the dark outside the Batlhaping kraal, the four Boipakeng warriors, disgraced by their well-publicised desertion of the chief, crawl towards the walls, carrying the white man's trunk, the key to regaining some of their lost honour.

If Makore's side of the tale is to be believed, the chief single-handedly fought off a horde of supernatural attackers long after his warriors had already fled the battlefield - the battling lone hero. This is the stuff of legends, and it didn't take the children long to start enacting the scene in their games. It was not something the warriors enjoyed watching, though the chief delighted inwardly at his pleasant reversal of fortune.

The warriors are now the instrument of war – key pawns in the Boipakeng battle plan. This is their moment of redemption, their opportunity to regain their honour and their place in the tribe's folklore for future generations. They converse softly between themselves, aware of how deceptively well sound carries at night in the bush.

"How do we get the thing open?" asks Obakeng.

"Buggered if I know," responds Motwedi.

"Why can't we leave the trunk as a present and let them open it for themselves? Ow!"

The last speaker, Olerile, rubs behind his head. The others glare at him.

Obakeng's face is practically a snarl. "Baboon brains. They'll think it's a trap, full of bees or snakes or something. You don't just drag something like that into your village. Obviously, it would be an enemy trick. Might as well leave them a statue big enough to hold an impi* and hope they'll drag it in..." (*warrior cadre)

The fourth warrior, Lindo, is less concerned with the squabbles of his comrades than with the task at hand. He remembers all too well what happened when Makore, the great war hero, stuck his inquisitive nose into the trunk last time. He motions the others to silence. "Makore said to make sure we open and release it at the Batlhaping kraal. I, for one, am not in the mood to disobey the fat man right now." Obakeng holds his hands out in an attitude of questioning. "So what do we do?"

"How about we play stones? The one who chooses the small stone gets to go out there and take one for the team." Olerile ducks, just in case nobody likes this idea, either.

"Don't be a donkey's ass. We'll leave the box over there, and pull the lid open with a rope from here." "Good idea, Motwedi. Who's got some rope?" Olerile's eyebrows rise as he asks.

They all hesitate. Lindo throws up his hands in an 'it's difficult to soar with the eagles when you're down here crawling in the dirt where the tortoises crap' type of attitude. "Sha..."

A little while later, Olerile holds up a short, quicklymade, plaited grass rope. The commandos stealthily place the trunk as near to the entrance to the kraal as they dare, and attach the rope. From behind, they attempt to pull the trunk open. The vine breaks. They look at Olerile, who weaved it. He shrugs.

Lindo sighs in exasperation. "It's getting lighter. We have to go open it by hand. If we all do this together, perhaps then the mask won't single out one of us." Obakeng can't think of any better idea. "Perhaps it'll go to the village. That's why we are here."

Lindo nods. "Right, but we open from behind. I saw what happened to the fat man and I don't want my ass sticking out for some Batlhaping arrow practice."

They sneak closer, and freeze for a moment as a sentry looks out from one of the platforms. As the guard settles back, they continue forwards. Olerile grunts and sits heavily. Lindo halts the others, "What's the matter?"

"Thorn."

"Well pull it out and keep quiet."

Olerile gestures rudely.

Eventually, they manoeuvre the trunk into position. They nod in unison three times, open the trunk and try to run, but the black mask flies from the trunk, spins in the air, fixates on the men, narrows its eyes malevolently, and replicates itself into four separate black shadows, which fly and attach to the men's faces. Gone is any attempt at stealth. They scream and run about blindly, clawing at their faces. Obakeng and Motwedi bash hard into each another. Olerile trips backwards, lands heavily in a thorn bush, and screams while holding his buttocks with one hand and clawing at his face with the other. Lindo is running around in loud circles, oblivious to the danger he poses to himself and to his comrades' exposed feet.

On the walls, the alerted sentries start beating drums. One of them holds up four fingers to indicate number of attackers, and it is a matter of minutes before the Batlhaping warriors are assembled, fully armed. The women herd some of the more curious children, those who wandered out in the predawn to see what was going on, on the grounds that 'the warriors can go out, so why can't we?', back into the flammable huts.

The gate to the kraal is pulled back with caution, and eyes peer out, white against the dark faces. At the very instant that the opening of the gate exposes the inner kraal, the eyes of the silver mask perched atop its pole snap open. The masked heads of all four Boipakeng warriors whip in unison towards it, and the eye slits of their masks narrow. As the Batlhaping warriors take a few tentative steps outside the gate, checking for traps and enemies in the dark, the four masks fly off the faces of the Boipakeng and back into the trunk, which snaps shut with a shudder. The remnants of night provide sufficient cover for this to pass unnoticed by the Batlhaping, though, and their only observation is of four idiots going berserk.

Down below, free from the unwelcome facial attachments, the Boipakeng warriors waste no time and, high on adrenalin and fear, flee, yelling, into the night. As they flee, a snake-eyed sentry finds the pre-dawn light sufficient to make out that they are Boipakeng, and bellows their identity to the assembled troops below.

At the mention of the Boipakeng, a few arrows whistle past the fleeing warriors' ears as the Batlhaping archers take pot shots. One of the archers hears a small scream of pain, and smirks in satisfaction.

More of the Batlhaping tribe emerge, armed, but soon satisfy themselves that the intruders have fled, and turn their attention to the curious white man's trunk. Chief Malole and some elders step out of the kraal. The elders are well known for procrastination, but Malole is loath to snap orders at them unnecessarily. He waits while the inevitable debate of the venerable plays itself out.

"Wait, brothers. It may be a trap."

"Why did they scream like that when they were so close to our gates?"

"Perhaps they lay on an ant nest."

The other elders consider this a moment.

"Y' mean like Pensa, the half-wit, that time?"

"Doubt it."

"Well, I don't know. Perhaps our mask had something to do with it?" On cue, they look at the silver mask atop its pole. The eyes are wide open, so this seems a potentially satisfactory explanation.

"Could be this thing is full of their weapons. They didn't have time to carry them off when we attacked."

"Could be, could be..."

"They started shouting before we attacked."

"That's true. Hmm."

"I say it's a trap. What would they be doing with this white man's monstrosity?"

"You have a point."

"Didn't I say up front it was a trap? I did."

Malole throws up his hands in irritation. "Bring it in, and we will consult our Sangoma about what to do with it."

"Into the kraal?"

"Is that the best thing to do?"

Malole eyes the elders askance. "Why not? Do you think perhaps there are some Boipakeng hidden in that small thing? Perhaps they will jump out at us and burn the kraal while we sleep?" Malole makes a dismissive gesture. "Just bring it in." Tribesmen manhandle the box into the kraal, despite the muttering of the elders. No one notices the expression on the silver mask. They would never recognise it if they did - they've never seen the mask show any fear before. Malole hears a high-pitched giggle and looks for the effeminate man, but the latter is engaged in a rather serious conversation with one of the elders, so Malole dismisses it as his imagination.

***

The fire by the pole at the centre of the Batlhaping village is dying. Likua, the senior elder, feeds it. The elders have sat up past breakfast, with the chief and the Sangoma, debating what to do with the box, and by now they are tired and frustrated. It is clear to any observer that there is no agreement. Some acrimonious words, like 'coward' and 'fool', have been bartered for other words, such as 'old fart' and 'dithering twit', yet still the Batlhaping cannot decide on what to do with the trunk.

Eventually, Malole throws his hands in the air and stands. He is the chief, after all; it is time to make an executive decision. He clears his throat and waits for the old ones to grant him their attention before speaking. "We have sat here consulting and debating too long. The trunk has not moved, nor has it made any sound." The faint memory of the imagined giggle niggles at him, but he decides to ignore it. "I am going to see what is inside." He stalks over to the trunk as the elders watch with interest. They all knew it would come to this, anyway. Most of them are so interested that they absently munch their toothless gums almost as energetically as Meneputo, an elder whose mouth is never still.

Meneputo sucks his breath noisily, and mutters something under his breath. Nobody other than his wife knows that Meneputo's ceaseless, toothless mastication is more than the typical habit of an old man. The venerable councillor has an addiction to a certain leaf grown in abundance in the wilderness around the kraal. The Sangoma who introduced him to the plant for medicinal purposes has long since joined the ancestors. Meneputo was warned about the side-effects of too much chewing on the plant, but addiction overrode caution long ago. Consequently, Meneputo is known for his out-of-the ordinary thinking, which leaves most of the tribe of the opinion that Meneputo senility is simply out of warranty, but in a culture where age is traditionally revered, and where Meneputo enforces tradition by means of his stout, knobbed cane applied to the shins of dissent, it is easier to just let him sit with the council than to retire him to obscurity. He is also known for his comparatively sweet breath. Sometimes Meneputo's suggestions are useful, although since an incident involving a crab, the old chief's wife and a pot filled with porridge, his ideas are very carefully considered before the bravest of the elders will tentatively approve. Makore has a brief sensation of deep cold as he opens the chest.

Instantly, an unearthly scream fills his ears, and grates like fingernails on the eardrums. The black mask rises from the trunk, levitating above the council. All of them are frightened, almost to the point of losing what little control they have over their bladders, except for Meneputo, who chews vigorously at the demon. Meneputo is used to seeing strange visions. The black mask turns in the air and stares at the silver mask. The pole and the silver mask vibrate. The Batlhaping Sangoma notices the silver mask's eye slits open, and its expression. He looks back and forth between the two masks. "Oh damn!"

Whirling vapours and shadows congeal about the black mask. The thing emits laughter worthy of the most clichéd B-grade horror movie. The laughter is not the insane cackle of a mad scientist, though, and the listeners detect a definite sense of relief and triumph in the sound. The laughter is almost whipped away by a frightening, unnatural wind that now howls in from nowhere. The old men blink in the fury and hold up their arms to protect their faces.

The pole vibrates madly as the silver occupant violently and urgently works to free itself.

The black mask rushes at the silver one. As it moves, a shadowy body, painful to the eyes and not quite a good fit with mere human senses, furls out around it, coalescing from the vapours. The silver mask finally bursts free of its pole, and starts excreting a similar shadowy body. The two clash in a maelstrom of shadows, wind and eldritch screams that set the teeth and spines of the listeners on edge. The noise also does something unsavoury to their state of mind. It seems, to the Sangoma, that the black mask's shadow is fully formed, but the silver one's ectoplasm has been caught unprepared. The two shadows meld together, part, and meld again in a fight that the humans cannot fully comprehend. The shadows do not need fists, but the ferocity and viciousness of the clash is unmistakable. Even hunters, used to the kill or die realities of life on the veldt, where predators rend young animals and keep them alive to train their own young, where the eagle drops the tortoise to smash open on the hard ground below, and the insects eat at a crippled animal before it is a carcase, feel their gorge rise at the spectacle. The smoke and shadows, so lacking in worldly substance, are yet more primeval than anything they have ever seen. This is life and conflict and aggression so fundamental that all the layers of perception we have developed as a species to protect ourselves from such dark understanding are useless.

Overcome, one of the elders claps at his ears and screams at the ground. Another lifts his enveloping blanket and runs as fast as he can. A child near enough to observe stands drooling, and will never sleep well again. Meneputo carries on chewing his leaf, largely undisturbed, his mind wellprotected; he's used to seeing things that aren't really there, and categorises this as just another one of his drug-induced hallucinations.

The maelstrom increases in size and speed. The winds strengthen, and it seems to Malole that the air cannot take much more.

Like a match in methane, the shadows explode, or implode - it is difficult to distinguish which. The smoke clears, bequeathing to the surrounds silence as empty as a riverbed in the dry season. Coughing councillors rub the grit and tears from their faces as tribal people emerge in timidity from their huts.

A black shape wraps around the pole, shadows like a pair of bolas whipping about, wrapping the pole in a dark casing. The shadows dissipate, leaving the black mask occupying the pole. The silver mask is nowhere to be seen. A mild breeze rustles the grass as the conventional atmosphere puts its toe back in the pool to check if it is safe to go in. The physical silence thaws, and, but for the dread in the hearts of the Batlhaping, and the hideousness affixed to the pole, all returns to normal.

***

Shadows writhe and wrestle on the stone walls amidst deep animal-like groans, hissing and sparking. The distinct shape of a bull-headed man is wrestled to the ground by the shadow of something small, humanoid, and endowed with a gigantic phallus.

### Chapter Six

The black mask remains firmly attached to the pole. It startles all the observers by laughing for no apparent reason in an evil, sneering manner. Gossamer tendrils start to emanate from it, causing the villagers to scream and run in all directions.

A small child cries, abandoned on the ground. The tendrils snake towards her, like some poisonous chemical weapon on an ill wind. Before it reaches the child, a woman scoops her up and runs towards the kraal exit. The tendrils follow her, but dissipate before getting much closer. The mask sneers.

From safely behind huts and outside the kraal, villagers watch the mask through the main gateway, fear palpable over the whole tribe. The effeminate man tries to hide behind a well-built warrior, who suddenly becomes more concerned about the effeminate man than about the mask.

The sun tours slowly across the sky. It has been a morning of infamy and fear for the Batlhaping. This day will be over in a few short hours, and they fear its end. Afternoon arrives, and the shade moves to the east. A quick census discloses that they are all safe. Nobody has been lost. Likua, the most senior elder, and also one of the bravest, stalks back into the kraal, wrapped in a blanket. He clicks his tongue almost admonishingly at Malole, who does not respond, and approaches the pole. Nothing happens, so, cautiously, other villagers and elders also approach. The elder prods at the black mask with a stick. The villagers gasp and step back, but still nothing happens. They dive for cover again a few seconds later as the mask lets out another unsettling laugh, but it does nothing else. Eventually, they congregate closer, and stand about watching it, as the birds squawk above.

The elders are none too pleased with the chief. It is time to ignore him, and assume, as their due, the leadership responsibility. The wisdom of years is a steadfast rock when the bold impetuosity of youth has bollixed everything to this degree. At the back of every mind is that the Boipakeng have succeeded in replacing their protective talisman with a sinister one of their own.

Likua wraps his blanket about him, and spits. "It seems harmless enough right now, but we should leave it outside the kraal for a few days to be sure."

Another elder ventures an opinion. "I say we bury the thing, or throw it in the river."

Likua chews his gums, thoughtfully. "This spirit has not actually harmed anyone yet. Do you want to piss it off?" A general muttering consensus determines that the tribe is not in favour of potentially invoking the ire of the spirit just yet. Likua raises a questioning eyebrow at Malole. The chief clears his throat. "I don't really think we should send it down the river. Who knows who may find it, or what can happen? I want it out of the kraal, though." There is a murmur of agreement. Cautiously, some of the men approach the pole, and start to loosen it from the ground. A fish eagle calls. The villagers not wrestling with the mask and its pole pause and squint against the sun at the distant speck amongst the mountains. There is a mutter of approval as the pole is freed. The villagers are getting used to the black mask's disturbing habit of occasionally opening its mouth to loose a short cackle of laughter, but that doesn't mean they like it. The pole is carried like a coffin to a spot outside the kraal, where a second team has dug a hole in the hot sand. As the pole passes by, mothers pull their curious children back, never taking suspicious eyes off the thing. The carriers lower the base of the pole into the freshly dug hole outside the kraal. There had been some talk of burying it completely, but on the grounds that nobody had been hurt, it seemed a bad idea to chance alienating the spirit by doing that. The hole is filled and the Batlhaping step back to observe the black mask. It laughs again. "That racket is really starting to get on my nerves," grumbles Likua under his breath.

Meneputo gums his leaves.

Other than the occasional outburst of irritating laughter, nothing else happens for a while. General shuffling and sighing mark the onset of boredom, and Malole beckons ten strong guards closer. "You, and you lot, not you, you. Yes, you. You take watch duty around that pole. Five day watch, five at night. No, don't ask me. I don't care who takes which shift; sort yourselves out."

Most of them, with the exception of 'Tiny', so nicknamed because of the size of his mental processes, which are indirectly proportional to his gargantuan physical prowess, are dubious about this, but obey the chief without argument. The five guards of the first watch assume sentry positions around the pole. The villagers shake their heads and disperse, leaving Malole to watch the guards in worried contemplation. Eventually he, also, turns and heads back into the imagined safety of the kraal.

***

The sounds of the night abound. A leopard coughs in the distance, and, closer to the kraal, a straining ear can pick up a warthog's grunt.

Outside, the mask suddenly laughs again, and the pole shakes. When it is still, the mask is in a position to stare directly at one of the fearful guards, who has an uncomfortable sensation that the mask is watching him, and shuffles to one side. The gaze of the mask appears to follow him. He swallows, takes firm control of his bladder, juts out his jaw, and stares back at the carved face. He will not give the other louts on duty the satisfaction of seeing him scared. Within the kraal, a small fire starts on the roof of one of the grass huts. At first, it is a tiny green flame, but as it feeds on the grass, it grows brighter and turns to a more normal orange. When the smoke and crackling become detectable, a man rushes out of the hut, shouting, attracting his neighbours from other huts. The tribe pours out of their huts to see what the commotion is, and to assist. After the people stamp out the fire with blankets and some water, they turn their heads towards the pole outside the kraal, suspicious as to the cause of the blaze, but the black mask is quiet and immobile, barely visible as a glint in the dark beyond the walls. The guards watch the more interesting goings on inside, less concerned about their charge.

As the people return to their own huts, checking to make sure no other little sparks are present, they fail to see the small shadow, like a very small man with a huge, obscene package protruding from his groin, flitting between them.

***

The night settles back into African time, which means slower than a watched kettle boiling on a lukewarm stove. Gradually, the villagers nod off to troubled sleep.

***

Some hours later, a man inside his hut is woken by a noise from the exterior. He runs outside to find a small fire just at his doorway. He stamps on the fire, and finds something brown, squelchy, and unpleasant, of recent biological origin, on his feet. He shakes his fist as he sees a small shape, the height of a child, running away. He doesn't shout too loudly, considerate of the rest of the tribe. "Stupid brats!"

He spots at some odd tracks – footprints, with a line dragged between them - and examines them, puzzled. He reaches for a calabash of water and sits on the threshold of his hut, somehow unwilling to go further outside to clean his feet.

***

More time passes, and within another hut a youth sleeps. A midget with a huge bulge barely concealed in a loincloth, wearing a wooden mask exactly like the black one on the pole outside the kraal, enters with a bucket, which he wastes no time emptying over the youth. It is filled with a dark, earthlike substance. The youth wakes up gagging and spitting the gooey matter from his mouth, hearing the soft patter of running feet. "Cow shit! Hey, who's out there?" He runs to his doorway and peers outside, but there is nobody there. As he steps outside, he stumbles over a concealed vine, triggering a booby trap and splashing water onto him from a second bucket, balanced precariously on his roof.

The midget runs away unnoticed as the youth screams. The youth swears at the prankster in some of the most colourful and least-used vocabulary of the Batlhaping language, and then huddles in the frigid night, teeth chattering. "Cold. Cold. Cold."

Some of the other villagers, asleep in their huts, stir at the ruckus, but roll over and slumber on, unaccountably unable to awake. The youth goes back into the hut, dripping and shivering, but much cleaner.

***

Still more time passes, and it is now midnight. A man and his wife sleep on their grass mat in their hut, under a colourful woven blanket. The midget peers round the corner of the door, grins in the dark, showing white teeth, and creeps over to the sleeping couple. He lifts the corner of the blanket to peep beneath. He is still wearing the mask, but it is black now, and wooden in neither texture nor hue. It seems part of his face, and moves to mimic his own features as he alters his expression between various modes of malevolence and mischief. The midget raises the blanket some more, careful not to disturb the sleepers. He raises his eyebrow, and his mouth curves in a wicked smile.

Usually, the African witches who summon the Tokolosh are female, and they summon the demon precisely because of his impressive sexual prowess. Right now, the midget is feeling more than a little frustrated. Something stirs under his loincloth.

***

It is one o'clock.

Another couple sleeps in a different hut. The midget lifts the snoring man easily, as though he weighs as much as a small child, and carries him off. The carried man tries to find a more comfortable position in his sleep, but does not wake. There is magic afoot tonight.

***

The Batlhaping Sangoma snores. He is far away in the land of dreams, and so cannot notice a hand next to his head, reaching to steal all his clothes.

***

It is nearly morning.

A child sees the midget creep past her doorway, and, alarmed, pushes at her mother, who sleeps on the ground next to her. "Mommy, there is a Tokolosh outside." The mother pulls the child closer, grunts and goes back to sleep. The child whimpers and clutches at her mother, eyes wide and fixed on the open hut entrance. She will get no more sleep tonight, and will stay awake as children do when they are scared of monsters. Another Batlhaping child will never sleep soundly again.

***

Dawn will arrive in a few minutes.

The quiet of the kraal is shattered by a lone boy who runs through the gates, shouting and afraid. "The warriors! The warriors! Tokolosh! Tokolosh! Makore! Help! Sangoma!

_Tokolosh_!"

People rocket from their sleep. A man hurtles out of his hut and grabs the panicking child, who is by this time standing screaming in the centre of the kraal, by the shoulders. "What's the matter?"

The boy, still babbling, looks back out the gate. The man follows his gaze out into darkness, and feels a cold dread using his spine as a treadmill.

All are distracted by shrieking, yelling and general indignation, which erupts from a hut. A woman curses at the top of her voice as the man who was lifted away comes half running, half-backing out, trying to placate her husband, who is after him with a spear.

The Batlhaping Sangoma peeps around his doorway, and beckons a youth closer. He is sorry to see that it is Napo, a naughty little sod, who deserves a good crack, as far as he is concerned, but there is nobody else around whose attention he can grab. The lad almost doesn't see him in the flurry of sudden activity, but responds to a well-aimed granadilla and dashes over to see what the respected Sangoma wants. Elsewhere, a man takes a drink from a gourd and spits it out, cursing, "Damn that dog."

Another woman runs out of yet another hut, crying. A burly man runs after her, hands extended in an attitude of ignorance, loudly protesting, "It wasn't me! I swear it." Some things are best left unknown by the rest of us. Malole runs up. Someone, or something, has shaved a path down the middle of his hair, although Malole is obviously totally unaware that he consequently looks like a complete twit. "What is wrong?" A tremor and a certain high, squeaky quality to his cry betray his nervousness.

By this time, a small crowd has assembled around the boy. In fact, all the villagers, barring those currently managing the fallout of the pranks played on them during the night, are clustered like a bunch of old ladies around a new-born being introduced by its proud mother.

The boy points frantically back through the gates. The villagers finally get the idea, amidst the confusion and consternation, and they mutter to each other in fear.

" _Tokolosh_."

"It is the Tokolosh."

"The bad spirits."

Over by the Sangoma's hut, Napo nods at some whispered instructions involving lots of pointing and a disproportionate amount of bribery, and runs towards another hut, smiling in a nasty kind of way, the Sangoma anxiously tracking his progress.

Above the confusion, the effeminate man's dainty scream straightens hair and sets teeth on edge. The villagers all look at his face, follow his trembling pointing finger, and falter. The chaos and shouting die down as the villagers all see the source of the effeminate man's fear. Muted whispers and choking realisation eddies through them. Malole feels his blood run to ice; the black mask is back on the pole by the fire pit.

The people whisper amongst themselves, "The Tokolosh." Malole looks to the sentries on the walls. They shrug; they have seen nothing. The villagers crane their necks to see out where the pole was planted, but it is still just too dark to make out anything. Malole is overcome with dread. Why have the guards outside not reacted to the furore? And why have they not reported it if the mask is no longer where they are supposed to be watching it? The child is crying and it is difficult to get a coherent picture from him.

The villagers, of course, by now all realise that something is amiss outside, but are mostly reluctant to go and inspect what is going on. The majority acquire that defining character trait of law-enforcement personnel, well paid by criminal management - a firm belief that it is much safer and makes more sense to look north when the problem lies due south. Malole takes a burning branch from the fire and moves out the gate beyond the area illuminated by the fire. A few brave souls grab their spears and follow him. Malole stops short as his torch lights up the site. There is an extended moment where all the investigators stop in a huddle and try to comprehend what they see. Someone retches near Malole's ear.

The guards lie about the area in various degrees of mutilation and dismemberment. One individual occupies positions in most directions around the hole where the pole was last night. There is no way the ones still left in mostly one piece could have achieved such unnatural poses without some assistance. Here, a throat has been sliced, eyes staring in horror. There, a guard is curled up in a foetal position, as though trying to hide the fact that his stomach seems to have developed a strong independence and gone wandering by itself. Another has a gaping wound in his back, like a rending from a giant paw with razor claws. The youngest one, a brave warrior and skilled fighter, has had his tongue ripped out. His facial expression, terrified eyes still open, Makore finds worst of all. This man was a boy just a few short months ago. He went through initiation to adulthood with bravery and character. He was barely a child.

Malole clenches his fists, turning the knuckles white, and squeezes his eyes shut. He turns away in disgust, feeling his gorge rise.

And then he sees them.

Africans are taught to dread this sight more than a pointed spear or hungry lion.

Small footprints.

Heading towards the Batlhaping kraal.

Malole cannot speak. His mouth forms the word without any assistance or support from his voice, "No!"

He runs towards the kraal, recognising the futility of his energies, but unable to stop; a dreamer willing the nightmare away, but drawn to see what happens. The morbid fascination of the baying crowds in an ancient coliseum, or the gatherers around a gruesome car crash, grips him inescapably as a pin securing a prize butterfly to a selfish collector's board.

As he follows the prints back towards the kraal, a bolt of warning fire erupts from the black mask past his shoulder. It sets a hut alight, and Malole falls to the ground in surprise as, behind him, some people scream. A child cries, hiding his head in the safety of his mother. All look toward the pole.

"Hau _!"_

" _Tokolosh_."

"We are bewitched!"

Malole gets up in determination and strides to the pole.

"I will not have this abomination in my kraal. Help me!" Some of the men cautiously help him to dig out the pole and throw it on the fire. The black mask laughs again as the flames crackle about it, causing the tribes-people to jump in alarm, but nothing happens. Even though Malole feels the heat from some feet away, the pole and the mask remain undamaged. Malole turns abruptly from the fire, and scans the gathered people in anger. He knows they are frightened, but he cannot help thinking of them as sheep right now. He does not see the one face he seeks. "Where is the Sangoma?" The Sangoma's voice wafts from his hut, "I'll be there in a moment, Malole."

He comes scurrying up, having obviously just pulled on some clothes. Napo, who has recently spent a few frantic minutes searching the vicinity of the Sangoma's hut trying to find them, sniggers. They were on an ant's nest, and the Sangoma took a few amusing moments to realise this. The Sangoma, having been otherwise occupied, is not yet quite on the same piece of writing-hide as the rest of the tribe, but, being a Sangoma, he has the knack of rapidly assessing the situation. He stops short and looks twice at the occupied pole defying the fire. "Hau!"

Malole beckons him closer. He hisses at the Sangoma, not blaming the man, but needing a vent for his anger. "This black mask houses a Tokolosh, as plain as the trunk and tusks on Ndlovu. What do we do about it?"

The medicine man blinks at the hostile tone, feeling the stare of the villagers at his back. He eyes the pole and puts his hand behind his neck, massaging the muscles, as though checking that nothing has cloven his body from his head. He is nervous. The Sangoma does not know what to do, but, unlike so many who call themselves healers, he is not a charlatan who would make up some impossible task on the spot and shift the blame to the patient's inability to execute it. He assumes a respectful attitude before Malole, and addresses the chief so that no one else can hear, selflessly mindful that the chief needs someone to reassure the people now. "Chief Malole, this is a magic I cannot hunt or kill. All my own magic spears and poisons are useless against this predator." He looks back at the expectant crowd, and knows, with an aching heart, how they all depend on him. This is his area of expertise, his responsibility, and he is not up to the task.

He pulls Malole aside further. He sinks to his knees in anguish, holding the chief somewhat melodramatically, and close to tears. His whisper is raw. "I don't know what to do." Malole feels like someone has stuck a knife through him as he sees the attitude of this good man. He places his hand on the miserable Sangoma's shoulder, and pulls him up gently. "I understand, wise man, and I would still rather have you with me than any other. But you are our Sangoma, so if you cannot advise us, then nobody can. Is there nobody who can banish the demon?"

The Sangoma thinks for a moment. He is still aware of the eyes of the tribe on him, and of a deep sense of personal failure. Half-remembered stories fill his memory, tales of magic and trafficking with things he would sooner keep far away from the Batlhaping. He looks up at Malole's kindly face. "If we kill the one who bound the Tokolosh to the black mask, then perhaps we will be free. We must find out where it was made; perhaps there it is vulnerable." He gets up, urgency and misery and desperation in his voice. "But Malole, the Boipakeng must be consorting with the most evil kind of spirits to have summoned this thing. The spirits of our own ancestors cannot guide me in this; they have no knowledge of the where or how of such evil. I wouldn't know where to start." He shuffles in the sand.

Malole's grip tightens upon his shoulders. "That is a good thing, my friend. I don't want our Sangoma to consort with such things, but it's also useless to us now. Is there nobody else we could ask?" His eyes search the Sangoma's sad, honest face.

The medicine man swallows. "There is one possibility, my Chief." The Sangoma's tone and expression are doubtful. "We could seek help from the Sangomas of a people whose ancestors are evil, and known for trafficking with corrupting spirits." Some of the tribe have moved to within hearing distance, and there are a few shocked intakes of breath. Malole ignores them. "Which people can we speak to? What tribe would help the Batlhaping against the Boipakeng and their Tokolosh?" He shakes his head. "Who could possibly have ancestors so evil and shameful and would still help us? Such people would probably more likely be in cahoots with the Boipakeng."

The Sangoma hesitates before responding. He can almost not bring himself to give such advice. It grates against his moral fibre. He steels himself, wishing he had a swig of the old marula juice to steady his nerves, and hopes nobody will demand his blood for the travesty he is about to suggest. He takes a deep breath. "There is one tribe, Chief." Malole remains silent, looking at the Sangoma expectantly.

The Sangoma licks his lips, knowing there is no backing out now. He hears the tribe muttering behind him, and the crackle of the fire as a gentle breeze stirs it. "Tell me; don't be afraid. Who is this evil tribe?"

Malole's voice is urgent.

They are definitely not going to like this. Nonetheless, the healer squeezes his eyes shut like a child about to endure the extraction of a splinter. "The white man." The tribe folk are shocked into silence. The quiet descends with the immediacy and finality of death. Even the animals in their pens have gone quiet.

After a while, a lone woman wails and falls to her knees in despair. The men hang their heads, as though hoping the ancestors are looking the other way.

Malole's expression has gone through the spectrum of horror and into the uncharted territory beyond. "I'd rather be dragged naked through a field of thorns with my tongue tied to a donkey's tail. And the donkey can have diarrhoea." The Sangoma cannot meet the eyes of anyone, and feels his ears burning with shame.

Likua approaches. "If the Sangoma is right, Malole, then there is no other alternative. Can anyone else think of a way to save us? You think that thing..." He waves at the fire. "... Won't be able to follow us if we just move away? How about we leave it and let some other people get their hands on it? Makore's savages got hold of it somehow, and left it here for us. No." He shakes his head emphatically. "There is no other way."

Malole looks to the Batlhaping Sangoma, his people and to the black mask. It obliges Makore by sniggering, which makes the decision that much easier.

Malole glares at the mask. "May my ancestors forgive me." The black mask shrieks another evil laugh. When a fire flares from another grass hut the villagers spring to put it out.

### Chapter Seven

Three weeks pass.

There are a few blackened ash-piles where some huts used to be. Some of the Batlhaping have discovered a great interest in camping, sleeping away from the kraal in the great outdoors, and to hell with the predators that visit during the night.

As the day drags on, slowly, like everything else in Africa, a cart trundles across the veldt towards the kraal. There are no tracks suitable for wheels this far from the white man's habitations, so the going is heavy and the cart rocks and bounces along the uneven ground. Sitting atop the cart is a portly, middle-aged white man, with a huge moustache and floppy hat over light brown hair. He fans himself now and then with a black book. His watery blue eyes take in the village as they approach. Jogging along next to the cart are five strong Batlhaping warriors, in their full military regalia. Children rush out to greet the long-expected visitor, and run alongside the cart along the home stretch. Father Vic, from his vantage point atop the cart, eyes the smiling white teeth in the dark faces, and mentally calculates, once again, how far away he is from the nearest British garrison. The cart pulls into the kraal, and the Batlhaping assist the British priest courteously down. For many, especially the young ones, this is the first time they have ever seen one of the pale people, and they ogle him unabashed. The Batlhaping warrior escorts are extremely happy to be back in civilised company.

The Batlhaping Sangoma and Malole approach, Malole dressed in his chiefly finery of skins, feathers and hand crafted African beads, including a pair of mismatched European boots especially hauled from storage for the occasion. He opens his arms wide and gives the priest his best smile, which puts the good father on edge even more than his harrowing journey in the company of the five African savages. Father Vic is not at all used to dealing with the natives in their own back garden, and brings with him all the bigoted baggage and pre-conceptions he can carry.

Malole holds his hands out in welcome. "Thank you for coming, Sangoma."

Father Vic calms from the state of agitation he has been in, offering quick thanks to above that he will in fact be assisting this tribe on their path to spiritual enlightenment and not, as he had half-feared, feature as the main attraction in a feast of roasted missionary and potatoes. "The church will always resist evil, Chief, wherever it may be found. Where is the demon your warriors told me about?" Vic is as polite as he can be, and manages to convey none of his scepticism about demons in masks. He knows how seriously this village must take the idea, considering that they sent the five ambassadors to speak to him in so far and hostile a territory. He recalls how mistrustful their reception was at the little outpost where he has his church, and compares it to the warm, honoured reception he is receiving here with a slight sense of shame.

He wonders who taught the chief English.

The crowd parts and the villagers point towards the pole. The black mask raises an eyebrow and grins as a small flame sputters out from it in a mildly threatening manner. Father Vic, wondering how some charlatan witchdoctor has managed to generate such impressive effects, strides authoritatively up to the pole, hauls out a large cross from the depths of his clothing, and taps it thoughtfully on his open left hand. The black mask shrieks, more in a tone of irritation than fear, and flies off the pole, much to the astonishment of the onlookers, especially the priest, who is starting to wonder whether there really is a justification for an exorcism here in the back of beyond.

Father Vic's mouth hangs open as the mask levitates around the level of his waist, and blinks as eye-watering shadows coalesce beneath it. The priest gulps, by now pretty certain that this is beyond the level of trickery he suspected. The shadows whirl and congeal, and implode with a sound like an alchemical accident.

Father Vic wipes the water from his eyes, and struggles to focus. Standing next to him, wearing the vulgar little mask, is a native midget. The attitude of the little fellow is one of dramatic impatience. His legs are firmly apart and his hands are on his hips, and the blighter is tapping his foot. The priest slowly looks from the empty pole down to the apparition next to him. The tribes-people take in the midget and slowly back away, leaving Father Vic feeling especially lonely and exposed. He takes a step back to fully take in the midget, and gasps at the obscene, bulging crotch. Father Vic looks at the chief, and, raising his fist to the height of his neck, points a single dainty finger down towards the midget, before enquiring out the side of his mouth in a very small voice, "Tokolosh?"

The effeminate man looks at the bulging crotch. "I'd say."

The priest does not understand the Batlhaping's words, but is in no way comforted by the solemn, fearful nodding of the villagers, who are by now at a safe, or at least safer, distance.

The midget screams a wordless, high-pitched scream at Father Vic, his voice like a solid wind, bludgeoning the priest's hat off his head. The stench is like putting one's head into a hyena's mouth after a well-scavenged meal. Father Vic assesses the situation in one succinct comment. "Oh shit!"

The midget leans towards Father Vic, clearly a cat playing with a mouse, giving the priest clear indication that it is now time to run. The effeminate man screams in a high pitch, and, as it happens, one hundred per cent in harmony with Father Vic. The priest turns and streaks around the kraal, with the midget following, laughing and spitting balls of fizzling flames at him, short legs pumping to keep up, and bowed to accommodate the size of his 'package'. The priest dodges one of these small fireballs, allowing it to continue on its trajectory. The flame hits an old villager in the face, and sizzles out instantly, leaving the man blinking uncomprehendingly, his hair and eyebrows singed and smoking, but otherwise unhurt. The midget then starts throwing earth-like balls at the good Father, who is still dodging and weaving like a professional ball player, materialising the globs from thin air, balancing them on his hands and lobbing them just like the fireballs. One hits the same youth who was tricked into stomping on fiery dung during the first night of Tokolosh mischief. The youth chokes as the bulls-eye to his face invades his mouth and nose. Those around him gag and hold their noses, and give the lad his space.

"Phew. Cow crap." The fact that this remark comes from the very pretty teenage girl he has been building labola** for makes it particularly unwelcome, causing frustration in direct proportion to the advanced state of his puberty-fuelled hormones. (** price paid by a young man to his bride's father for her)

Father Vic, still running like an Olympian, risks a terrified glance behind at his pursuer. The short little swine is gaining on me, he thinks, and puffs out some extra desperate effort.

Because he is paying more attention to what he is running from than where he is running to, Vic does not see Ratsitanga's discarded trunk in front of him. At the last moment, he registers the obstacle, but as it is too late to steer, the white man instead launches himself like a hurdler. His size eleven catches the top of the trunk, dragging the lid open and dumping Father Vic, with absolutely no elegance or dignity, on his face in the dirt beyond it.

Behind him, the midget is too close and encumbered by the baggage of his crotch to stop - this body takes a while to control after the smooth fluidity of the shadows. He collides with the trunk and falls in. Father Vic looks up and sees the back end of a huge and decidedly male pig wobbling off. He looks back, raising an arm to fend off the expected attack, but instead sees short legs waving about, their owner's upper extremities stuck awkwardly within the trunk. Instinct takes over, and Father Vic falls onto the trunk lid, pinching the little protruding legs. There is an angry, injured squeal from the trunk, and the legs are hastily withdrawn to avoid further injury. Having forced his opponent all the way inside, the priest heaves his bulk on top to secure the lid. A commotion follows as Father Vic does a reasonable impression of a cross between alligator wrestling and bronco busting. The trunk animates spiritedly, shuddering and shaking. There are a few nervous instants when the priest is flung upwards and the lid opens a few inches, slamming quickly down again on a pair of fingers to the accompaniment of loud shrieking from what sounds like a long way away. The fingers scrape back inside, and the hopping, jiggling container eventually wobbles to a standstill.

_I can't believe I'm fighting with a piece of bloody luggage_ , Vic thinks, holding on tight, still unwilling to let go, convinced that the lack of movement and pressure is a mere ruse to get him off. Malole comes running up, the Batlhaping Sangoma hot on his heels. They are also sweating. Trying to keep up with the chase around the kraal has been quite some exercise. The chief and a couple of men help by sitting on the chest until the effeminate man rushes up with some ropes and the chest is tied. Father Vic slides off, relaxing his exerted muscles. He pulls out a white handkerchief and mops the perspiration from his brow. A hyena laughs in the distance, its timing mocking the efforts of the man.

The Batlhaping observe the blessedly vacant pole.

"Are you all right?" Malole's face radiates concern. Vic waves, his hand on his heaving chest, recovering his breath.

The Sangoma has concerns other than Vic's health. "Can you take the Tokolosh away?"

The priest regards him with an icy look.

They help the priest up. He once again wipes his now reddened face. "This is like nothing I've ever seen," he remarks, most unnecessarily. He looks with frank curiosity at Malole. "Does that hair cut have some significance?" After a small gap between Malole's initial incomprehension and eventual understanding of the English question, he feels at the path shaved down his head. It is fortunate that the white man does not understand some of the intricate complexities of the Batlhaping oral tradition. The elders, with the exception of Meneputo, are shocked at the vernacular qualities of the chief's vocabulary. Some children don't know whether to laugh or tell their mothers.

***

The shadows slow. The rude erection at the front of the midget's shadow becomes limp. A roar reverberates in response to an angry shriek that fills the stone caverns, shaking dust from what is most probably the ceiling. In the distance, chains rattle, and are still.

***

Evening descends.

Relief washes over the Batlhaping, as welcome as a tax man with a cheque.

Malole, the elders, the Batlhaping Sangoma and Father Vic sit on blankets to comfortably converse, passing a calabash from which they drink. All, especially Father Vic, are more than a little tipsy. The tension of the past few weeks has fled so far away it would be barely visible with an excessively powerful telescope.

Father Vic, well over his initial misgivings about the denizens of darkest Africa, enjoys his experience in crosscultural exchange to the fullest. "This is good stuff. What is it?"

"It's juice from the marula fruit. Tomorrow, you'll feel like an elephant has shat in your head, but tonight you'll feel like even the baboon is your friend."

They laugh, except for Meneputo, who munches in a world all his own. Father Vic breaks wind loudly, and they all laugh some more, finding gaseous hilarity in the primal tradition of men everywhere in the absence of women. A good old pub session with the boys is just what the witchdoctor ordered. Vic hiccups, and starts speaking with exaggerated care. "These things, from what I've read, they're often bound to some spot, like the bend in your river out there. If I take the trunk as far away..." He gestures vaguely, hiccups and burps again. "... As far away as I can... Ah..." He leans over and breaks long, loud, flatulent thunder. "Shcuse me... Barking spiders... Har, har, har... If I take them to my tribe, perhaps it will be weaker there?"

Malole is not so drunk that he is distracted from the matter at hand. "Will that work?"

Father Vic waves expansively. "My dear chappie... I mean, Your Honourable Chiefness."

Malole smiles understandingly as Vic burps loudly again, and makes a show of looking straight down the gourd with his eye pressed to the spout. "We British have experts in everything. Even here in the colonies, absolutely... Oops, schcuze me... everything."

Having pronounced his wisdom, Vic falls face first at Malole's feet. The chief examines the priest, and prods him with a regal toe. "You sure this is their wise man, Sangoma?" The others laugh the drunken laughs of careless, drunken men.

***

The next morning, Father Vic, holding his aching head and groaning, leaves the kraal, waving to the villagers. On his cart is the trunk. He looks at the offensive, cheerful sun and pulls his hat lower.

***

One of the blessings bestowed upon the African continent by its European immigrants is a plethora of churches. The churches largely lack the ostentatious beauty of the average European cathedral. They are there to provide a place of worship, as more and more of the indigenous folk, as well as many ex-atheists from back in the civilised world, have come to know that out here one needs all the help one can get, and therefore have joined the ranks of the faithful. 'Who believes in the mumbo jumbo of the witchdoctor anymore?', ask the converted black locals; 'that stuff is only for heathen savages'. The rude buildings are functional, providing a headquarters for regionalised spiritual warfare against the forces of the underworld bent on luring unsaved hordes to the fires of Hell. Intimidation of the poor, using impressive architecture, is not yet an option in Africa.

A few churches are more than that. In this case, Father Vic needs a stoutly guarded prison. Churches have been known to serve such functions before.

Saint Michael's church squats on flat landscape in a small farming community. It's the type of community where everyone knows everyone else's business, where it's a given that Willie and Alma's George will one day marry Godwin and Elise's Sally, and take over his father's farm. It's a 'did you know what the widow McIntyre did last week – well, let me tell you' kind of place. The sun blazes high overhead, presiding over yet another glorious African day. The immigrants now have a decidedly different view about sunshine to the one they had when they stepped off the boat to make the arduous trek to the back of beyond. In the dusty street outside, a group of rural black children play with bleached stones and intricate patterns in the sand. A white man on a horse-drawn cart plods by.

The door to the rectory, a simple structure next to the whitewashed church building, opens. The occupant extends a warm handshake to Father Vic, and stands aside to admit him. Vic looks about the street, like a stool pigeon in a low budget spy movie, and enters.

The room is cool, with creaking wooden floorboards. A massive clock hanging from a wall ticks away the seconds; a calming, reassuring, normal sound. Father Vic has been here the better part of an hour, and is thirsty from doing most of the talking. His host, the village rector, a forty-something but fit and good-looking man, is an attentive listener, and has absorbed Vic's incredible yarn without interruption or judgement. Vic sits on the edge of his green-upholstered Louis chair, swigging his drink.

Father Joel Frazer, seated comfortably on his overstuffed, threadbare, favourite chair, leans back to absorb all he has just heard, swirls his brandy, and watches his cigar smoke waft gently towards the ceiling. His crossed leg pendulums gently in time with the loud clock. He understands why Vic has trekked halfway across the country to speak specifically to him - Frazer wrote his doctoral thesis on the similarities between the myths and legends of ancient pagan Europe and the official doctrines of the church. Somehow, reading from a musty old book referencing musty old Greeks and Romans and Britons is easier on the brain than listening to a most sincere and agitated first-hand account about a well-endowed dwarf that runs around throwing crap and fire and falling into wooden boxes.

Vic perches on the edge of his chair, and waits to see whether Joel takes him seriously. His expression puts Father Joel in mind of the puppy that is really hoping the master appreciates the gift of drool-covered slippers. "This is the most incredible story I've ever heard, Vic."

"I know you've done a lot of research into this type of thing, Joel; that's why I came straight to you." Vic pauses and peers into his glass. "I must admit, though, I was hoping you would say something a little more helpful than 'this is the most incredible story I've ever heard, Vic'."

Father Joel laughs, and then assumes a more serious attitude, leaning forward in the chair. "Well, I can say that bringing it here was probably not the best solution."

A fleeting expression of panic crosses Vic's moustached face. The blue eyes narrow. "What d' you mean, man? If you can't help, who can?"

Father Joel takes another long puff on his cigar, and gives it a brief but appreciative inspection before carefully responding, "I mean that what you describe is a talisman, a familiar of some sort, imbibed with some type of evil spirit - a kind of what we might think of as a demon. In rural folklore, the thing is generally associated with a particular place, so while it is stronger at that place, because it is near the source of its power, like an anchor into the spirit realm, it's also closer there to the doorway."

Ahh... Er... Right. Doorway. And so?" Father Vic scratches his head, puzzled.

"I mean that while it may be imprisoned here, bound, it can probably only be destroyed, or sent back to where it came from, through the same spiritual doorway it used to enter our space."

"You mean I must take it back to the tribe? The black buggers will lynch me!"

"Surely, from what you've said, the people who gave it to you didn't make it themselves? Do you know where it was made?" Vic scratches his head. That marula juice has made the recollection a little like a jigsaw puzzle with a few pieces missing around the edge. "No, not exactly."

"Do they know?"

Father Vic shakes his head. "Doubt it. Didn't really ask, I'm afraid, but I got the impression that they don't go anywhere near the lot who did make it. Totally beyond them."

"'The lot who did make it'. Do they at least know who that is?"

"They say their enemies, some bloody unpronounceable tribe along the river somewhere, are too stupid to have done it themselves. Got any more brandy?" He pauses while Joel fetches the bottle and upends it into his glass. "Thanks. The Batlhaping don't know of anyone inherently bad enough and skilled enough to do this. They asked me to get involved because I was of the most evil people they could think of who would help them."

Father Joel looks at him askance. "And that is what they think of us?"

Vic makes a sign like pulling a trigger and winking to affirm. Joel has hit the mark.

Joel holds his palms outwards. "Never mind, it seems secure enough in the trunk. Obviously, we must tell the bishop about it, but my advice is we take damn thing, bury it under the church, seal it in, douse the place in holy water and make sure it never, ever escapes. Right now."

Father Vic puts his brandy on a table. "What do you think it is, Joel?"

Joel hesitates before responding. "It's the bull aspect that really intrigues me, the bull mask and the bull shadow. There's a similar creature in Greek mythology. You've heard of the Minotaur, of course?"

The portly cleric bobs his head. "Of course, but all the tribe has seen is a mask and some shadows. The Minotaur in the labyrinth story was substantial enough to be fed. Greeks were the main course, as I recall. There's no maze up there in the _bundu_ , and where does that vile little homunculus come into it?"

"Want some more brandy?"

Vic proffers his glass, and waits impatiently while his host walks to the heavy wooden sideboard, opens a fresh bottle and pours. Joel returns his glass before settling down again and continuing.

"Queen Pasiphaë, the wife of Minos, the King of Crete, was supposed to have been cursed by the Greek god, Poseidon. This was a punishment to her husband for not having sacrificed a bull to Poseidon."

Vic shifts uncomfortably. Modern Christian priests do not easily accept any link between reality and pagan gods. He is worried about the effect of listening to heresy on the condition of his soul. However, his recent harrowing experiences have resulted in a rather open mind, and he did, after all, trek a long way to see this man, a good protestant fellow. He takes a sip of his brandy, remembers the fermented _marula_ juice he drank at the village, briefly wonders how effectively he could market it as poison, and inclines his head towards his host. "Go on."

"The legend goes that Poseidon was so enraged at Minos that he caused the queen to lust after a bull. It further tells that she was assisted by an architect - Daedalus, I think his name was - in making a disguise of a wooden frame and cow skin to seduce the beast, and, as a result of that unspeakable union, produced the Minotaur."

Vic's mouth purses in disgust. "Y' mean a queen dresses up as a cow, does the bedroom fandango with an animal, and her child is then a man with the head of the beast?" He shudders. "Ugh. But of course, you can't believe that. How can a woman and an... er..." He lets his voice trail off. The ghastly image has lock-jawed onto his brain, a vile little bulldog that just won't let go.

Joel snorts with a small smile. "Head and also tail of the bull, actually. Of course, I don't believe it. I'm just painting a picture; bear with me. There are other references elsewhere to similar creatures, half man, half bull. In the Old Testament, the idol Molech, also referred to as Baal or Chemosh, had this aspect, too. The difference between these and the Greek version is that Molech was a god, whereas the Minotaur was an abomination, and was eventually killed by a man."

"But what does that have to do with a mask and shadows? Just because the mask is a bit bovine that doesn't mean it's a Greek myth come true here in Africa. I can think of at least three parishioners who would then qualify." The frightening vision of the twice-widowed Mrs Fotheringham-Smythe, head of the committee for the provision of tea after Sunday services, fills his head. "How dreadful," he thinks aloud, and swigs another gulp of brandy.

"That's true, Molech was supposedly a fire god, and you say this thing we're dealing with is just a mask and shadows. There's no real evident connection, but we aren't dealing with something I have a ready explanation for, so it can't hurt to consider all the possibilities. Fire – shadows, I don't know. My point is that with both the mask and the shadow, we have a similar thing – bull's head on a man's body.

But there's also a story a little closer to home you want to think about. Consider this little fairy tale. In about seventeen-eighty, a Dutch ship, a merchant vessel, was lost at sea. One of the sailors was found clinging to a barrel, half out of his mind - normal for a Dutch sailor, I know - but, jokes aside, he spoke of a demon creature like a small man. This demon had hideous features, sharp pointed teeth and, here's the bit that makes me think there's a real connection, a schlong like an anaconda. The sailor's tale goes that this thing was a monster that killed everyone else on board. The ship was sailing around the African coast. If what you're telling me wasn't a hallucination brought on by the sun or something they spiked your drink with... then we are possibly dealing with something that's been lurking around Africa at least close to a hundred years." He leans back and raises his eyebrows, allowing the other cleric some time to digest this before continuing, "Here's the kicker. Want to know what was in the cargo?"

Vic waits expectantly.

Joel grins. "A statue of an Indian deity they were bringing back from the East. Guess."

"A bull?"

Joel waggles his hand in a so-so motion. "The Indian deity, Shiva, rides a bull named Nandi. In the Indian Pantheon, Nandi is a gatekeeper and a god in its own right. The statue was of Nandi. Guess what was lost at sea?"

Father Vic whistles slowly. It doesn't even occur to him to doubt the other man's opinions. "What does it want?"

Father Joel shrugs. "There are other mythological references to bulls; the Egyptians had a bull god, as well. But tying this all together? Maybe the stories all have some obscurely common root, and perhaps the fact that there are so many tales from so many cultures is mere co-incidence. Who knows? Who cares? If you've somehow trapped it in a suitcase, let's just make sure it never gets out."

The two priests sit, each contemplating his thoughts for at least two minutes. Father Vic eventually breaks the silence. "We need to put a warning on the trunk when we seal it."

Father Joel nods emphatically. "And a map to the Butler-whatever village. All the useful information we have."

"Right. And information about all these bull thingies. If someone ever breaks it free, they'll need all the help they can get."

The clock chimes the hour loudly in the fashion of one of the great cathedrals of London; Vic doesn't know which. The priests listen to it by unspoken agreement, happy for the mundane break. It is a quarter to seven.

When the clock quiets, Father Joel nods for emphasis. "I hope and pray that if we hide it away, nobody is ever stupid enough to open it. We'll need to pass this knowledge on when we're gone, Vic."

"God help us all," agrees Vic fervently.

***

The cellar of St. Michaels is lit up eerily by a pair of the cheap, flickering candles normally reserved for use during the Sunday services. Joel mutters something most impious as he stubs his toe on an unseen obstruction. He places some papers on the trunk - a map, a set of suggestions and some hastily scribbled myths - then retreats with Vic up the stairs and closes the cellar door, leaving the trunk in darkness. The hint of light around the door frame between the cellar and the church diminishes as the sound of plastering from without becomes more muffled.

***

Deep within the arcane cavern can be heard a deep, soft grumbling, like something settling to rest. The cavern darkens as the light gutters lower, leaving only low phosphorescent luminance. Occasionally, a sniggering intrudes on the quiet. Every few years, there is a tormented bellow and the rattle of chains.

### Interlude

Decades drag by. The slaves of the Americas are free, after a fashion, thanks to six years of bitter war. The land has become powerful, and its people have split the atom. In the east, the emperor no longer holds court in the Forbidden City. The great Soviet power has risen, and it has fallen again. Many of the crowns in Europe are consigned to heavily guarded museums and treasuries because they can no longer find a comfortable head to rest upon. The war to end all wars is ninety years over, and the planet has suffered some squabble or another ever since. Men fly where they want to go, and a lucky few have even taken a jaunt into space and our lifeless sister-world, Luna. Cowboys and Indians are mostly one nation, and have turned on Arabs together, half a world away. As for Australia, it has moved on nicely from its role as Britain's largest prison. Through most of Africa, colonial rule has been replaced by struggling independent nations almost always at war. In the south, the lands of the Batlhaping are part of the nine provinces of South Africa.

### Part Two
Chapter Eight

The area surrounding Saint Michaels has developed little over the last hundred and sixty years, a true reflection of the nameless one-car, many-horse town it services. Some communities glue their shoes to the here and now, and resist change with the tenacity of barbed wire and bulldogs. They fear change. Anyone stepping outside the boundaries of minuscule incremental advancements must be careful not to be labelled 'troublemaker' or worse. It's many an outcast in their own small district who has thought 'stuff this' and gone on to contribute mightily to the sciences, humanities or arts. In this town, there was once acrimonious public debate when a forward-thinking and never-to-be-elected-again town official had the temerity to suggest the legalisation of selling alcohol on Sundays.

The restful calls of plentiful bird species still insinuate themselves into the air, barely having to compete with sporadic motor vehicle engines. The peaceful rattle and clank of a horse-drawn cart is not unknown, even in the twenty-first century. The town has a speed bump in the single main street, where bored children watch for infrequent cars on the off chance the driver won't notice it until the last spine-rattling, chassis-testing moment when it is already too late to brake. They laugh and watch as the cars buck over the bump, then quieten into the distance, the driver swearing about idiot towns populated exclusively by idiot bumpkin inhabitants.

A car is parked near the church, a twenty-year old Japanese brand with mag wheels and threadbare seat covers. It belongs to Willie Snyman, the owner of a small, inexpensive construction company. Workers on scaffolding around the church bang and drill. The pace of work is like everything else around here – lethargic. The attitude of the workers is one of why-put-off-till-tomorrow-what-never-need-be-done-at-all, so they fit right in around here.

The construction sounds are still audible, but greatly filtered here in the church. The smell of incense clings like cigarette smoke to a chain addict's car seats. Creaky, uncomfortable, wooden pews fill half the space; the other half is cleared for the renovations.

A black man is surrounded by a group of eleven youths, aged around twenty. The man's hair is greying in uneven patches, and a pair of round spectacles gives him a wizened look. His jacket is stylish, but comfortable and practical, with leather patches designed into the elbows. Some of the youths pay studious attention to what he says, and take notes on a notepad or tap away at a PDA. A few let their attention wander, and daydream of illicit romance and other thoughts that occupy the mind of the average undergraduate. The man is Doctor Gift Tshabalala, fit, vibrant, and young at heart, despite his dusty profession and having celebrated his forty-fifth birthday last March. Gift is well liked and respected by all who know him; his soft intensity radiates honesty and trustworthiness. Gift pulled himself into the great wide world from a humble background in a village not unlike the Batlhaping village of a hundred and sixty years ago. He did well at school, and wrote his doctorate in archaeology at the University of the Witwatersrand, paid for out of a bursary. His thesis was extrapolated from time spent making observations around battlefields in Namibia. It was there that he compiled compelling evidence that certain commanders of the South African Defence Force of the nineteen eighties had managed to conceal a number of activities from the post Nationalist government Truth and Reconciliation Commission. He hadn't meant to get anyone into any trouble over that; he had just found the mass graves and spent munitions interesting at the time.

Included in the group is Brian Thomas, a good-looking, well-built, American student; the kind of guy one would expect to take the lead role in an adventure film. Brian is clothed in rough but decent outdoors clothes, and his diving watch and sun-darkened skin betray his love of Mother Nature. Brian's face is always ready to crack into a smile, and he is always available to participate in a game of whatever's going. Brian could be an excellent student, but he tends to balance his social calendar with his work, and so his marks are only slightly better than average.

Dissimilar to Brian is Max van Oppen, also good looking, but far more manicured. Max will never be seen in anything less than expensive branded clothing, stylish shoes and an extremely near and timelessly conservative haircut. His watch is elegant and gold. Max competes for the honours at the top of his class, and, though physically capable, has less time for sports and student life. Max suffers from an over-awareness of reality, and sees subversion and danger everywhere. It is a well-known fact that these elements are integrated into everything, a haustorium around the hapless tree of life, but, though Max sees it, he is not quite smart enough to turn this into the boundless optimism of an Einstein or the unfounded faith of a van Gough. Max is a cynic. Peter Seleke is of slight build and appearance. He hobbles along on a crippled leg, with the aid of a stout wooden cane. His close-cropped hair frames a serious, midnight face. Peter never smiles, and he has few close friends. Christine Le Roux is a pretty lass, with medium-length brown hair and blonde highlights. She is dressed casually, but modestly. She plays the guitar in a band made up of her fellow students, who dream of being huge household names in the music business, but are too in love with the glamour of it all to actually knuckle down and eat dry bread crusts every week until the big break comes. They are quite talented though, and all except Christine have written some decent, if not commercially successful, material. Christine waits for the day she can be inspired enough to write that one perfect song. She wants to be the one hit wonder, remembered like a supernova, while living a sensible life with a sensible job, two-point-something kids and a husband she will never catch cheating on her.

Millie Johnson is also pretty, but her skirt is short and her blouse revealing. Millie has long black hair and painted red lips. One has to make a conscious effort to remember that Millie made the grade to be accepted into the university programme.

A first-time observer wouldn't really notice any of these students at first, however, because also present is Johan 'Jock' McTavish, a burly, red-haired Afrikaner with a fake Scottish accent, who insists on wearing a kilt. All things considered, he is quite lucky his name so closely aligns with his pretensions to ancestry involving deep, black lochs and misty highlands. At night, Jock sleeps with a stuffed purple monster mascot he calls 'Nessie'.

Brian Thomas feels Millie pushing her way between him and another female student. She glances up in a manner designed to be alluring, but Brian doesn't seem to notice. He finds Millie false; she is one of the few girls he feels awkward around. Max, standing close to the rear of this action, ogles her curvy behind discreetly.

Most of the students continue paying varying degrees of inattention to the lecturer. Although Gift is intelligent, and what he says is relevant and interesting, his voice is an extension of his personality, well-modulated and relaxing. It puts people at ease, so much so that it is fortunate that nobody yawns, as that is an infectious disease, and the conditions in Saint Michaels are ripe for an epidemic. He points towards the workmen's tools strewn around the place. "When the renovations are complete, the church should look more or less the same as it did when it was first built. This style of church building was quite common in those days. You could have picked it up and swapped it with another building anywhere else south of the Limpopo. Note that the British built their windows towards the south back then, for two reasons. Firstly, they were used to building in the Northern Hemisphere, and it took them a while to realise that the equator, and hence the sun, was now in the opposite direction." He pauses for the polite titter to settle. "And secondly, because, being from a generally colder climate, when they did figure it out, they decided they preferred their buildings cool anyway. This is one of the reasons St. Michaels has heaters under every pew." Gift observes the wandering attention of the group, sighs inwardly, and looks conspiratorially about. He then inclines his head, hamming an action-flick spy, and motions them closer. "Like most old buildings and churches, this one is supposed to have a hidden secret. There are rumours that a cellar was once part of this church, but it was blocked up and hidden because of some secret the priests wanted to hide away."

Millie whispers in Brian's ear, "No place to play nuns and priests here, then." She giggles.

Brian ignores her. "So why can't anyone just find the cellar, Doc? They could look at the plans or something." Gift shrugs. "Well, the only known set of plans was lost somehow, over a hundred years ago. Nobody really believes that junk anyway; it's a common urban legend for many remote churches. Show me any cathedral and I'll find a tale of a hidden treasure somewhere, or a ghost that haunts the pulpit on dark nights."

He smiles, glad to have got at least a little attention back. He knows that they know that he knows, and so on, that nobody really believes there is anything hidden or secret about the building. On the whole, priests are only sinister in the occasional film requiring immense suspension of disbelief. He imagines for an instant that the Seleke kid is favouring him with a really dirty look, but ignores him. "There's nothing to find." Gift smiles and waves a dismissive hand. "Besides, I'm sure the church would have found it by now if there was anything." He steps off to the front, where an ancient wooden altar, upon which are two massive white candles, occupies the floor. "Now look around. Your assignment is to compare this architecture to the temples we discussed, and draw conclusions about the first two topics on your handout."

The students peer at the pieces of paper as though they hadn't already read them. Gift waves his arms energetically. "Go overboard; the exercise is about creative thinking; we'll temper that with a dose of logic and reality next week. Have fun. I don't usually set an assignment like this." The students disperse into smaller groups and start walking away. Brian waits for Gift to wander off, and then moves through a door behind the pulpit. Millie, Christine, and Jock follow him. Max follows Millie. Peter narrows his eyes, grimaces at his cane, and starts after them at a hobble. They enter a small vestry. Within the room is a table supporting a couple of silver chalices, some small wooden wafer boxes, a bottle of cheap red wine, some candles, and a box of matches. A priest's cassock hangs on a hanger from an ornate brass hook on a wall. The smell of incense is stronger here, especially about a stained censer perched on a small shelf.

Noticing Brian closely inspecting a wall, with what he considers to be excessive diligence, Max sidles over to Millie, and whispers in her ear, "Hey Millie, Mister Macho over there's an eager little beaver."

She eyes him, coldly. "Jealous, Maxie?"

Max points to his chest in mock astonishment. " _Moi_? I'll be in an air-conditioned office while he's still grubbing in the dirt taking wrong measurements. What's there to be jealous of?" He snorts, irritated.

She ignores him and steps close to Brian. Max watches her with a scowl, for a moment, then notices Jock's blatant and insolent grin, and moves a little away.

Millie insinuates herself as closely to Brian as she can manage. "What are you looking for, Brian?" He suppresses a sigh, and doesn't look at her, but continues to busily inspect the wall. "Doctor Tshabalala mentioned a cellar. I read up on these church designs before this trip. If such a room exists, I would have put the entrance somewhere over here."

Christine points further along the wall as he continues searching. "He also said they were more or less the same design. Some of the earlier ones have cellar entrances over there."

"You did some homework, Christine?"

She smiles sweetly at him to affirm, and takes no notice of Millie's discreet, sour appraisal.

Jock starts handling the objects on the table. His fake Scottish accent breaks into the silence of the room with the subtlety of an avalanche, causing Millie to jump slightly at the noise. "There's no doorway doon here. What are you looking for? Someone else would ha' found the cellar by now if there was one."

Brian pauses a moment before responding, "My family was originally from around here."

"You don't say? I thought they were from a Florida swamp somewhere." Max grins, pleased at the fluid speed of his jibe. Brian shows Max the finger. "Before my mom married my dad and moved to the States, she told me about this place. Something about one of our great-great-great ancestor something-or-other, who used to be a priest. She said her father always used to scare her with a story that he hid something in this church - the priest, I mean, not her father. He afterwards destroyed the plans so that nobody could find his hiding place. When I realised we were coming to the same church, I thought it would be a shame not to at least take a look. I'm sure there's nothing to see, but..." He shrugs. "I'll always regret it if I don't have a peek."

Christine cocks her head. "Nobody's looked but you, probably. I'm sure the locals haven't spent their time wandering into the back room of the church." "So what? Surely the church people would ken if there was a cellar sealed up in the church?" Jock folds his arms. When Millie is in the mood, she can ooze disdain. She puts hands on her hips and purses her mouth. "Urban legend." Nobody pays any attention to Peter. The young black man is watching the tapping of the walls with an expression of urgency on his face. A close inspection would reveal a certain tightness of his lips, and whiteness of the knuckles on the hand gripping his cane.

Brian laughs, dispelling the mock seriousness building in the chamber. "Probably, you're right, Millie, but there's no harm in looking. Besides, have you got a whole lot of better things to do?"

"We shouldn't be in here," says Peter. He jerks his thumb back to indicate the main church. "The renovations are all back there. This is just a storeroom. Looking here is a waste of time."

Brian stops, and gives Peter a brief, puzzled appraisal at his odd objection before dismissing the youth to continue his search.

Christine flicks her hair backwards in a way that makes Max groan quietly. "Well," she starts, "it is fun to look. If anyone thinks we're wasting time, he doesn't need to help." She bats her eyelids sweetly at Pater, turns back and bustles up next to Brian, who is industriously inspecting the wall behind the hanging cassock.

Max holds up his hands, acquiescing. The group, with the exception of Peter, who appears as tight as an archetypal Scotsman's purse-strings, examines the floor and walls. Brian bends his head closer, furrowing his brow, not sure whether he sees a faint line on the wall.

Peter's lips tighten further. "You are going to get into trouble here. Doc specifically said to stay in the main church area."

"Chill out, Peter, no he didn't." Brian moves the cassock out of the way and places it neatly on the table. The garment smells holy somehow, the faint scent of incense clinging to it, and he is loath to treat it like his own clothes. Those are invariably tossed unceremoniously into a wicker wash basket and stuffed closely together to test again and again the basket's capacity. He moves his head around, trying to let the faint light catch the wall from different angles. Surely not? Surely this isn't so easy? But there is a line visible on the wall, as though a straight edge, like a doorway, has been plastered over. "What is this?"

The others crowd around. Millie gives the wall a cursory glance. "I don't see anything, Brian."

Max touches the wall lightly, frowning. "Hey, I see it." He turns to the group with awe dripping off his face like wild African honey. They look expectantly at him, as he gravely pronounces, "Meat-head has found a wall."

Millie giggles, though she tries to stifle it. Christine scowls, though not with much conviction. Jock, as usual, stands with a stupid grin on his ruddy face, idly scratching at what Christine hopes is his upper thigh. Tartan can be itchy.

Brian ignores the jibe, possibly because he is treating Max with disdain or possibly because he is more interested in his finding. "Look at the plaster right here." He points. "There's a line you can barely see."

He steps back for the others to all inspect closer. The light is insufficient to clearly see anything in the chamber. Max strikes a dramatic and mocking pose, but the rest crowd in. Christine squints, cocking her head from side to side. Millie, suddenly acutely aware of Jock's nearness, or, more accurately, Jock's armpit, withdraws her head and torso to less tainted air, leaving Christine and Jock to verify Brian's finding. She undiplomatically holds a dainty hand beneath her nose, and tosses her black tresses. Christine runs a hand along the wall to feel. "Brian's about right. The colour is the same. The texture is a little rougher, though."

"Well ah reckon the colour of buildin' renovations would be a wee bit blended with everything else after a few years." Brian is a little too excited to respond, and traces along the almost imperceptible outline with his finger. "Look, this area is about right for a doorway."

Even Max is starting to become interested, in spite of himself. He strokes his finely chiselled chin thoughtfully. If this was a silent movie, Max would have a long, thin, black, waxed moustache. He is still sceptical, but willing to consider evidence. "How come nobody noticed before?" Behind them, Peter's grip on his cane is so tight his knuckles are whiter than the average well-cared-for tooth. Christine shrugs. "The outline faded with time, I guess. It isn't that noticeable, and not too many people would come back here I'd imagine."

"Either that, or Brian's mommy's story was not quite so far-fetched."

The group looks at Jock, who grins back, as usual. "The men of God have something they've been hiding." "Oh, come on!" Peter's derisive tone makes no difference and he is totally ignored.

Brian can barely contain a bit of smugness. Presumably, the discovery of a hundred and sixty year old legend entitles the discoverer to a small quantity of attitude. One could only imagine how he would behave upon delivering undeniable proof of the existence of a yeti. "My mom says that the priests discouraged the stories, so eventually everybody dismissed it. They also, so she said, kept everyone away from where the entrance actually was, so it was never found, and eventually the population at large forgot about it."

"So how come they let us in here now?" queries Max. "Perhaps they forgot about it themselves over time, and nobody told the current rector?" suggests Christine. "Or there was nothing to tell. We were not allowed in here. This part of the church is not going to be renovated. Tshabalala told us to stay out."

The group turns to Peter, a little shocked at the coldness in his voice. A basilisk could envy the intensity of Peter's stare.

"Oh, puh-lease, Peter." Brian shakes his head and resumes his inspection of the wall.

Jock scratches his ear and nonchalantly ambles to the side. While the others look intently at the wall, he filches a swig from the bottle of communal wine on the table. However, he is betrayed as the cork makes a Judas pop. Christine turns at the slight sound and sees him. "Hey, Jock, you Philistine, that's communion wine." "Well. It ha' na' bin blessed ye'."

Max is irritated. Jock deeply offends his sense of culture, which entwines about his innermost being as tightly as a cancer. "Drop the cheesy accent, Johan. We know you're from Cape Town."

Jock shows him the eloquent and internationally recognisable finger. "Anyone else f'r a wee dram, then?" Millie steps forward, takes the bottle, has a swig, and places it back on the table.

Max cocks his head to one side. "Now that you've slugged some of Jockie's backwash, what about this wall?" "You aren't listening to me." Peter hobbles closer. "This area is private property. Tell the priest what you found if you want, but let's go."

Brian sticks his tongue in his cheek – for a student a mark of lewdness or intense cogitation, dependent on the circumstances. "They're restoring the church anyway. I guess they'll get to this room in due course, and then they'll make some serious damage to this here wall. I think let's have a look."

Peter's lips clench. He tastes blood. He recognises, with the certainty of a blindfolded man hearing the command of the firing squad commander to take aim, the inevitability of the situation. The white fools are going to find it. Still, he persists. "No – the renovations are out there. Haven't you looked at the plans?"

Brian gets a pen-knife out and scrapes some of the cement away. Max exits the room.

Jock watches Max exit. "Hey, Max. Where are you going?" "Oh, leave him alone, Jock," says Millie, keen on seeing what is behind the patch on the wall, despite herself. "Let's see what this is."

They scrape away. It quickly becomes apparent that trying to hack a wall away with a pen knife is a stupid as it sounds. "One side, amateurs." The group turns to see Max, hefting a pair of huge mallets, like some testosterone-laden action hero. One would almost expect to see multiple belts of bullets hung heavily, like Inca necklaces, around his neck, and a manly stogie sticking out of his mouth to finish the image. "Building site," mutters Brian wryly, and steps aside. Jock takes one of the industrial-strength wrecking mallets from Max, steadies himself, and, like some ghastly apparition from a highland ghost movie, takes aim at the wall. "Stop!" Not the most original line, but Peter utters it anyway, and hobbles to impede.

"Oh come on, Peter. They're going to wreck the place anyway."

"You don't know what they'll want to tear down and what they won't, Brian."

Brian shakes his head. "You're acting like you're scared of a ghost story. Live a little, Petey. It's at most an old room back there."

Max leans on his mallet, watching Brian and Peter argue. Peter's irritation is apparent. "No, they won't break this wall, you idiot. They are only enlarging that main area out there. You are going to get into deep shit." "Peter, you are being dense and you know it. Take a look outside. Those wrecking machines aren't schlepped all the way out here for a show. I don't know if you've noticed, or paid attention to the lecturer, but this old place is going down anyway."

"Aye, laddie. This is no time to turn from laddie to lady." Jock laughs at his own poor joke.

Peter feels his heart sinking. Perhaps this isn't the place. Nobody's really sure any more of the details. He remembers the heated argument of a week before. It was an acrimonious telephonic conversation with Carmichael that ended in an impolite click. Peter was adamant that the church should not accommodate Tshabalala's field trip, no matter how far back the friendship between the priest and the lecturer went. But Carmichael assured him they weren't going to come anywhere near the back room. Not here. Carmichael's mind could only really be changed with heavy machinery, the stubborn old fool. Damn. Shit! Shit! And Shit again! With apples. He decides to replace passion with reason. "Let's just check with the priest first. I'm sure they aren't going to break this back section down. Come on, guys, or you'll be expelled or something." "Well, I've been looking forward to this since I heard we were coming here." Brian's mouth has a stubborn turn that Peter dreads. It reminds him of Carmichael. He needs to try something else.

"It would at least be good manners, don't you think, to..."

"Bugger this!" With this profound pronouncement, Jock takes a swing at the wall. To his astonishment, a section of it crumbles to reveal a dark chamber beyond. He looks at the hammer in his hand comically.

The group stares in shocked silence for a few moments, broken eloquently by Max. "Well, hell."

The silence, and their crime, is covered by the sounds of hammering, distanced by the walls.

Christine peers through the newly-broken aperture, and, feeling the irresistible urge we have all felt at some point in our lives to fill the silence with some conversation, no matter how inane, pronounces, "We were right." Peter's chest rises and falls with a single deep breath. The firing squad has fired, he is still alive, but somehow that doesn't change the outcome.

Jock shrugs with an evil so-sue-me type of grin, and kicks at the wall with his hefty, size twelve, genuine, madein-China, bought-in-Scotland boot. A large section of the wall crashes down.

"Ah, yes, a testament to the building prowess of the ancients if I've ever seen one," opines Max, sarcastically. "Shut up, Max."

"Absolutely, Chrissie Dear."

"And don't call me 'Chrissie'."

"If you insist."

"Or 'Dear'."

"As you wish, Chrissie, Dear."

Jock and Brian hammer a bit further, and push. They stand feeling guilty for a few moments, staring at the doorway where the wall used to be. Brian feels a twinge of regret that the cassock on the table might be getting a bit dirty, then he steps through, waving at the dust.

"Don't." Peter doesn't really expect his whispered objection to be heeded.

Brian blinks into the darkened doorway. "There're some steps leading down."

Christine claps her hands in excitement. "Jackpot." "Who has a flashlight? Nae, wait. There're some candles on yon table."

They light the candles, and crowd around the gap, but the man in the kilt stops Brian as he starts through. "Me first, that way none of you faggots can peek up mah kilt." Christine is quick to respond, "Is it true about what Scotsmen don't wear beneath their kilts?"

"I dinnae ken, Christine; I'm from Cape Town, remember?"

He grins his insolent grin and steps through the break.

Brian, followed by Max and Millie, enter after him.

Christine beckons an ashen Peter closer. "Coming?" He nods, unable to speak, unable to run away, and she helps him though, making sure his cane doesn't catch on the broken wall.

The students troop down some stairs to a musty cellar, which is filled with dust that makes Peter cough. Max grimaces at the dust, and pats at his legs. "My very expensive pants."

They reach the bottom, and in the candle light, take in the old cellar. It smells musty, like it has been sealed for a long time. There is a rake, an old shovel, some oddments and, in the centre, with some papers balanced on it, a small trunk. "What have we here?" Brian moves to the trunk and dusts it off. Peter shakes his head, waiting and nervous. Brian feels at the paper before exclaiming. "Hey, this must have been placed here recently!"

"Why do you say that, Brian?" Christine's tone makes it clear that she doubts what he says.

He holds out his hand in the candle light to show her.

"No dust. These pages look quite new."

Christine points at their lonely footprints in the thick layer covering the floor. "I don't think so. Look." Millie frowns. "Now that's creepy."

Peter hobbles up and starts ruffling through the papers. He is fascinated, and thus doesn't notice as Brian grabs hold of the trunk and starts to untie its binding ropes. Peter has heard about these documents since he was appointed, but admits to himself he has always harboured some doubt. "These are good and tight," grunts Brian.

Millie whispers in his ear, "Those aren't the only tight things around here."

He looks at her incredulously with raised eyebrows, then shakes his head, opens his knife and succeeds in cutting most of the ropes. "Open Sesame," he says excitedly, and puts his knife to the last strand.

Peter starts, looks up from the papers, realises what Brian has done, and slams the American's hand with his cane. "Wait!"

Brian jumps back, holding his hand, shocked. "Ow! Peter You asshole!"

Peter looks at the surprised faces of his companions. He must think quickly. He holds out the papers. "Sorry, Brian. But look at this first."

Christine takes the proffered papers.

Brian rubs at his affronted hand, scowling. "What is it?" "It says something about an African monster." As the words leave his mouth, Peter recognises he wouldn't sound more ridiculous if he started chanting and waving a tribal wand, and he mentally kicks himself as hard as he can. After a moment, the others start to giggle and titter. Max leans back and folds his arms. "The only African monster here might or might not be in your pants."

Peter ignores him and presses on, "Guys, please, think a minute. Someone went to a lot of trouble to seal this in here. The dates on these papers say they were put here in..." He looks at the pages as though he didn't already know their contents. "1853."

Christine holds up a forefinger in a gesture of revelation, missing only a light bulb flashing on above her head. "That's when the original plans to this church were lost."

"So what?" asks Millie, unimpressed.

Max throws up his hands, exasperated. "The bogeyman, that's what."

Peter holds his hands up, placating. "You've bashed down a wall and are trespassing on property the church seems to want to keep very private. Don't you think we should at least tell the priest before we get into any deeper crap?" Jock scratches idly at his leg again. Completely out of character, he considers that he was the one who first took a mallet to the wall, and is starting to wonder whether youthful impetuosity is really going to further his reputation and interests where they count, namely in the eyes of the law. "Perhaps he's right. Let's ask Doc Tshabalala what he thinks." Brian bashes the trunk with his fist, wincing a little because he has forgotten the blow from Peter's cane. "Ow. Come on, you can't seriously think that there's something dangerous locked up in his thing down in a church cellar. Superstitious bullshit."

Peter turns so the others are behind him and subtly appear to be supportive of his argument. His voice sounds calm and reasonable, despite the fact that his heart is demanding to be let out of his chest. "Of course not, but let's tell the Doc anyway. We may be trespassing, or worse." Christine makes a conciliatory gesture. "Perhaps he's right. I don't want to get into any crap for this." Brian throws up his hands. "Fine, wus out. Let's go find Tshabalala." He shoulders past Peter and stalks towards the stairs.

Peter waits as the students troop out past him, his heart beating like a clock on steroids. As he turns to follow them, he fancies he sees some weird shadow play upon the wall. He pauses, looking closer, but there is nothing to see. He shakes his head grimly.

***

Despite Peter's protests, all five of the students, with Doctor Tshabalala, crowd around the chest. Tshabalala has managed to get his hands on a pair of flashlights, and is now shining one on the papers. His voice is calm as ever as he delivers an admonishment, "I wish you hadn't disturbed this so much."

Peter is grimly aware of how much respect archaeologists have for warnings on tombs and trunks hidden in churches. There might as well be a neon sign saying 'free \- take one'. Max shrugs. "Hey, Brian's the one who cut the ropes." The others regard Max with a dirty look. He shrugs again. "Well, it's true."

Peter keeps the desperation out of his voice with an iron will. "You all bashed down the wall; Brian cut the ropes. Don't you think we should at least call the priest before we go disturbing the trunk even more?"

Gift rubs his chin. "I think Peter is right. This is church property. I'd like to chat to Reverend Carmichael and get an archaeology team in here tomorrow to have a look. Let's leave this until then."

Brian's face is like a child disappointed by a too-small Christmas present. "Aw. Doctor Tee..."

"It's the least we can do, Mister Thomas."

Peter smiles at Brian, a little nastily.

Tshabalala replaces the papers and motions them along.

"Come on, everybody out."

Brian shakes his head. Everybody troops up the staircase and through the broken wall. As Brian leaves, he casts a calculating look between the trunk and the lecturer.

***

Something stirs. The smoky light flickers brighter. A shadow darts on the walls, but is instantly gone. A faint skittering breaks the silence as the cold stones keep their eternal, solid sentinel.

### Chapter Nine

It is late afternoon.

A certain quiet hangs over the rural town, depressing to some and calming to others - usually depressing to the residents and calming to the occasional visitor. The rectory lounge in the old house next door to St. Michaels is furnished with that old, comfortable furniture that looks like it has been in the same spot for generations and has no plans to move. The furniture reflects the very essence of the town.

Doctor Tshabalala lounges in one of the comfortable chairs, watching Reverend Carmichael opening a bottle of Scotch. The elderly rector has spoken with a strong, British military accent and sported a handlebar moustache for as long as the archaeologist can remember. Gift smiles - his friend is dressed casually in a dressing gown and slippers, and Gift wonders how much of that image is just Carmichael, and how much is actually a carefully maintained personal brand. The rector has a cold, and an enormous handkerchief occupies the pocket of his gown. Just looking at him, one would expect the wall to be filled with hunting trophies, and photographs of wild African safaris, but Carmichael detests the gratuitous killing of animals for fun, and makes no secret of his opinions when in the company of those who do. Tshabalala has been here often before. Carmichael is, in fact, an old, if unlikely, friend. In his youth, Carmichael counselled him, and played more than a small role in getting his head into books about history and archaeology. This represented a vast improvement from where his head was, namely up his backside.

Gift might be amused to know how much Carmichael seems an older version of another British man of the cloth who sat in this very room, a hundred and sixty years ago, presenting the rector of the time with a trunk and an incredible story. Carmichael sets the bottle to a fine crystal glass. "Of all the cures that won't cure the common cold, I like this one the most."

"I'll drink to that."

"Most things in moderation; say when."

Carmichael pours. Gift, almost immediately, raises his palm. "When."

Carmichael ignores this, and continues pouring a more than generous measure. Eventually, he hands the grinning Tshabalala his scotch, inadvertently coughing on it. Tshabalala notes this with distaste, but gracefully accepts the drink.

Carmichael pours his own and plops himself into another comfortable seat. "Sorry I couldn't be there today, Gift Old Boy. Sick as a dog, y' know. Blighted cold."

Tshabalala waves dismissively.

Carmichael continues, noisily slurping his drink, "So what's so dashed important?"

Gift places his rather full glass carefully on a wooden table. The tolerance Carmichael has built up over the years for scotch never ceases to amaze him. "Well, some of the students found something in the church, Reverend." Carmichael's only visible reaction is an imperceptible narrowing of the eyes. "Oh? What?"

Gift takes a breath. If he hadn't asked his old friend to allow this trip, Carmichael wouldn't have a gaping hole in the back of his vestry now. He does his best to sound light and dismissive of the issue. "Well, believe it or not, they broke down a wall and found that legendary cellar everyone thought didn't exist."

Carmichael stops with his glass halfway to his lips. Gift grimaces. How could he have even hoped the reverend would not mind too much? What if someone had merrily bashed a hole in his own kitchen wall while he was out? Carmichael speaks very quietly, "They what?" He is shocked and also seems, for some reason, frightened.

"Erm... It seems that they heard about an old urban legend of a hidden cellar in the church." Gift firmly resists admitting his role in encouraging them in their search. "They reckoned that the building was being restored anyway. I know that's no excuse for knocking down the wall. I'm sorry about that." Gift feels that this sounds extremely lame, and determines that this is the perfect time for a sip of Carmichael's preferred beverage. "We'll pay for the damages, of course." He takes a larger sip at the thought of the budget available for that. On second thoughts, stuff the bursar –it's an archaeological find on an archaeological trip. His colleagues are going to be green with envy. There may even be a published paper in this somewhere.

Carmichael downs his whiskey and gets up to pour another.

The ice in the glass rattles more than usual. "Are you okay? Look on the bright side; they found your cellar. I'm sure you'd have a lot of use for it?" Gift is feeling very uncomfortable. Carmichael is a lot more jittery than angry; he seems almost scared.

Carmichael hesitates, downs the second whiskey and pours himself a third. He returns to his seat and concentrates heavily on Tshabalala. The lecturer squirms. Carmichael's ruddy face peers at him from behind its defensive barricade of grey moustache and thick lenses. "Gift, this is very important; I need to know this exactly. Did anybody actually go into the cellar?" Carmichael annunciates each word in the question very distinctly and precisely.

Gift recalls the Seleke boy practically imploring him to call the priest before they all trekked down the stairs. "Reverend, does this have anything to do with that chest down there?"

"They saw the chest? Did anybody touch it?" Gift squirms inwardly. The old boy is either having him on terribly convincingly, or he, Gift Tshabalala, is about to hear something he really doesn't like – for example, that the church is about to sue the vandals or have them arrested. Gift has heard stories about the creature comforts of South Africa's crowded jails and would rather give them a skip, thank you very much. "Well, the kids who found it took the ropes off to open it."

"Bloody hell!"

Tshabalala stares open mouthed as Carmichael nearly drops his whiskey. He starts to take a sip of his own, remembers the coughing, looks at the glass in distaste and places it on a table. He is now very confused, and starting to become a little scared. The priest is more concerned, clearly, about the chest than about the hole in the wall. "Reverend?" he asks.

"Excuse my French, Gift. They opened the chest, you say?" "No, not yet. I felt it would be more appropriate for an archaeological team and yourself to be informed first." Carmichael breathes a huge sigh of relief, and decides to fortify his nerves with another noisy slurp of his favourite Scottish contribution to the ongoing cultural development of humanity.

Gift takes in the relief on the old man's face. A gnawing worry in the pit of his stomach is feeding on serious quantities of fast-acting nutritional supplements. "Reverend, surely you don't believe the tales about someone leaving some horrible cursed thing there? I'm an African and I sure as hell don't. If I did, I wouldn't hang around with my buddies in the archaeology faculty. They hear that cra... stuff... all the time, and..."

Carmichael interrupts, "Gift, I believe in the creation of the universe, God, angels and the Devil, too. I've laid hands on people and seen them healed with my own eyes. The church sealed its own cellar." Carmichael rises from the comfortable old chair and, pacing up and down the floor, he continues, "And I know why. The church knows about things that will make your hair stand on end, Gift. Dark, evil things, and the thing in my cellar is one of the darkest."

"You're serious."

Carmichael grabs him by the arms, and the archaeologist is very aware that he is receiving an up close and personal dose of something that is likely to land him in bed with a hot toddy.

"My good man, I've never been more serious." He coughs in Tshabalala's face, lets him go and steps back. "Sorry." Tshabalala wipes the spittle off and smiles jokingly.

"What's a little disease between old friends?" Carmichael spreads his arms wide. His eyes, over his bulbous nose and impressive moustache, are almost wider than his spectacles, and their watery-blue intensity is as sober as coffee, considering. "Gift, we must reseal the cellar. Nobody can ever go down there, and these students must never speak of what they saw." Tshabalala is shocked. Carmichael plays with his moustache, before adding, for emphasis, "Ever."

***

The dusk settles over the small town, its orange warmth snuggling at the nape of Carmichael's neck. He mutters to himself as he locks the church, "The little shits better not come back."

Carmichael knows he'd best fetch a blanket and a good book. He'll have to spend the night camped in the blasted church. Can't trust kids. Since the fall of man, kids have been disobedient, and every time he sees one he can understand why the Catholic orders insist on celibacy. The little shits! Probably best fetch the old hooch bottle, as well. With that spooky thing down below, it'll do well to have a little something nearby to steady the nerves. And if all else fails, there's always the bottle to break over some bugger's head. Carmichael, still grumbling, heads off towards the rectory. He sneezes mightily. The scotch hasn't helped, and he wonders whether gin would be at all useful.

***

A flashlight lights the stairs. A scuffling and whispering are detectable behind the light, which starts to bob down the stairs and then, to the dulcet accompaniment of a short shriek, splashes the walls, or more accurately, the ceiling, with wildly wavering illumination. The crash echoes in the musty cellar as the light rolls to a halt, melodramatically focussing on the trunk in the centre. "Brian, are you okay?" Christine's voice queries from the dark.

"Why, when someone has an accident or trauma or something, does someone always ask if they're okay? Of course he's not bloody okay."

"Shut up, Max."

"Ow, that hurt." Brian's voice sounds like it is somewhere on the floor at the foot of the stairs. "Are you okay?"

"Like I said..."

"Shut up, Max."

A shadow feels its way down before a second flashlight is switched on above.

"Lucky this is nae a wee graveyard. That would ha' waked the dead. Damn – ah think ah caught mah kilt on this wall here."

"Anything broken? Can you walk?" Christine helps Brian to his feet.

"I'm fine, I think. Ouch."

Millie gingerly descends, still dressed in a short skirt, though this time, like the others, she is dressed in black, suited to the night's breaking and entering activities. She wrinkles her nose, and places a hand over her face. Max stifles a sneeze. "Now that Brian has disturbed the dust of the ages, let's get on with it."

Brian rubs his ankle. "Ow."

"Are you okay, Brian?"

Max sighs heavily at Christine's concern.

"I'm fine, just bruised my ankle here a bit. I can walk fine."

Max looks at the trunk, and feels an inexplicable coldness between his shoulders. "I shouldn't be here." Christine looks up at Max. "Where's your sense of adventure, Max?"

"Where's your sense, period? Peter was right – we bloody well are trespassing," snaps Max.

Jock claps him on the shoulder. "Then luckily the priesties have this wee contract themselves to forgive us ours so that they can be forgiven theirs. It's what's called a vicious circle, laddie. Bit of a shite one, if y' ask me - cannae give a bitch slap to some fool who really deserves it, then." He grins as broadly as ever.

Brian gingerly tests his weight on his ankle and addresses Max without looking up, "We all agreed, Max. Let's just look. What's the point of being a student if you don't have some fun?"

"Well ah'd say the point is lots and lots of sex." The girls give Jock a withering look, and he grins at them. Max saunters down, and the group amble across the floor to the trunk. As they gather around it, Brian produces another portable flashlight with a neon bulb. It lights up the room a lot better than the other torches, and these are switched off. After a moment's hesitation, Max picks up the elderly pages lying on the chest.

***

Deep in the smoky light, a shadow stops its scurrying movements, waving in and out of reality. Like a hunter at the unexpected snap of a little twig a way off in the woods, it slowly turns, fixes its attention off into the gloom, and grins with pointed teeth.

***

Max puts the pages down. The students ponder what they've just read.

Brian looks at his watch, before expressing the general opinion, "Now that is weird shit."

Max runs a hand uneasily through his hair. Jock's easy, stupid grin, for a change, seems a façade. The girls look at each other, unwilling to voice their feelings. After a few moments, Max clears his throat. "Superstitious bullshit. This is just like a curse on a mummy's tomb."

"Yeah," responds Brian dryly. He looks at his watch again. "Midnight already. Here goes."

Brian cuts through the last rope binding, and opens the trunk a crack.

He halts as a scuffling noise from the church above rushes towards the door. They can clearly hear footsteps now, right by the break in the wall. Millie swallows, as the group looks wide eyed up at the gap.

"It's the demon, coming like the warning said," Millie whimpers and stuffs a knuckle into her mouth. A dark figure appears at the aperture. The group involuntarily takes a step back.

"What are you idiots doing?"

"Shit, I don't believe it." Max' voice is saturated with relief.

Brian's relief is also palpable. "Peter."

"Peter, it's only Peter." Christine nearly laughs out loud.

"Peter, you wee bastard. We thought you were... Uhm... I mean... Er..."

Max laughs.

Brian leans heavily on the trunk, relieved. "It's this dark place, at night. Stupid curses. This is the twenty-first century." He laughs, too. "Just in time, Peter, old son; join the party." He turns back towards the trunk. Peter hobbles down the stairs. As he sees Brian again starting to open the trunk, he reaches as though he can stretch his hand across the room to his peers and stop them. Vaguely remembering a similar moment of frozen clarity when the accident nearly claimed his legs, Peter sees the disaster unfolding like a slow replay, but a split second after realisation is insufficient time to get out of fate's way. From far away, he is aware that this is a second that will haunt him forever, if he survives. He knows this moment will replay in his mind and wake him in a cold sweat, just like his memories of the crash. He tries to shout, but his throat is suddenly too dry to emit more than a strangled squeak. He watches helplessly as Brian opens the lid.

Nothing happens.

The white students look at each other, then at the young black man and then to the trunk. The silence in the old cellar is absolute.

"I saw you sneaking out the dormitory. I... I..." Peter stutters into silence.

Nothing.

Peter feels foolish and relieved. He doesn't know whether to feel angry at his naïveté or free from the burden of false knowledge. They had been lying to him all along.

It's a bit like the cartoon where the fuse fizzles down to the round, black bomb, and the characters all duck frantically, only for an amusing flag with 'bang' written on it to pop out. In the best tradition of cartoons, the relief of the characters as they peer closely at the device is always invariably cut short by a belated explosive blast. Jock bends forward to look into the trunk. A howl breaks out like a trapped hurricane, blowing his hair back. Air blasts impossibly from the trunk, getting stronger and stronger. The noise of the howl increases very rapidly, like a jet engine starting, and the throttle depressing. As the sound grows, the wind fills the room. With nowhere to escape, the air turns into a maelstrom, throwing small items about. The dust of decades turns the confined space into a desert sandstorm. Items hit the students painfully, as they lean into the force.

Millie screams (there's always one).

Jock loses his fake Scottish accent and exclaims with a distinctly Capetonian one, but nobody can hear him above the racket. "Oh shoowoah, man.!"

Peter, unable to stand, falls, his bad leg twisting awkwardly beneath him. He lets out a small cry at the sudden pain, but this is likewise unheard over the noise. The students cower as the black mask rises from the trunk, like some small demon unleashed into the world from an age of bondage, which, most unfortunately, is exactly what it is. It manages to look pissed.

The students are forced back against the walls by the concentration of unnatural weather. The pressure gradually eases at the perimeter, leaving objects strewn around the edges, as the maelstrom visibly congeals towards a point next to the open chest. The whirlwind shrinks, thickens, and takes a shape, sucking most of the dust from the air. The shape shrinks, now seven feet tall, now man-sized, now child-sized. Human features become distinguishable - an arm, a leg. Three legs? The midget pushes himself erect, as it were, from the floor, as the howling dies away. Some of the choking dust still floats about, but the wind has stopped. The midget reaches upwards, grasps the mask, and pulls it towards his face. Peter struggles to stay conscious. His leg feels like it has been pulled off, and something hit him hard on the head during the frenzy. After a moment in eternity, the midget turns his masked face towards the students. He does this slowly, like a torturer bringing something fearful slowly into view of his victims. The short form is clad - barely - in a loincloth, the crotch bulging obscenely. He looks at them malevolently through the eyes of the black mask. When he favours them with his evil grin, he does so with pointed teeth. The silence is broken by Jock, who screams in a pitch higher than Millie. Everyone, including the midget, turns their gaze towards him, except for Millie, who is staring in rapt awe at the bulging loincloth. Jock, despite his fear, is somewhat embarrassed, but joins the rest in screaming again nonetheless as the midget takes a step towards them, his footfall booming down on the floor like a scene from a dinosaur movie, the one where the theatre seats vibrate with ultra-bass.

***

The Reverend Carmichael's eyes snap open. He feels something is amiss, but can't quite figure what. The triple gin and tonics have added a warm, fuzzy edge to the whiskeys (or were thgey brandies?) he shared with Tshabalala, and the net result was a pleasantly early night.

Let's see, now. How did he get into bed?

He had inspected the church. Locked it up nice and tight in case the kids came back... Oh bugger!

The luminous dial taunts him - the time is just past twelve. Carmichael yawns to clear the mugginess in his ears, and then hurls the covers off. He bolts into his slippers as he hears, filtered by architecture of his no doubt violated church, the faint screaming and a howling like a tornado. Without even removing his old-fashioned sleeping cap – the long one like a floppy dunce hat with the fuzzy pom-pom, the priest heads for the door. He curses as he trips over the chamber pot, recovers like an ice skater, arms flailing, and heads again for the door, an ageing apparition in Union Jack pyjamas.

Out the door and into the night. Yes, the screams are definitely coming from the church, though the storm he thought he heard has left no evidence of its passing. There is a wretched yowl as he treads heavily on a cat's tail, and again nearly loses his balance.

"Dash it all! Feline churl!"

He steadies and hurries on.

***

The midget's eyes glow red. He halts and looks at the students in turn, selecting his prey. The red slits fix on Peter, prone nearby, and he starts towards him with heavy, thundering footfalls. The students feel the building shake as he walks. He approaches Peter, who is paralysed with fear, as Millie screams again. Before the masked midget reaches the black boy, Jock rushes forward to stand between Peter and the midget, picking up Peter's cane threateningly. The midget hesitates.

"Off wi' ye, y' 'orrible beastie."

The midget seems uncertain, and Jock feels a momentary twinge of hope. He waves the cane as menacingly as he can. The midget makes a lightning dart, and before Jock can react, knocks the cane away.

Jock glances back at Peter, sprawled helpless just behind him, and sets his jaw, balling his fists and dancing like a boxer.

The midget hits one of his arms aside, then, in all defiance of measurement and geometry, picks up the much taller Jock and holds him upside down over his head. Jock pulls a face at the smell, which is that of a slaughterhouse next to a tannery and a public refuse dump on a hot day. The kilt falls around his waist, revealing a pink g-string. Jock's legs kick wildly as he looks down the midget's face. Somehow the smell is the least of his problems. In the background he can hear the consternation of his peers. The evil little smile below him grows, and keeps on growing. Jock's fists beat wildly, but to no avail, as the midget's mouth grows impossibly wide. Jock, in a short burst of clarity, sympathises with the mouse as the snake prepares to swallow it whole. The midget's mouth has become a doorway into an unreal, dank, dark, fetid place, which no mere human can see and stay sane, and Jock starts to whimper.

The midget, at viper speed, jerks Jock closer and bites at his head as the others all scream in unison. With a sickening crunch, Jock's head pulls away from his torso, wet mush and a protruding white spine stretching out from the neck before snapping back like an elastic band. The midget makes a show of smacking his lips, and then laughs a staccato cackle that is somehow supernaturally infectious as the red blood squirts over his upturned face. Jock's body, still coming to terms with the loss of its head, convulses in the air before the midget swallows it in a single impossible snap. All that is left is a splattered red stain on the floor.

Reverend Carmichael bursts in, still wrapped in the Union Jack. The midget turns to the priest, and wipes his hands on his torso, for all the world as though he has just had a portion of heavily basted ribs and can't wait for the finger bowl. The students have, by this time, gone beyond screaming;

Millie's face is buried in Brian's shoulder as the others stare, transfixed. The midget observes as Carmichael barely avoids falling ignominiously down the stairs. The priest stops himself by grabbing at the metal rail, puffing at the effort, and takes in the scene.

The midget takes a step closer. He burps at the priest, the force of the expelled blast blowing back the priest's hair and moustache in a manner suggestive of why the windscreen was invented. Carmichael's nose wrinkles as he sniffs at the after-whiff of the late Jock McTavish. All the humans are nearly overwhelmed by the stench. Reverend Carmichael gags, his arm across his nose, and from the magical hidden recesses of the British flag, whips out a cross and holds it out as a shield to the black mask. "Back, Demon! Back, I say!" The midget grins at him and takes a step closer. He grips and thrusts his crotch suggestively at Carmichael, whose eyes bulge. "Oh, bloody hell!" Carmichael leans heavily against the rail.

The midget moves closer, but trips over the trunk, which has somehow conveniently ended up between the midget and the priest. He lands on Peter as he falls, but supports himself with his arms, face still fixed on the priest, ignoring the horrified lad beneath him. Peter bibbers, looking up into the hideous black mask a few inches from his nose. As the trunk falls over, the rustling papers fall towards the floor, and Christine tears her eyes from the thing to the top sheaf. The midget rises and stomps towards Carmichael, the bricks of the church shuddering. Peter cries out as a foot grazes past his head, and stuffs his fist into his mouth, scared of distracting the monster. Carmichael and the students do their best impersonation of a rabbit at the approach of a car with especially bright halogen lamps. As the midget reaches the bottom of the stairs, he again defies the normal rules of space and size, and takes a swipe at the priest, with arms that are somehow long enough to reach. Carmichael shakes off his paralysis in time to fall to one side, and trips over his flashlight, which had been lost in the chaos of his unplanned trip down the stairs. The beam shines into the black mask's eyes. Two eye-slit shaped points of light shine through it onto the wall opposite, through the dust. The midget covers his eyes, extinguishing the eerie shadow on the wall, and shrieks.

***

The shriek echoes through the caves and passages. Bits of dust fall at the noise. Green eyes snap open. A line of drooling, snarling, ectoplasm teeth can be seen below them.

***

The midget hits out at the priest, snarling. Carmichael holds his pyjama pants up like a long skirt and runs around, trying to avoid the small attacker. The midget misses the priest, thanks mainly to a display of agility more readily associated with a world-class gymnast than an elderly parish pastor. This is extremely fortunate for the good Father, because, as the blows land, the floor cracks under superhuman strength. Millie holds onto Brian like sabotage glue on a sprinter's starting blocks. He looks about, spots a convenient shovel, shakes off Millie with difficulty, picks it up and hurls it at the black mask. It clangs against the back of the midget's head. The midget grunts, hesitates and looks around at Max, who bravely shakes his head and points at Brian, whose mouth drops open at Max's intrepid finger.

Christine, from another corner, noting the midget's confusion, picks up a flashlight and throws it. It, too, connects the midget's head. He rubs the affronted area, by this time getting very peeved at such rude and repeated treatment, and searches for the culprit. He sees Christine and snarls again.

Max opens and shuts his mouth, and shakes his head viciously, irritated by his own lack of courage. He gropes on the ground, finds a piece of the broken wall and hurls it at the demon. This misses its target, and more narrowly misses the Reverend Carmichael, who is panting and clutching his chest across the room.

Carmichael starts at the projectile whizzing past his nose. "Bloody hell!"

Peter, a lot closer to the offensive little 'man' than he would like to be, picks up his cane and takes a swipe at the midget's legs, but the cane passes straight through. This, considers Peter bitterly, if briefly, is just his luck. The thing stomped like Godzilla on every prohibited performance enhancing substance known to man a few moments ago, and now turns into mist just when he needs it to be solid as a cricket ball. Luckily, the midget does not seem to notice this attack, and Peter scrambles backwards, away from his adversary. Brian narrows his eyes at the trunk, a crazy plan forming in his mind. The midget is practically on top of the chest. In his flight around the room, Carmichael has somehow succeeded in placing it again between the midget and his holy self. "Max, keep it distracted," screams Brian.

Max points to his own chest and looks incredulous. "Max, you asshole, just do it!" Brian waits for his chance.

Sobbing, Millie cringes away. Christine, sensing Brian's need for a distraction, jumps up and waves at the shadow. "Hey you, short ass! Come here. Yes you, you ugly... oh shit." The thing seems more interested in Brian than in her. Max tosses a few more stones, but is ignored. Christine picks up a brick-like object and throws it. It passes through the midget and hits the priest's forehead. His eyes roll and he goes down like Goliath the day he met David. Christine is suitably chagrined, but she continues to throw rubble. The midget lowers his head towards her.

Brian waits until the midget is again distracted, then, with a rolling manoeuvre; he grabs the trunk from right at the midget's feet. The thing tries to stomp him, but misses, shaking more dust from the ceiling with the blow. The students struggle to maintain balance as the building shakes. Brian hefts the trunk and jumps at the black mask. The trunk passes through the midget's neck and closes about the mask, and Brian slams it shut. The headless midget thrashes about, a bass scream reverberates, and the listeners get the distinct impression that the echo is not quite right, as though the screamer is in a passage or cavern somewhere. Peter, on the ground, holds his ears. As the midget's headless body is still quite close to Peter, what looks like earth, but smells like something far more organic, falls all over him. The scream fades, sounding a lot like someone falling into a deep ravine. Brian is out of breath and falls back, clutching the closed trunk. Millie peeps out from behind her hand. Max looks on stupidly, and Christine stares at Brian.

***

In the stone passages, the angry scream echoes away. It is answered by silence.

### Chapter Ten

Peter wrinkles his nose and sniffs at the substance covering him. "Phew. I stink like a used barf bag." Brian, still clutching the chest, moves across the floor and sags to his knees next to a grizzly red stain that is all the earthly remains of Jock McTavish.

Carmichael groans. Christine rushes over to him, and helps the dazed priest to sit up. "I'm so sorry, Reverend." "Where'd the blighter go?" Carmichael holds his injured head and groans again.

Peter hoists himself up with his cane, and hobbles up behind Brian, who smells him coming and turns. Max also wrinkles his nose. "You sure need a shower." Carmichael holds his head, and shakes Christine off. His face is as dark as a thundercloud. "You unmitigated fools!" Brian hangs his head miserably. "We're sorry. It was my fault, my idea." He sits on the floor, clutching the trunk and rocking gently.

"Sorry my ass. Bloody parents never teach their kids any discipline. Help me up."

Christine helps the priest to his wobbly feet as he rubs his head. She looks about and points an almost accusing finger at Peter. "You know something about this, don't you?" Peter scowls at her venomously, then his shoulders sag, his stomach for conflict gone. "The Sangoma of my tribe has told me the prisons become weaker the more often these things are locked up in them. This trunk is losing power." He holds up three fingers. "This is the third time we know of it's been imprisoned in there."

Peter grips his cane with both hands. Christine is put in mind of a little green Jedi master delivering a revelation to a headstrong hero. Peter sighs. "It will be free again. That box won't hold it for long now; I know it."

Max holds his palms upwards. "What? Huh? What will be free?"

Peter ignores Max, and places a hand on Brian's shoulder. Brian is still rocking and does not look up from his guilt ridden misery, choosing instead to mutter repeatedly to himself, "All my fault."

Peter pats his shoulder, but knows that the others, including Brian, must all be forced to understand the severity of the situation. "Three's a number with some significance when dealing with these things. It will be free, and when it is, it will wreak havoc on the world."

"What," repeats Max firmly, "exactly, will be free?" Christine helps the priest to a seat on the stairs, before addressing Peter, "You're Batlhaping, aren't you? You know about the village they wrote about?" She picks up the scattered papers, and shakes them.

Peter nods. "My great-great-grandfather was Malole. He was chief of the tribe when this demon was locked up for the second time." He points at the chest in Brian's clutches. "Locked up in here."

Millie wipes her eyes and inspects the stain that was Jock. She wrinkles her nose. "Ugh! Gross."

Brian looks at her in disgust, and then he resumes his rocking. "This is my entire fault."

Carmichael, unsure of whether to belt the blighter, or comfort him, shuffles over and puts an unsteady hand on Brian's other shoulder. He is careful not to draw a direct breath near Peter. "No time now for that, now, lad. You kids need to get this thing back to where it came from and seek a method to destroy it."

Max is incredulous. "'You kids'? I'm not going anywhere."

Peter holds his hand up to stop Max. "We all need to go, all of us who were here when that thing came out the chest. This is the wisdom of our Sangomas."

Brian looks up. "What's a Sangoma?"

"Like a witchdoctor, Brian, or an herbalist," Peter answers.

"Oh. Right." Max snorts. "If you think for one stuffing second I'm going to believe a stuffing witchdoctor..."

Carmichael covers his eyes with a hand.

Christine retrieves more of the papers she saw falling to the ground. One is a crudely drawn map to a tribal village, by the looks of it.

Peter pokes Max in the chest and speaks to him through gritted teeth, "Oh yes, you are going. We let it out. We must destroy the black mask. We're the only ones." He places firm emphasis on the word 'we'.

Max gets angry. "Listen here..."

Peter takes a threatening step closer. "No, you listen, white boy. I..."

Carmichael's thunderclap voice breaks in, "You don't have a choice. It will find you and kill you in the most gruesome way if you don't do what Peter and I say." Max stops, and looks from Peter to Carmichael, trying to find the lie in their claims.

Millie wrings her hands. "But it seems trapped in the trunk again."

With much internal struggle, the priest remains gentle and reasonable as he turns to her. "Weren't you listening? Peter is absolutely correct."

Christine eyes Carmichael suspiciously. "How do you and Peter know so much?"

Carmichael exchanges glances with Peter. Peter nods, and the priest considers his words before answering, "His ancestors and the church have been partners in this for a hundred and sixty years." He points at the crippled youth. "Peter and I are specially appointed guardians. He was appointed by the Batlhaping, and me by the church." He twists his mouth as though considering something distasteful before he carries on, "Though I think the church should have replaced me with someone much younger a few years ago." Inwardly, even though this was technically Brian's fault, the priest is cursing himself more than the young American. He finds Peter's gaze uncomfortable, remembering how the boy pleaded with him not to allow this stupid class exercise. He wipes his brow, wincing as his hand scrapes the wound from Christine's projectile. The old priest sighs heavily. "The demon is trapped, but that may last hours, days, weeks, might last minutes. We have no time to lose." His pointing finger takes in all the students. "You have to act soon."

"Demon?" Max's mouth can't seem to close.

Peter hangs his head, and his eyes rest on Jock's bloodstain, which slaps him like a physical force. "Jock saved my life. I owe him that much."

Max is incredulous. "Are you nuts?"

Brian bolts to his feet, grabs Max's shirt front, and whips him about so their faces are inches apart. "Listen, asshole, we ignored the warnings so far and look what happened. Can't you see?"

With some dignity, Max takes Brian's hands and forces them away. "Like you said, this was your idea. Don't get uppity with me. And just how do we find where that thing came from? How do we get there?"

"Here is a map." Christine waves the old paper in the air.

"A map to what?" asks Max disdainfully. "The stuff Brian read before that thing came out the box said nobody was sure exactly where it came from."

Peter takes the map from Christine. "When this spirit, this Tokolosh, was trapped, my ancestors were at war with a tribe called the Boipakeng. These people were under the influence of a rather unsavoury character at the time, who trafficked with all manner of Tokolosh and... Don't roll your eyes at me, van Oppen, you've seen it yourself here." "What's a Tokolosh?" asks Brian.

"Ah." Carmichael considers how unfamiliar this must all be to someone with an accent as foreign as Brian's. "A Tokolosh is an evil spirit, like a demon familiar, summoned by a witchdoctor."

Brian nods slowly, still holding the chest like a lifeline. 'Witchdoctor. Tokolosh. Demon. Absolutely.' He keeps his mouth shut and his expression neutral on this matter. "Anyway," continues Peter. "At some point, the Batlhaping warriors were able to capture some of the Boipakeng, and amongst them were men who knew the secret of where their chief and Sangoma – that's like a witchdoctor, remember, Brian?" Peter pauses and smiles, imagining what the American must think about that. "Where they had gone to conjure up this Tokolosh. By that time, the thing was in that trunk, and locked away here in Saint Michaels. The elders at the time felt that the prison was as safe as it could be, so they wrote a full account, some warnings..." He indicates the collection of papers and shakes his head wryly. "And maps to where they think the thing was summoned."

"By that time, the church had already sealed the cellar, and had all records of its existence destroyed, so those additional documents I have at the rectory, and Peter's tribe keeps a copy, as well," finishes Carmichael.

"What's so important about where it came from, if it's here now?"

"That's what these papers tell us, Millie." Christine waves the crackly brown pages, which she has been reading. "According to this, a Tokolosh is connected to a single place, or area. Somehow the only way to banish it is to take it back to where it was summoned."

"So why do we all need to go if these two are the guardians of the faith or whatever?" Max indicates Carmichael and Peter.

"Same reason," answers Peter. "Just like it is vulnerable where it was summoned, it is weaker in the presence of those who summoned or freed it. The original summoner freed it from wherever it was, just like we, and I include myself in that, freed it from that trunk. We all have that power, and because we were together, taking away any of us just makes that power weaker."

They all study the bloodstain for a second, letting the ramifications of this sink in.

"But..." begins Max.

He stops as Christine lays a hand on his arm. Her voice is gentle. "Max, this doesn't fit into what we've always believed. We've screwed up already, so at least let's listen now. Peter has known about this for a lot longer than we have."

"But..."

"The church is prepared for this." Carmichael bustles towards the stairs, applying the old adage that if you ignore someone long enough, they eventually forget they had an opinion. "I have money ready..." The old man pauses, pursing his lips. He glares at the five remaining students. "Of course, we weren't expecting so many idiots at once, but it should be enough. Go pack some things; I'll meet you back here in two hours and drive you to the airport. Oh and, ah, Max, is it?" He raises an admonishing finger. "Don't try to wheedle your way out of this. Trust me on that."

The youth is taken aback by the unexpected vehemence in the old man's voice, and shuts his mouth.

"What do we do then? Where do we go?" Millie interjects. "You are going - Millie, is it? - to Peter's tribal kraal. From there, you're going to go to where we think the black mask was made and the spirit within it summoned, to send that dashed demon back to Hell."

Millie's face is a picture of doubt, Max snorts and shakes his head, and Brian feels unable to say anything at all.

### Chapter Eleven

The dawn is visible as a slightly lighter shade of black in the east. The jeep has a plastic Union Jack attached to a stiff antenna, like a radio-controlled model car, and a personalised number plate - 'BRITTANIA'. The car's walrus-moustached owner tosses the keys to Brian as they get in. "You drive; I banged my leg back there."

After a false start, involving significant quantities of smoke, various loud grating noises, and a helpful 'easy on the gears, lad; the old girl has been with me for years', the group eases off, with Brian at the wheel. Max, sulking in the back with his arms folded, stares into his own world. So does Peter. The jeep is very crowded, and loud in the night. After a very short distance, Peter's quiet voice rises above the backfiring, "Wrong side, Brian."

The car jerks wildly to the left of the road.

"Bloody Americans," mutters Carmichael, holding his hat on his head tightly to keep it from being blown off in the wind.

***

It has taken two hours to reach the airport.

Christine has passed the time mentally arranging the notes to the beginnings of a song forming in her mind, a tune she can't get out of her head. She suspects this might be that one small musical masterpiece on her to-do list of life. It involves a sinister demon, a priest, and a stupid person who didn't listen. She finds herself humming the tune constantly, and is surprised her companions haven't become annoyed at her. Max hasn't said a word, Peter has slept, adrenalin losing the fight against painkillers, and Brian's jaw has an increasingly determined set. He can't stop reliving the wet, sticky moment when Jock's head parted company with the rest of Jock. It seems burnt into his retina.

Brian pulls the Jeep into the airport parking lot, and the students bundle out, stretching after the cramped trip. Carmichael has supplied some emergency camping gear, largely pilfered from the church's youth group's cupboard. This group is a bunch of children who are regularly taken into the obscure wilderness by some well-meaning adults on the premise that a week away from parental control, learning about God and having fun in a group, will help build character. Little Sebusisu has long since been forgiven of the incident involving the illicit matches and the camp leader's shoes. "I phoned ahead to Sam's flight charters. Their offices are inside the airport somewhere." Carmichael waves vaguely. "Sam knows where to take you, and besides, his plane can land in the back of beyond... Aha. Aha. Yers well...." The priest hesitates, something obviously on his mind, and to Christine, he looks older and frailer than he did. He starts to say something, reconsiders, takes a breath, and tries again, "Make sure you all come back in one piece. I suppose that telling you to be careful is a waste of time." He grips Brian and Millie by their wrists, but somehow, in so doing, latches onto them all. "You kids know I wouldn't want it to be this way, sending some children to do this unspeakable job, but I failed in my charge, and you opened that damned chest." He jerks his head to the object, its lid bound tightly with some stout nylon rope. "I will live with that for the rest of my life. If there was any other way..." He lets go, gruffly. Nobody challenges his right to call them children, not even Max, despite his belligerent mood. Christine can't quite tell whether there is a tear in his eye or if it's just the wind. Carmichael nods, sneezes into his handkerchief and uses the opportunity to wipe at his eyes. He hesitates a moment, awkward in the silence, then shuffles around to the driver's side. "I won't come in; banged myself up a bit falling in the cellar."

Christine can't meet his eyes. With gloomy waves, the students gather their luggage. Brian loads it onto a trolley, and they wander off, slowly, so that Peter can keep the pace. "And don't ignore personal hygiene, just because you're in the damn bush!" Carmichael calls after them. He watches until they disappear into the terminal. The instant they move from view, he slumps his shoulders, and, leaning over the steering wheel, closes his eyes and pleads a silent prayer for the young people. The faint rumble of thunder precedes the start of a miserable drizzle. Carmichael squints upward, turns up his collar and oozes into the jeep. He hopes it doesn't rain all day; he forgot his ruddy bumbershoot. He reaches into his pocket, hauls out a mobile phone and searches for a number he'd hoped he'd never need. "Hello, Chief? Sorry to call you at this hour; this is Carmichael. Carmichael. From Saint Michael's. Yes, that's right. I'm afraid so. Long story, but your nephew is on his way."

Ten minutes later, he presses the red button, disconnecting the call. He can't blame the man for practically melting the phone.

He feels like a Judas, sending them unaccompanied into the jaws of horror. Already, Carmichael feels the need to dilute reality with a stiff whiskey, but determines that he will be as sober as – not a priest, but at least a judge - no hang on, there was that big court case on about a judge driving under the influence, wasn't there? - Well, sober - until he knows, one way or another, the fate of the children. That's what they are, children. He has sent child soldiers into one of the deadliest wars of all. Dash this weather – he can't get the grit out of his eye. He sits for a long while, watching the droplets hit his windshield, then takes the phone out of his pocket again and dials another number. "Hello, Gift?"

***

The students trek into the terminal, towards a passage leading to the domestic departures. A group of Dutch backpackers, to whom the meaning of the term 'queue' is evidently as familiar as a clear head is to the average alcoholic, is causing no small measure of chaos, and irritated passengers and baggage handlers sigh, swear, and grimace. The backpackers create a narrowing in the passage as they shout and laugh at each other, uncaring and oblivious to the heightened levels of annoyance eddying about them, and, thinks Brian thankfully, very unaware of his own small group's mission.

Christine takes in the ignorance around her. Nobody knows what is in the chest. Nobody knows what goes through her mind and the minds of her companions. She wonders how the hijackers felt, whether they realised how much their actions were about to change the world on that black September day, or the assassin, lurking in a warehouse or in some grassy knoll as he watched the cheering Dallas crowds. A burly backpacker jostles Peter, who stumbles. Millie elbows past, but Christine stops to help him. She hears her song surging through her head again, people all around completely unaware of the horror locked up in their midst and how badly she'd love to just hold her head and scream the nightmare away.

Brian is dressed as though for a safari. His khaki safari suit, khaki hat and bush boots are straight out of a nineteen thirties African adventure story. An air hostess smirks at him, and mutters something behind her hand to her companion. The latter's defining feature is a wide smile on a broad black face. She holds nothing back as she throws her head in a loud, unashamed laugh, her ample bosom jiggling, her mouth wide and teeth white and perfect. What big teeth you have, Grandma. Brian ignores the women and hustles off after the others. After a brief panic, during which Max thinks his wallet has been stolen from his pocket - it is in his bag - the group spots the derelict sign above the office of Sam's Charters. Sam is dark, shiny black, middle aged, and without front teeth. His salt and pepper cropped hair is hidden under a wide-brimmed hat, which would almost compliment Brian's outlandish get-up. Behind the charter desk is a battered poster depicting some tired tropical island paradise, and Brian wonders why the man has never been sued for false advertising.

His receptionist-come-sales assistant has been given the day off, but Sam is prepared for them after having been duly woken at an ungodly hour by Carmichael, calling from his mobile. It had been a little difficult to gather the details, as Carmichael's loud car had competed gamely for attention, but Sam had managed to get the gist of the reverend's need, and has his own paraphernalia ready for the trip. This is one charter he is flying himself. He wonders which of the idiots in front of him had the idea of opening the Tokolosh's prison. Probably the one dressed like a prat.

Despite the urgency, the danger and his duty to mankind, business is still business, and before leaving the office, Sam counts the huge wad of cash Christine reluctantly hands over, and grins. His grin fades when he notices a particular item of baggage guarded by Max and Millie outside his office. The trunk is wrapped ridiculously in chains, padlocks and bubble wrap. Passersby smirk at Brian in his safari gear as they look into Sam's office through a large, grimy pane. It takes some time to get through the bureaucracy of taking off from the airport, especially when one has a trunk that under no circumstances must be opened, and it is well into the morning, and even further into their bribery funds, before a small plane, bearing the faded logo of Sam's charter company, takes off.

The trunk is secured in the crowded main cabin with the students, behind Sam, who is at the controls. Christine studies the map, her fingers tapping a rock rhythm. Millie tries to sit next to Brian, but she shoots him an irritated look as he moves off to sit next to Christine. Christine shuffles a bit, creating the illusion that she is making more space for Brian.

"Listen, Christine. I never said thanks for your help back at the church. Attacking that thing was something else." She smiles and squeezes his hand, at which Millie looks away. Peter notices this, but says nothing. He is sad, and right now cares a lot less about the spoilt sensitivities of Millie than about the threat he has spectacularly failed to contain. The elders are going to be sooooo miffed. He'll be lucky if the current Sangoma doesn't make muti out of his liver. Hah. The only medicine to be made from the likes of him would be something debilitating. He stares out of a small window, swimming deeper into the choppy waters of self-pity. After a while, the regular patterns of the town give way to the African veldt rolling beneath the plane. A plain under a plane, Peter thinks, aware that he badly needs more sleep. After a long while, he sees a herd of antelope, then some giraffe and elephants. The Sangoma is definitely going to be cheesed to the max.

They pass some of the time poring over Carmichael's documents, and listening, with varying degrees of belief, to Peter's accounts of the days of prosperity and the silver mask, the unleashing of the Tokolosh, and the subsequent history of the Batlhaping. After a while, each is left to his or her own thoughts and the restful droning of the engines. The students snore, with gentle turbulence like the hand that rocks the cradle. They have had very little sleep, and even the whine of the aircraft engine and the stress of starring in their own real-life horror film isn't enough to sustain the adrenaline forever. One by one, they have dropped off. Christine snuggles against Brian; Max hugs his chest and sucks his thumb. Up front, Sam swears quietly about the dark clouds up ahead. That's weird; the weather prediction was all sunny. He glances over his shoulder and mutters at the bad magic he feels is being brought to bear upon his passengers. The plane starts bumping. This gets worse as lightning appears and thunder roars, even over the noise of the propellers. The students are jolted awake in a particularly nasty instant of turbulence, which ensures that Max bites his thumb. Sam notes this with some degree of puerile satisfaction, the same supercilious pleasure a weather-beaten salt feels when he sees a green landlubber chucking a preowned breakfast into the wind over the side of a ship, and hopes they are scared stupid by the bucking of the plane. He can't turn back now; he doesn't have enough fuel. Sam struggles at the controls, gritting his few teeth.

"Better strap in."

The students buckle up and eye the chest. The wretched thing couldn't appear more a picture of feigned innocence if it was whistling, twiddling its thumbs and looking angelically into the air above it. Millie gives a small shriek as the aircraft drops a few metres in a split second, leaving her stomach in her chest. The plane continues to buck in the storm as an unseen hand pushes it down and jerks it up again like a child's plaything. Sam's not even bothering to try to comfort his passengers. Why lie? They are in deep, deep trouble. He wishes for a moment that he had written his will, but then, there is nobody to leave anything to anyway. Let his few distant relatives fight it out, the bastards. His gap-toothed grin widens at the thought.

The plane dips sharply, and amidst the involuntary alarmed shrieks, the trunk topples. Max tries unsuccessfully to stop it, but it falls with a loud crack. They all inspect it, worried. There is nothing much anyone can do, though, but stay belted into their seats and hope they don't embarrass themselves by recycling breakfast.

Max is the closest to the trunk, and finishes an urgent examination. "It seems okay."

The students fix their attention worriedly on the item for a few more moments, but when it fails to pop open spewing short, homicidal little sods with sharp teeth, they relax, after a fashion. They do not see misty black tendrils seeping from a newly-formed crack.

***

In his cave, Ratsitanga stirs a pot. He stops, and then looks up as if listening, and bares his teeth. He draws his filthy rags closer about him, and abandons the pot, sitting to meditate. From the gloom, the blue dog slinks closer, its tail curled between its legs. Ratsitanga ignores it as it licks his face. He reaches with all his senses. Now that's a familiar feeling he hasn't sensed in a long, long time. The dog curls up next to him, and places a horrible head on the witch's lap. After a while, it lifts its back leg to perform its canine ablutions.

***

In the dim of his hut, the current incumbent of the office of Batlhaping tribal Sangoma also looks up, he, too, listening to something only he can hear. He reaches for the cured buffalo scrotum in which he keeps his set of worn divination bones.

***

In the smoky light, no shadows dance; it is too dark. But a low, animal growl ripples through a pond of silence whose waters have lain undisturbed for a very long time. The chains clink.

***

The atmosphere's anger subsides, leaving the plane's drone to once more lull the students gently, tiredness reclaiming them. One by one, they again nod off. As the last head slumps, the black mist seizes its opportunity. It wafts gently past each of them, a nanny, checking her charges conscientiously in the nursery, here adjusting a pillow, there stroking a dreaming infant head, before heading off downstairs for a nice cup of tea with the butler. The midget's waist and groin materialise. All that is visible of the midget, at first, is his huge over-stuffed loincloth, an obscene parody of the Cheshire cat. Like that character, the rest of the midget forms fully shortly after his most recognisable feature. Black mist coalesces into limbs and torso, and teeth. He is wearing the black mask. He approaches Millie, and ogles her closely from a number of impolite distances and angles. Whatever lurks beneath the loincloth throbs rhythmically. The midget giggles, and looks about the forward area of the plane. Sam, eyes fixed out the forward window, has not noticed this unwelcome addition to his passenger list. The grinning midget starts to move towards the pilot's seat, dissolving into the black mist again like some strange transition effect in a computer presentation programme. Sam, blissfully unaware of the danger, flies on. The mist seeps down his collar, causing him to scratch his neck. To the naked eye, all that is visible after a few seconds is Sam.

The peace behind the controls shatters, Sam flapping and tearing at his face. He opens his mouth, and tries to scream, but no sound is heard. Sam may as well paint his face white and wear a black and white striped shirt while doing the man-in-an-invisible-box routine. Though the plane bucks, the passengers sleep on unawares. On Sam's face is the black mask, a black parasitic visage. What was Sam gives a wicked gap toothed grin.

The plane flies too low over the ground as the afternoon sun bakes the veldt below. A small, isolated collection of grass-thatched huts speeds closer.

A black man cooking over an open fire looks up at the approaching buzzing. He is dressed in a traditional African tribal fashion. His earlobes are elongated, with huge pierced holes stuffed with roots. Shielding his eyes from the punishing sun's glare with a wrinkled hand, his mouth drops as he notices how stupidly close to the ground the aircraft is. He ducks as the engines roar over his head, and turns to follow the craft as it bullets away.

"Bloody tourists." He produces a bottle of imported American bourbon and a tin mug. As an afterthought, he extends his middle digit after the receding speck. "Right here, buddy!" The students still sleep when Sam's masked face glances at them over his shoulder, and cracks into another wicked grin. Sam leans the controls over. Below, a gazelle, unaware of the lioness licking her chops in the tall grass nearby about to take advantage of the distraction and cover of the noise, chews lazily, and observes the small craft performing a roll.

Inside the plane, screeching and panic breaks out. This is totally understandable under the circumstances.

"Hey. What's going on?"

"Aargh!"

"Ow. My head."

"Aargh!"

"Sam?"

"Aargh"

"What the..?"

"Aargh!"

"Are you all right?"

"Do I look all bloody right?"

"Aargh!"

The black-masked face of the pilot turns to the passengers. Christine and Millie screech wildly and Max nearly joins in. They all push back into their seats, as though that will somehow carry them further beyond the reach of the thing in the pilot's seat. Sam leers at Millie, and then screeches back at her. The mask grins malevolently, and its eyes glow red.

"I don't want to die," screeches Millie, incidentally deafening Brian's left ear.

Sam's laughs, and when Brian tries to get up, jerks violently at the controls so he falls back, elbowing Christine.

***

In his hut, the Batlhaping Sangoma stands, takes some powder and blows it into the air. He moves his arms as though gathering the powder particles towards himself.

***

In his cave, Ratsitanga cocks his head, raises his arms and pushes against something unseen, as if pushing it away.

***

The Batlhaping Sangoma grits his teeth, and pulls harder.

***

Not high enough above the veldt, as the small plane banks violently, Sam's laughter stops abruptly. He looks concerned and confused, and turns to the controls, trying in vain to twist them. The controls are being rather recalcitrant about turning north. Sam is unsuccessful and his body spasms.

***

Shadows rage, again fully visible after so long in the darkness of the passages of stone. A low howling, not quite detectable by the ears, but rather by some unknown function of the brain, pervades the smoke.

***

The students are terrified and confused. Millie clings to Max, who, despite circumstances, takes a moment to enjoy the warm, soft sensation that is Millie in a mini-skirt. Again, Brian tries to stand, but the plane jerks once more and he is again thrown back. His hand lands most impolitely on the most personal part of Max's anatomy, but Max's brain, its attention already divided between the thing at the controls, the decidedly rough ride, and Millie, decides enough is enough and represses the experience. The plane flies erratically towards a mountain, like some cocaine-snorting, high-altitude goat seeing a rocky Eden.

***

Ratsitanga lifts his arms, and with a grunt, mimes throwing something to the ground.

***

The Batlhaping Sangoma staggers under an unseen weight and sits heavily, panting. He rubs his buttock where it connected the floor, and slowly lifts himself to his feet. His eyes stare as though the walls of the hut are not there. When the chief sees him like this, he often wonders what is in those potions that this Sangoma brews up, and thinks of the Druid in his favourite comic books about ancient Gaul.

***

Amidst the screaming of the humans and the whine of the engines, Sam's plane crash-lands. It ploughs through the grass and bushes, just missing a pair of mating tortoises, though in no way putting them off the task at hand, and skids to a halt against the sloping ground marking the foot of a minor mountain range.

Silence returns to the veldt, accentuating the metallic rocking sound as the wrecked aircraft gently see-saws to immobility amidst settling red dust. Even the animals are quiet.

There is a moment of absolute stationary tranquillity before the door is violently expelled from the fuselage, and a short, man-like creature with a bulging loincloth jumps to the ground. The midget sniffs the air, turns towards a cave, half hidden in the cliff, and partly runs, partly lopes towards it. Nothing further moves as the clouds clear up and night descends.

### Part Three
Chapter Twelve

The African dawn drifts over the veldt. A chimpanzee grunts out his challenge to the world at large. Birds start up the terrible racket of the dawn – nature's own, impossible-to-ignore alarm clock. The sun's exploring rays discover Sam's crash-landed plane resting in the grass. Like the fingers of a blind man, they probe for an opening, find plenty of holes and windows, and enter to see whether or not there is anything interesting within.

Brian stirs as the light hits his eyelids. He groans, and sits up, holding his muggy head. He opens his eyes, regrets it for a second, and then the world swims into focus. The other students are lying about the cabin, except for Peter, who is awake.

Peter leans his head back against the side of the plane. "We're all breathing; nobody seems too badly hurt." He indicates his leg, twisted awkwardly. "Except me, that is, and him." Peter points to the pilot, slumped at the controls, and shakes his head.

Brian sucks a shocked breath. He can see that Peter's foot is swollen; he has had to remove his shoes. Brian helps him to a more comfortable position before he turns his attention to the others. There doesn't seem to be much he can do for the students; they're all breathing, but seem to be asleep. He positions them as comfortably as he can, grunting with the effort, then, grimacing, moves towards Sam. The pilot's head lolls sideways at an awkward angle. He checks for a pulse and breath, but finds neither, and lets Sam's head fall back. Sam is already quite cold. Brian steels his face and wipes his hands on his safari suit.

Brian fidgets amongst the controls of the stricken craft. Most of them are a complete mystery to him, but he is pretty certain the one with the huge crack down the middle was the radio.

He fumbles in his pocket for his mobile phone. Peter's dry voice wafts from the main cabin. "I tried that already, but there's no reception out here."

Brian clicks his tongue, and holds his phone at different angles above his head. The signal indicator remains unimpressed.

Brian swears, replaces the device in his pocket, checks again on his companions, and then swings his leg out the plane. "I'm going outside to have a look around. Hold the fort, Pete."

Brian jumps to the ground from the plane, startled by a snake, which slithers off in disgust at being disturbed. The veldt stretches away to the distance; the horizon will soon be shimmering with heat. The air feels primal, and Brian breathes the fresh, clean air greedily, unaccustomed to such pristine freshness where cars and humans have not yet infested and fouled the air. Looking up the rise, he spies the cave entrance just where gently hilly slopes give way to their big brothers, the rocky crags. Some time in the recent past, that cave mouth had been hidden by some rocks, but these have fallen away, and left a scraped trail al the way to the foot of the incline. The cave looks like it might be a good place to hole up out of the heat. Brian is still not thinking one hundred per cent clearly, as evidenced by the fact that the high probability of multiple carnivorous life forms, all bigger than he, and experienced in overcoming the objections of prey to becoming dinner, occupying a convenient cave in the middle of the bush doesn't cross his mind. Avoiding a neatly deposited pile of evidence that at least one animal has been around – and pleased that he did not step in aforesaid evidence - the young American climbs the slope to the cave entrance. When he gets there, and pokes his inquisitive nose in, Brian's enjoyment of the great outdoors and fresh air is rudely shattered. A sound like loud flatulence accompanies a blast of air from the dark aperture, like a gaseous booby trap, blasting his hair back with a noxious fragrance in keeping with the whole persona of the noise. He wrinkles his nose in disgust, and decides better. That blast of noxiousness is far too familiar to him, and he shuts his eyes, remembering the opening of that stupid chest. Surely they haven't crashed right at the entrance to the cave they came here to find? From his vantage point, Brian shields his eyes and scans the horizon, but can find no trace of the Batlhaping village. There is something he needs to check again, and he thrusts his hand into his pocket. The signal strength indicator on the phone still reads zero, and Brian notices his battery level is about to provide it with some companionship. He swears and switches it off to conserve the battery power. Brian returns to the plane, and sits on a nearby rock, unaware of his narrowly-avoided encounter with one of the dangerous scorpions that infest these parts. He lowers his head to his arms; if he was Millie, he'd be crying. He waits for a few moments, to regain his composure. He's always been the captain of the sports team, the leader of the big men on campus, and he'll be darned if that is going to change now. He gets up and enters the plane, blinking to adjust to the dimness of the cabin. The others are all in various stages of grogginess and holding their heads. Millie, he notes wryly, is crying quietly. "Everyone okay? Christine?" Christine nods, Max shrugs, and Millie sniffs and carries on crying.

Max stands up, winces, and flexes his arms. "Nothing broken. Now what?"

"I don't know. There's a cave outside." Brian jerks his head out the door. "It may be the one we were looking for, for all I know. It stinks like a politician's smile, though, so I'll be stuffed if I'm going in to look."

Christine stands gingerly. "What if the thing went in there?"

A fly settles on Sam's corpse as Brian points to it. "You mean that thing? I don't think so."

"For once, I agree with Brian." Max stretches, and winces again. He has a gash on his temple, and bruises along his left arm. He lifts his shirt to view skin the colour of a ripe plum along his left torso.

Christine gets up and hefts a backpack. "Well, our kit's all here and I really don't feel like staying on the plane with that here." She points to the cadaver at the controls. "Who wants to make camp and then figure out what we're going to do?"

"After we bury Sam," says Brian determinedly, moving towards the corpse.

"You think it's as simple as that? Think the Tokolosh is gone and it's all over?" Peter sneers at the others. "You've got a wake up coming."

"I dunno, Peter." Brian shrugs. "There's no sign of Shorty. Perhaps he died with Sam, perhaps he was sucked back to Hell, or perhaps he flew off. I don't know." The response is a derisive snort.

"Let's get you to some shade where it's comfortable, Petey; correction – I mean, less uncomfortable. Then we'll dig a hole before more flies find the pilot." Max waves an annoying and persistent insect from his face. "This place has more bugs than a Beijing street food market."

After a considerable amount of swearing and screaming, Peter is finally assisted out of the wreckage and onto the ground. He hobbles off, leaning heavily on Christine. Brian and Max heave a sigh, take two shovels handed down by Millie, and head off a little way to dig.

"Wish I could appreciate this." Christine surveys the majestic vista spread before her. Here and there, small groups of trees huddle together as if in mutual defence against all the space of the veldt; behind her, the mountains fade in a purple line to the distant horizon.

Peter is silent. His leg hurts too much to care, and the pain occupies a much larger percentage of his concentration than does the view. He slumps against a rock under a tree, after carefully checking for highly venomous arboreal green snakes. He knows the tribe by now are expecting him, and will come looking, but has a horrible nagging feeling that the enemy has managed to get them to its home ground. Like Brian, he finds the odds of this remote, but unlike Brian, he knows that African magic cares little for odds.

Millie wipes some wisps of hair from her eyes and folds her arms. Her make-up is smeared across her face. "I never want to come here again. I want hot water and electricity." Eventually, Brian and Max wrestle the mortal remains of Sam, the pilot, out of the plane, and into a shallow pit. They wearily start to cover the corpse. Nobody feels much like making any attempt at a eulogy.

As evening falls, five small tents reflect a crackling campfire. Christine pours some hot water from a tin kettle into five tin mugs. Near the fire, Peter rests his leg comfortably. Brian's chin is resting morosely on his arms, clasping his drawn-up knees.

Max pulls what appears to be a pack of cigarettes from his pack. "Pass the Dutchie?"

"Max, you have your uses," Millie squeals in delight.

"You came through the airport with that? How?" As he opens his mouth to respond, Christine holds her hand up. "Never mind, I don't want to know."

Brian smiles for the first time in a long while. "Oh yeah!"

Despite the situation, they relax, drinking coffee and smoking weed. Brian and Christine sit very close together. Brian draws a jumbo inhalation and looks at the joint in his hand, holding his breath for as long as he can. Eventually, he releases the breath in a vapour of contentment. "Sssssmokin'!" He notices the others looking strangely at him and is startled as realisation hits. "Sorry."

Peter starts to laugh, the infectious stupid, meaningless cackle that nobody could understand or appreciate without consuming noxious substances usually illegal outside of Amsterdam. Gradually, the others join in, and Peter grabs the joint and waves it in the air. "To Jock."

"Ooch aye!" chimes Max.

They giggle a bit more. Peter takes a huge drag and starts coughing. It takes a while for him to recover. They turn sombre. Peter adjusts his leg and looks out into the darkness. "My village will be missing us by now. I'm sure they'll send someone to check out here."

Christine shakes her hair out and leans back in a manner that makes Brian groan inwardly. "The dwarf seems to be gone. I reckon the little turd won't be back."

"It would appear so." Brian turns his head to keep his eyes firmly on what's in front of him. He doesn't see what it is, but that's not really the point.

"To the ass end of the country so we can turn around and go home," observes Millie.

"Well, Millicent, I'd much prefer that to what we actually came to do."

"That's Millie, Max, and I know that."

Christine straightens her back. "If we survived, then why not the mask?"

With a vigorous shake of his head, Max emphatically replies, "As far as I'm concerned, baby's back in Mama bush veldt. If we go home, it'll never follow us all the way back. Leave it alone and it'll leave us."

"What about folks around here?" Brian is still resolutely looking away from Christine.

Max waves his hands at the veldt around them. He exhales some smoke through the side of his teeth like a learner swimmer. "What folks?"

Peter shakes his head in utter disgust, and mutters something under his breath in a language the others do not understand. The translation would detail a colourful recommendation about how intimately Max could become involved with a watermelon.

Millie nods. "It's not like anyone civilised is in danger."

Brian joins Peter in awarding Millie with the filthiest look he can manage.

Taking another huge puff of the drug, Christine continues, without seeming to notice the tensions around her, "I don't know how we could find it anyway. Perhaps out here in the middle of nowhere is the best place just to leave it."

"We can't just leave it here." Peter's tone barely conceals aggression.

"Got a better plan?" asks Max, taking the joint from Christine.

Nobody answers.

Brian shrugs and sits down. He grabs the joint and inhales again.

"Hey, I hadn't had a drag yet." Max reaches to him.

"Okay. So..." Brian sucks another huge breath and hands the offensive weed back to Max. "Sorry, man... Here you go... So the mission's over, troops. We have two casualties and one wounded." He gestures towards Peter's leg. "So where's the evac chopper?"

Peter shakes his head. "They'll be here; Carmichael would have told my uncle we were on our way, and he'll come find us."

"We've all been through the wringer." Max pauses to blow a smoke ring. "I say we rest up tonight and look for help tomorrow. Perhaps we can reach Peter's Battle-pong or whatever village. We can follow the map and look for it."

"No need; I know they're looking for us and I can't walk too well, anyway, with this leg. At least my 'battle-pong' will listen to reason."

Max draws another deep puff before continuing, "If anyone wants to play find the dwarfie, they're welcome to march into that fart-infested cave. As for the rest of us, it's settled. The monkeys here made the thing. We just gave it back."

"Yeah," agrees Millie. "Let them figure it out." Peter glares at Max and Millie, shakes his head and turns his back on them.

Max is suitably chagrined. "I didn't.... I mean...

Ahm....Sorry, Peter. That was stupid of me." Millie is too high and too self-absorbed to care, though on a certain level, she detects some hostility. "What did I say?"

Brian shakes his head in disgust.

***

Christine stands away from the camp, taking in the fresh air, listening to the veldt. A hyena laughs in the distance, some monkeys howl, and the usual incessant background noise of chirruping insects and croaking frogs is everywhere. She watches something small and brown with about a million legs crawl through the dust, and feels some bond of empathy. Brian comes up behind her.

"Hi."

"Eeek!"

"Sorry – I didn't mean to scare you." He moves to stand next to her, staring likewise out at the darkening grassy plains, lighted by the last amber sun.

"I could get used to it out here."

"It is beautiful. I grew up on a farm, and my bedroom looked out onto a view like this." She sighs contentedly. "This is one of the things I miss most at varsity." She moves a little closer. Together, they watch the sun losing its struggle against the evening. Christine shivers, remembering how quickly the temperature changes on the veldt. Brian pulls her closer. "If I hadn't suggested we open that damn trunk, none of this would have happened." "We all agreed, Brian."

"Yeah, but I'm always rushing into whatever I think is new and exciting without thinking. And this time someone died; two people; Jock and Sam." He stops himself from adding 'so far'.

Christine hugs him as he continues bitterly, "How am I going to live with that for the rest of my life? Perhaps Max is right. The mask belongs here. I feel sick to my stomach." Christine pulls in front of him and gently plants a kiss on his cheek. He holds her closer, and they stand in silence until the last light is gone. Some things, not even a grizzly murder, an escaping demon, a plane wreck, and many hours without bathing or contact with a toothbrush can prevent. From the grass, a snake hisses, watching them.

A short while later, Millie, dressed a little more practically than usual, watches Christine and Brian return together. She looks away, miffed at the injustice of it all. Max watches Millie. He has not yet forgotten the warm, soft sensation of her pushing against him earlier. When she gets up and stalks off, Max exchanges looks with Peter, then follows. Peter murmurs under his breath, "Even in Africa, de black boy sure feels like de spare wheel. Yessim." Max walks up quietly behind Millie, and is partly surprised to find that she is crying quietly to herself. Not sure how to approach, but unwilling to leave, Max shuffles a bit to make sure she is aware of him and is not startled. "Hi."

She sniffs. "This air is way too full of pollen."

"I thought I was the only one with allergies," he replies in what he hopes is a charming manner.

"What are you allergic to?"

Max jerks his thumb back towards the camp. "Assholes." She smiles, an expression which, if she was a dog, would leave other dogs wondering why this one is snarling at them with her ears flat.

"Everyone thinks I'm shallow and useless."

He folds his arms. "Says who?"

"Even Peter's handling this so much better than me. I'm just scared all the time. I keep thinking that... thing will come back and eat me, like Jock."

"We were all scared, Millie. Don't worry; it's gone now. Even if it's out here somewhere, we're going back to civilisation and I can't see it coming all the way back to find us." He gestures around them, casually indicating all of Africa south of the Sahara. "The bundu's a big place."

"I guess so." The smile is a little less strained now.

"Mother Nature's not really my scene."

"Mother Nature, you mean mother fu... erm... sorry." Might as well go for the kill, suggests a voice in his head. "So here I am alone in the middle of nowhere, with the hottest chick on the planet."

"Thanks, Max."

Max stands next to her, pulls her closer, his calm exterior in no way betraying the private voice shouting, _you're the man_!

They hug. Some instincts, as has been mentioned before, are stronger than circumstances.

***

The eagles have stopped their calls, and all the daytime animals have curled up for a quiet night, which around here means that the various grunts, chirps, coughs, hisses, barks, howls, crackles, cackles and other sounds of the nocturnal veldt dwellers invade the air, like a nightclub moving into suburbia. The night is never quiet. The only ones not making a racket are the hunters trying to sneak up on prey. You'd think gazelles and other herbivores would have long since learnt not to trust a circle of silence, but those who learnt the lesson generally did so too late to pass the good advice on. The pass mark in the wild school of survival is not a mere fifty per cent.

A figure creeps into one of the tents. Inside the tent, Peter dreams of a paradise island, and lithe, scantily clad islanders smelling of coconuts, rubbing his back. It's a horrible feeling when one wakes up to find that something similar in many respects, but dreadfully different in certain key other ways, is happening. There are some experiences that accelerate a young man from deep dreaming sleep through wakefulness and past high alert faster than a red Italian sports car.

"Hey! Piss off!"

"Sorry, Pete. Wrong tent."

"It most certainly is! Get your mitts off me!"

The embarrassed figure creeps hurriedly out again and into the next tent.

Christine has been waiting. The likelihood of her parents finding them here is as about as good a set of odds as she's ever going to get.

"Hello, Brian"

"Hi."

"Was that Peter I heard?"

"I didn't hear anything."

"Ah. Like the view?"

"Ngg!"

A short distance away, another tent flap closes.

"What's so funny?"

"Brian just snuck into Peter's tent instead of Christine's."

Millie sniggers. "Reminds me of the joke about the super heroes. Did you bring another joint?"

"What am I, stupid? Of course, I brought a whole bunch.

What joke?"

Millie launches into a brief tale of superheroes on the town after a hard day. Max lights up and takes a few deep draws before handing it to her.

"Thanks."

Millie takes a huge, satisfying breath, and hands the drug back to Max, before finishing her sordid tale. "...so Super Chick goes – 'what the hell was that?' - and the Invisible Man goes – 'aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh!'"

Max nearly swallows the marijuana cigar.

Just before the dawn, the night is cold. People wonder why birds make such a racket at this time - it's because feathers aren't as warm as people think, and birds are of the opinion that they shouldn't have to suffer alone. This morning, it isn't just the birds making a noise. A wind howls across the veldt. In Christine's cosy, if crowded, tent, she and Brian are rudely startled awake. She grabs him. "What the hell is that?"

"I don't know." He rubs his eyes in the dim light.

"Please say that horrible dwarf isn't back?"

Brian disentangles himself from Christine's rather panicky arms and sticks his head through the tent flap. In another tent, Max and Millie stub out yet another joint. They are a lot calmer about the noise – a night of almost constant anaesthetics does that. Millie giggles as Max puts a finger to his lips in an exaggerated fashion. He sniggers with her and blearily staggers out of the tent on the second attempt, where the wind hits him like a bucket of cold water.

In a third tent, Peter wakes. He holds his sleeping bag over his nose and debates whether or not to go and see what is going on.

On the outskirts of the camp, a badger takes fright and backs away, snarling. An owl hoots from a nearby tree as Brian and Max peer into the gloom. The strong wind whips their hair around.

"See anything?"

Max shakes his head.

Millie squeaks behind him. "It's coming back." Nearly tripping inelegantly over an exposed root, Brian emerges fully from Christine's tent, pulling on his pants. Max points towards the cave entrance. "It's coming from there." They freeze at a deep grunt from behind them. It is the type of grunt the very young - or the very astute, depending on how much truck one has with the esoteric – hears in the darkest, loneliest recesses of the night. A small sound coloured with a mighty imagination is worse than the most fearsome sight. A picture paints a thousand words. This is true of all but the most skilled authors, but a sound is far better. A sound ignites the imagery of the mind, and this makes the Mona Lisa look like a cartoon sketch. With exaggerated slowness, they turn to see the midget at Peter's tent. The fiend grins at them, belches noisily - the pair of young men fancy the wind changes direction for an instant - and rips the canvas up, which flaps away in the gale. Leaves rush past, cocktailed with assorted insects. There is no noise quite like the rustling of the long African grass, which is currently impersonating a swarm - one of those noisy destructive ones with billions of six-legged individual members. Peter, no longer protected by his armour of tent cloth, looks up directly at the midget's filled loincloth and gives a startled yell - what normal young man wouldn't when faced unexpectedly with that? Christine emerges behind Brian, also trips over the ill-placed root, and sprawls. Peter tries to scramble back away, but the midget grabs his leg, the injured one, and drags him inexorably back. The pain explodes as Peter feels his injured knee subjected to the rough mistreatment, and he screams.

Brian starts towards the midget, but Max holds him back.

"Don't be crazy, Brian. There's nothing we can do."

The midget laughs an irritating cackle, but abruptly cuts the laughter, turning his head to sneer and hiss at the observers. A forked tongue flickers briefly from his mouth.

Brian struggles futilely against Max's grip. "Let me go, you idiot, Peter needs us. Come on, Max."

The midget upends Peter with arms too long for reality, and the students look on in horror as history starts to replay itself. Peter flails and sobs, but he may as well be a fly attempting to stop the truck hurtling down the highway. The midget's grip on him is like a vice. He torments his victim by snapping at him twice before his mouth starts to widen. Peter sees into that dark, otherworldly place, and his eyes stretch before he goes limp, his mind is overcome. The midget slowly and deliberately places his mouth over Peter's head, and with exaggerated relish, bites it off. Peter Seleke's life ends in a wet gurgle. The thing stands still, Peter's corpse raised above him like Hamlet holding Yorrick's skull, red liquid gushing over his face, and in the wild wind, drops of blood spray like ocean foam. After a full five seconds, during which the humans stand transfixed, the midget lowers the headless corpse with equal slowness, and very deliberately turns his attention to them, savouring the horrific effect he knows this has on the humans. Millie emerges, screams and doesn't stop. Her incoherent shrieks become Max's name, screamed again and again like an obscene, horror-house mantra. Millie's wide-eyed gaze flickers between Max and the midget, pleading, fearful, and hovering somewhere along the disputed border between the kingdoms of sanity and madness.

Max, unable to bear the dependence in her gaze, releases his grip on Brian's sleeve. Brian now no longer struggles, but stares aghast at the bloodied midget. When the thing burps, the mighty wind that has been howling gives a final gust before settling down. The Tokolosh turns his attention towards Brian.

Max turns abruptly and runs, prompting Millie to shut up in mid-scream, staring after him.

The midget laughs his irritating cackle. His eyes are now red, and misshapen, bulging out from his head at odd angles. The face seems to be becoming a chilling, real-life mimic of a certain style of African art.

Millie can hardly believe her eyes. "Max?" Her whisper is damnation.

Brian grabs Millie as she stares after Max's retreating form, and yells, "Come on, let's go." Scooping up Christine, he heads them off towards the cave entrance. The midget lopes along after, giggling still. His teeth are pointed, and something wet glistens and drips from them. He drops to all fours and moves faster; somehow, this humanlike form moves better with an animal gait. The view from behind is of a furiously bobbing backside, with whatever is in the loincloth swinging beneath. The ridiculousness of the sight would only be a comfort id it was seen running in the opposite direction.

"He's getting closer."

"Shut up and run, Millie"

"We're going to die." Millie casts fearful glances behind at the Tokolosh.

"Shh..."

Millie, despite the need for breath, can't seem to control her mouth. "Our heads bitten off like a male mantis..."

"Shut up!"

They reach the cave entrance.

***

A shadow strains at its restraints in the smoky light. The familiar deep grunts surrender to a single loud bellow, and there is a loud hiss.

### Chapter Thirteen

The students rush into the cave and slip down a slope with startled shouts. Bats, it seems, have passed down the art of setting slippery surprises for unwary humans from generation to generation, and some crafts just improve with age. They come to a tangled halt a few inches from a green, glowing fire, which makes a spirited attempt to light the furthest reaches of the vast cavern in much the same way man once attempted to build a tower tall enough, perhaps on the plains of Babel, to see first hand what the twinkly things in the night sky are, and once and for all end the metaphysical debate on whether these are divine campfires or holes in some type of black dome.

Brian looks about wildly, at this point fearing the worst, but there is no sign of whoever lighted it. They hear a scrabbling on the rocks outside. Brian points to a side tunnel. "That way! Let's go!" He grabs a sputtering log from the fire, and off they hurry. It doesn't occur to them that a fiery torch in a distant corner of a dark cave shows up like a fiery torch in a distant corner of a dark cave.

As luck would have it, this particular cave is more a series of tunnels than a single space, and they disappear around a corner.

A few moments go by, as the scrabbling sound, now unheard by the fleeing humans, grows in volume. There is a muted shriek, and Sam – or at least something wearing a body that bears a remarkable resemblance to Sam's - drops down on all fours, cat-like, near the flames. He takes a few moments to adjust his eyes to the new light, the fire providing a few crucial extra moments' camouflage for the bobbing torch rapidly disappearing stage left. 'Sam' sniffs at the air, his neck performing manoeuvres in the process that would leave an owl feeling uncomfortable. He lopes in circles, still sniffing, and then halts. The red eyes focus on the tunnel down which the three whimpering students have vanished, white pointed teeth flash briefly in the firelight, he giggles, and lopes off in pursuit.

Further into the tunnel network, the students burst from a side tunnel onto a narrow ledge. There is a wild flapping akin to an Olympian swimmer's backstroke, as the trio avoid plummeting into an extremely steep and unexpected abyss. If Don Quixote was present, he would in all likelihood jab them with his lance on account of their close resemblance to windmills. Brian finds his feet, conveniently located at the ends of his legs, balances precariously, and yanks Millie and Christine back by their clothing.

Brian peers over the edge, holding the sputtering stick before him, but sees what one would expect to find when closely examining a particular type of official's imagination - a void. "Great, now what?"

"I don't know. Split up?" Christine shudders at their narrow escape.

"Over my dead body," objects Millie vehemently.

"Let's hope not," says Brian.

As they inch along the ledge, Brian notes a number of holes peppered along the walls. These appear about large enough to admit a child. Brian sidles up to one, and peers in. At first, the gloom is difficult to make out, and up close he can detect a strange sound from the hole, like air hissing through a tube. Perhaps this is some type of vent? He imposes his face into the cavity to see better. The darkness is obstinate, so he pulls his head out and jabs the guttering torch within instead.

With a yell, Brian jerks back, and almost dives off the precipice, his arms waving like a learner rope-walker. Millie is alarmed, but Christine edges closer, curious and assuming that, for reasons unknown, Brian has seen an unexpected and interesting spider. "What's in there?" Brian pulls Christine back before she can get any closer. "Unless you really, really, really like snakes, please stay over here."

"Ugh." She draws back.

"Yuk." Millie's mouth puckers in revulsion.

Brian holds the light behind them, checking for an unwelcome follower. "Come on. That was loud." 'Sam' stops sniffing when he hears Brian's shout, rears onto his legs, and raises his head to ascertain where the sound is coming from. It's not easy with only two sub-standard ears and so few dimensions to operate within, especially within such a warren. His ears prickle and flatten – a great party trick when performed by friendly Granddad Joe, but less hilarious when dealing with something vicious and occult chasing one in a cave. Panting now, his tongue lolling out of his mouth, the thing drops back to all fours and scurries on. The Tokolosh is sexually frustrated beyond belief, and getting angrier. He isn't used to such a limited array of senses, but has been locked away for so long that he needs to rely on the fresh and useful memories of the possessed pilot to manifest and manage any type of corporeal form for more than a few minutes. This set of dimensions is infuriating in its limitations.

Just up ahead, the Tokolosh hears a low growl. He stops short, panting and snuffling. Something stinks. He sees two green eyes, faint in the gloom, but brightening as they near. The blue dog, grey, bubbly drool forming a viscous line from its mouth, steps forward and bares its teeth, growling incessantly. The Tokolosh is also used to being able to bare an impressive set of fangs, and snarls at the dog briefly out of habit, before hurling his borrowed form forward, not allowing his blue adversary time to think. Sheer ferocity makes up for the fact that the Tokolosh has quite forgotten the laughable lack of firepower inherent in the human bite.

***

A man-shadow and a dog-shadow battle in the smoky light. The snarling fury echoes down the passages. The man lifts the dog and tears at it with his teeth. The snarling gives way to a sharp whine and, after a brief spasm, the dog-shadow goes limp.

***

The midget demon looks up, pus and blood dripping from his mouth. He wipes his face with the back of his hand. The liquids sting his tongue and his skin. He shakes the stuff from his hand to the floor, where it smokes and fizzles on the stone.

***

Ratsitanga sits by a green fire in another cavern. He grunts as though dealt a physical blow, and his eyes go wide. He is first shocked, then angry. After a moment, he grits is teeth, starts chanting, and tosses powder into the air. The chanting becomes tinged with fury, and gets louder. The syllables are never meant for human mouths, but the witch has had centuries of practice. His gestures become more and more violent; the wrinkled hands shake in anger.

***

The three students move along as stealthily as possible. Millie is aware that they are probably lost; it hasn't taken long. The cave is a warren of pathways and choices - a labyrinth.

Brian's torch gives a last flicker, and hands in its resignation. "Blast."

Millie points at him. "Hey, how come I can still see you?"

Christine holds her hand in front of her face. "Millie's right, Brian, we can see."

"Not well, but yup, me too. Where's the light coming from?" He is uncomfortably aware that Max would have been justified in muttering some comment like 'out of your ears for getting us into this'.

"I don't know. Not the walls and not the passage."

Christine can't help but shiver.

Millie blinks. "It's flickering."

Brian stares at the walls for a minute. "Millie, I believe it is." They peer around, but cannot determine the source of the light. It seems to be coming from somewhere beyond the limits of what they can see.

Brian shakes his head, dismissing the problem for the present, and stalks off, tossing his useless torch to the ground. "Come on, I don't want to wait for that thing to find us." The girls follow Brian up a passage.

An hour passes, bringing with it thirst and an increasing edge of panic, but thankfully no midgets, toothless pilots, snakes, nor, in fact, any other sign of life, supernatural or mundane. The passage steepens as they progress. Christine sniffs and notes how cold it is. This is confusing; it is supposed to be very hot underground. A flatulent stink hangs in the air.

The steepness of the path has become a minor mountaineering challenge, and eventually the three have to assist each other. There is an unspoken agreement that up probably means out, and everyone is getting the jitters about being in the cavern.

Careful of where he puts his hands, Brian pushes Millie ahead of him up a nasty section of path. She is struggling to climb, and looking at her feet rather than where she is going, so it comes as a shock when she sees an assisting hand outstretched in front of her. With a yelp, she looks up, and into the serious expression on Max's face.

She freezes for an instant, flabbergasted to see him. The shock passes rapidly, and she draws her face into a vicious sneer. She spits at him, and withdraws.

Brian, below, gives up pushing against Millie, who is pushing determinedly back. "What's going on? Why won't you go up?" He looks up into the gloom and exclaims in astonishment. "Hey! Is that Max?"

Christine's expression goes cold as she also sees Max above, and she folds her arm. "Where have you been?" He hunkers down on the ledge just above them. "I'm sorry, guys – I lost my head. That thing just freaked me out. When I calmed down, I felt like a right ass, so I followed your tracks outside into the cave. After the tracks disappeared, I wandered around looking for you. I've been looking for a while; this place is a maze. I don't suppose you have any idea where the exit is?"

Max endures the three accusatory stares for a few awkward moments, then hops down to join them. "I'm ashamed enough, okay?"

Brian pulls the girls back and behind him. "How do we know you're really Max?"

Max sighs, shrugs and shakes his head. "I'm too tired to answer."

The trio eye him suspiciously for a while as Max stares blankly back.

Brian then also heaves a sigh, and sits abruptly, his back against a rocky wall. "This is hopeless." "I'm sure this must be the cave where the mask was made, the one we were looking for." Christine rubs her arms – they are tired and she is cold.

Max risks a sidelong glance at Millie, who is pouting.

"We don't know it's the same cave."

"The map and the letters described the entrance. And how many caves do you know as weird as this?" She waves, taking in the entirety of the maze.

Brian lurches to his feet. "We need to find another way out of here." He starts to move towards the ledge again, but halts. He points in opposite directions. "Hang on – we came from back there, and Max from up there. Damn it! Which way is out?"

"We've been lost for hours," moans Millie. "I wish I knew."

Christine groans, and opens her mouth to say something, but stiffens as a dog howls distantly. "What the hell was that?"

Millie inclines her head, straining to hear. "Sounded like a dog."

Max shoots to his feet. "That was no dog."

"They say there's a dog that guards the gate to Hell." Brian is suitably embarrassed as everyone gives him that special look reserved for people who make incredibly out-ofplace statements, such as, for example, a comment at a gathering of the Knesset pointing out what a great world leader Adolph would have made if only he'd won the war. Christine grins, despite the situation. "Let's not get carried away."

Brian contrives to ignore Christine as he shuffles off.

"Come on."

They scramble after him.

***

Elsewhere, Ratsitanga rocks rhythmically, his regular swaying casting his whitened eyes into alternating shadow and eerie luminance. He chants a hypnotic mantra and sprinkles sparkling powder. Abruptly, he hauls out a cache of seven golden masks, quite a feat for someone with not so many clothes and whose hand at no point leaves his arm, and places them in the green flames, which sizzle.

***

'Sam' sniffs the air. He sneezes and holds his nose. It hurts. The black mask is again visible on his face, and his physical aspect seems to flicker, like an old movie, between Sam and the dark-skinned midget. "Ratttssssitaaannngaaa."

***

Ratsitanga looks up as though he hears something, and smiles. There is no mirth in this smile – it is as vicious as a facial expression can get without liberal daubs of stage blood. His arms move against the empty air, in rhythm with his chant, and a faint drumming starts.

***

The students hear the drumming. Brian, apparent alpha male of the troupe, holds up his hand. "What's that?" They halt and listen.

"Drums." Christine's tone is like the one the pie man really used when delivering his answer to Simple Simon, which, despite the folklore record to the contrary, was actually, 'Pies, stupid'.

"Drums." Max shakes his head. "This is too much."

Millie covers her eyes with her hand. "I wanna go home."

***

'Sam' cocks his ears, listens to the slow beat, and snarls.

***

Snake shadows twist upon the walls. A shadow flickers, solidifies into emptiness, becomes a hole in the stone. The snakes slither through the hole.

***

Ratsitanga works his magic around his fire. Limbs sometimes so seemingly arthritic contort athletically in a macabre parody of a North American rain dance. His chanting curls some mould, previously growing contentedly upon a nearly rock, and now offended enough to envy those of us with legs. The snakes from the passages of stone drop to the ground around Ratsitanga as he waves his arms, his torso rocking back and forth. On his face is a golden mask.

***

Brian leads the rush as the students hurry fearfully towards a corner. Millie almost falls – a direct consequence of being more interested in what is behind her than what is in front. Brian disappears around the corner ahead of them and they hear a high-pitched scream. Brian never lets his He-Man image down like that, so the girls collide into Max, who has halted in surprise.

Brian comes rushing back around the corner, faster than he left, herding the others desperately back. His eyes are as wide as a cat's on Guy Fawkes evening. "Back! Move! Move! Move!"

There is always some obtuse individual who will sit and demand a justification when reason dictates that the priority is to obey first and understand later. In this case, it is Christine who irritates Brian by asking, "What's wrong?" Jerking her away by the arm as he passes, Brian does not even look at her. "Move it!"

Shadowy tentacles grope suddenly from the tunnel Brian has vacated, as though searching for the little snack they nearly caught. Millie, Max and Christine all scream, exactly as though they had taken lessons from Brian. They turn and run in the other direction, Millie passing the rest as though they are looking for a comfortable bar stool and barrelling into another tunnel breathlessly.

Max peers back into the barely lighted gloom, leaning heavily and out of breath against the tunnel wall. "What the hell was that?"

Brian collapses against the wall, hand on his heaving chest. "How the hell..." He pauses to catch his breath, and leans forward with his hands on his knees. "Should I know?"

"I don't wanna die." Millie is closer to tears than ever.

The students look back anxiously for long moments, before Christine breaks the silence, almost forcing Max to check his pants for moisture. "I think it's safe to say we're in the right cave."

Max snorts. "There's nothing safe here. I wish we were back home."

### Chapter Fourteen

Ratsitanga dances lethargically around his fire, slowing, slowing. He halts arms akimbo, stretches his fingers, and then lets his arms slowly, gently drop to his sides. On his face, the gold mask glints in the firelight. As his arms sag, from the shadows above - although above is a projected concept under the circumstances - six small, gold objects float down, all but two halting about six feet off the cave floor. The remaining four gold masks levitate around Ratsitanga's head, quietly orbiting him. He looks at the two masks lying still on the ground, lips tight. They seem duller than the others. He gestures and the four masks fly off down a darkened tunnel. Ratsitanga sits heavily, pulling his rotted skins around himself, musing, "So, six finders, and two lost already." He crosses his legs, closes his eyes, holds his fingers in a complicated manner, and hums a monotone. Above him, the bats settle back. They are mostly undisturbed, their heightened senses more in tune with the physical than with what Ratsitanga gets up to. They do not have the undiscovered reaches of the brain necessary to perceive what would send a human in the opposite direction in noisy terror. Besides, the colony has hung around here for generations; they're used to it.

***

The four golden masks fly down a tunnel, around corners and across chasms. The little flock barely hesitates, navigating with supernatural silence and accuracy, never hitting a wall, squeezing through narrow apertures with barely a millimetre clearance, without even slowing. They round a corner and the lead mask halts. The others pile into it from behind, a miniature traffic pile-up with a supernatural twist. They scatter and back away as 'Sam' fades out of the gloom, snarling and clutching at them with clawed fingers, the black mask twisting his face into an expression of evil. His arms are almost a blur as he snatches at the air. The golden masks dodge and flee back the way they came. The Tokolosh drops to all fours and lopes along after them, tongue almost streaming from his mouth behind him. He leaves a barely detectable trail of saliva on the floor as He pursues.

The masks burst from a side tunnel over a chasm. 'Sam' nearly skids out into empty air, looking down as he desperately tries to maintain balance. The floor seems a long way down to this body. Over thin air, the masks float just out of reach. One of them sticks a tongue out, and the noise of a faint raspberry echoes lightly in the enclosed vastness. The four golden masks taunt the Tokolosh, flying just to the extremity of its flailing arms' reach and away again, waggling from side to side, mocking him as he snorts in fury and frustration.

'Sam' stops his mad grasping, quiets down, and smiles a thin smile. Any human observers, at this point, would become suspicious, but the newly-summoned spirits continue to tease. The masks stop their cavorting as 'Sam' walks over the precipice and onto thin air. Each pair of masks turns to one another in a silent, split second of unheard communication. Four humans would probably find it necessary to utter some form of profanity. The masks flee once again, as 'Sam' slowly floats over the chasm after them. When the Tokolosh reaches the other side, he drops to all fours again, and resumes running, though by now he has lost sight of the golden masks. The pilot-demon passes a small side tunnel, red eyes focussed exclusively on the darkness ahead, where somewhere the prey eludes him.

As the Tokolosh's scuffling and panting recedes down the passage, a golden mask peeps cautiously from the branch, only its eyes visible from the concealing rock. Disappearing rapidly is the demon's retreating form; the bobbing posterior has grown a tail, ending in a small, arrow-like point. The golden mask floats back into the main tunnel and jerks at the others to follow. The other three turn to each other, then back to the scout, and waggle their edges. The scout, apparently the leader, shifts so that its empty eyes appear to implore the ceiling, then suddenly looms forward at the others. Even without eyebrows, the areas above the eyeslits definitely tend down at the middle. The others shy back, the scout looms a little more aggressively, and its three sheepish companions slowly waft into the main tunnel. Two of them carefully face the direction taken by the demon, the last, eye-slits closed, cringes towards the other direction. The others float about it, and eventually gently push it around. They float in almost tangible relief. One assumes a swagger to its levitation, and another sticks out a small tongue and quietly raspberries after their hunter. The four golden masks then turn and continue their rudely interrupted journey.

***

The students rest on a rock outcropping in a huge cavern.

They are out of breath, and thirstier by the minute. Millie leans on a rock, wiping the sweat from her brow, and then subtly licks at the back of her hand, before voicing a thought. "What would we have done if Peter was here slowing us up?"

"Millie, just shut up." Christine does not even look up, her admonishment coming between racking, out-of-breath coughs. Brian merely shakes his head, and grits his teeth, embarrassed for her. Millie inwardly kicks herself; why does her mouth have to operate before the brain has a chance to finish firing?

The awkward silence is broken by Max. "Anybody have any other ideas how to get out of here?"

"I'm completely lost." Christine points vaguely back down the darkness. "I'm sure I recognised some of the tunnels back there."

Brian groans. "Me too, but I thought it was just my imagination."

"You mean we've been going in circles?" Millie's face radiates abject misery. Max, for once without a snide comment, shakes his hanging head.

Wearily, the students trudge further. Some way along, the tunnel widens into a larger cavern, where they survey some huge stalactites, only their lower extremities visible, their roots too far above to see.

Max jumps. "What was that?"

The others consider the bass growling, which has started rumbling through the rocks, making the hairs on their necks stand on end.

"It came from over there." Brian points away into the gloom.

Christine points in the opposite direction. "No, over there."

Max shakes a fist in frustration. "Damn. Lost in a cave in Africa, chased by a toothless pilot and a mask. How can this get worse?"

Christine looks past him. Her eyes widen and she points frantically. "You had to ask. Brian! Look out!" A shadow swoops towards Brian from behind the concealment of the stalactites, a child-sized man with bat-like wings. Max ducks, but Millie, standing between Brian and Christine, also spots the shadow and launches herself to obstruct the blackness with a yell. "No! Brian!" Her shout becomes a wordless scream as the not-quite-two-dimensional dark thing grabs her and flies off, an eagle scooping a hapless fish from a river surface. Her scream fades upwards as she beats at her captor ineffectually. Brian leaps desperately after her, but she is already out of reach. He falls hard on the rocky floor, calling, "Millie!" Millie, receding rapidly into the gloom, stretches her hand back towards the group, far below. Her wide eyes chill Brian's soul, realising she is there because she jumped into the way to save him. Brian scrambles to his feet, and peers into the gloom above. "Millie!"

Her fading screams echo from above for a few frantic moments, although she is no longer visible. The three stand in shocked numbness for a while, eyes straining against the gloom, almost willing their pupils bigger.

Brian squeezes his eyes shut, reliving every moment when she tried to get close to him but he pushed her away because she was so shallow.

He is rudely pushed aside by Max. "Look out!"

Some bones, including a human skull, drop from the roof.

Millie's shoes and items of clothing drop along with them. They are sticky and red, with bits of gore attached that splatter as they hit and shatter on the rock. The gory skull sports uneven patches of long black hair.

***

Three golden masks fly on in silence. The fourth of their number has dropped to the ground, dull and still.

***

Ratsitanga clutches his head as if in pain.

***

A shadow with bull's horns stirs against the smoky walls. It snorts and tosses its head, causing the smoke to undulate as if disturbed. It is even quieter than usual in the passages. The bull snorts and paws at the ground to the faint accompaniment of rattling chains.

***

The thing in the memory of Sam's body hops up a cliff. A mountain goat would consider some of its wild leaps suicidal. A fly or gecko might be issued an exclusion from an insurance policy for such reckless behaviour.

***

The students run through the cavern, fearfully checking above them all the time. Max and Brian both radiate grim determination, and Christine sobs gently. They stop abruptly when Max shouts in pain.

"What's wrong?" queries Brian.

"I stubbed my toe." Max sits and rubs his foot, looking above and around the cave. "Damn. I'd give my mother for something to drink."

***

Ratsitanga chants, again dancing round his fire. He stops, sitting and staring without blinking into the blaze. His cavern slowly brightens with smoky fire light. He grimaces, with open mouth and pointed teeth, and mutters to himself. He is not where he was. The air here is stale and earthy. The language he mutters is not much spoken in modern times, but handy subtitles would read something like 'now it's Ratsitanga's turn to kick some Tokolosh butt'.

***

'Sam' stops running and sniffs at the suddenly different air. The black mask tightens on his face. He opens his mouth and an inhuman, mournful howl comes out. Around him, the tunnel gradually becomes brighter, ever-unseen smoky torch light flickering just out of his field of vision. Arcane symbols that were always there, but were somehow somewhere else, appear on the walls. These are not the same walls that were there a moment ago. The Tokolosh capers in a mad, excited circle, then sits on its haunches and continues to howl for a long while – it is home.

***

The students have exited the immense stalactite cavern into yet another twisting passage when they stop again to rest. Max has been hobbling along, helped by the other two. He sits heavily, winces and rubs his throbbing foot. "I'm getting colder." He shivers, and tries to slap his arms without effect.

Christine blows on her hands. "Me too."

The cave around them becomes lighter and smokier, and they start coughing.

Brian pulls a face. "Phew."

Max catches Brian's suspicious stare. "Hey, that wasn't me."

They look at Christine, who responds indignantly, "Look elsewhere, gentlemen" Brian wrinkles his nose. "That's sulphur."

Christine grimaces, and tucks her nose under the neck of her blouse. "You mean... like... brimstone?" The three freeze as the inhuman howl reverberates through the cavern.

"What's that? And for that matter, what's that?" Max points to arcane symbols drawn on the walls. Christine, still burying her nose, peers closer. "Some type of writing."

As they examine closer, from behind them they hear a faint click.

"Max, was that you?"

"Uh-uh."

"Christine?"

"Not me."

"Aw hell!"

They slowly turn around and scream in unison. Floating before their faces are the three golden masks. The golden masks also scream, which is all the more remarkable because they make no sound, and dart back, evidently scared. The humans run in one direction, as the masks fly off opposite.

***

Ratsitanga shakes his head and clicks his tongue in annoyance, twirls his finger in the air, and gestures as if commanding something unseen to go back. After a few moments, he points firmly, as though in a silent argument with a figment of his own imagination. Ratsitanga has a very strong imagination.

***

The three golden masks halt in mid-air, and turn around slowly. Brian's safari suit disappears around a corner, away down the tunnel. The masks follow, with evident reluctance. As they near the corner, the students scream and come running out again, followed by something writhing like snakes or tentacles – or snakes with tentacles. The golden masks all manage to adopt expressions of alarm at the students' approach and whip about to flee before them again.

***

Ratsitanga is furious. He stamps, fists clenched, and flails at an imaginary airy opponent in rage. "Of all the magic potions and binding spells. Of all the Tokolosh, I find the only ones in all of the stone passages that are chicken." He spits, picks up a stone and throws it into the darkness. He nearly kicks a small boulder, but reconsiders this action based on his understanding of the frailty of naked human feet. Instead, he punches the air again, leans back and screeches into the gloom. Those few who might have come seeking the wisdom of the witch would be most astonished at how vernacular his vocabulary is.

***

The students stop and rest, panting. They look behind them. What are possibly tentacled snakes, but may disturbingly be shadows, figments, or a disassembled octopus straight from the mind of Lovecraft, crawl off in different directions without bothering them. The things do not appear to even notice them. The golden masks stop, hovering just ahead, turn and stare.

Max, rarely at a loss for words, breaks the impasse, "What is wrong with this picture?"

Christine thrusts her hands into her pockets. "Is it just me or do those masks seem harmless?"

Brian, the pragmatic one, dismisses the masks as a threat, and turns his mind to more practical concerns. "Where's Sam?"

"I dunno." Max shrugs, his eyes still on the three floating faces. They seem embarrassed.

Max steps towards the gold masks, holding his hand out as if calling a dog. The golden masks gingerly approach when a howl echoes down the tunnels. The masks and the students freeze, and the two groups stare at each other for a brief, suspicion-soaked time.

A faint clicking echoes from down a small passage near the masks. As it gets louder, it becomes apparent that the sound is that of regular footsteps, not running, and not attempting any degree of stealth. The footsteps sound determined.

The students draw together, faces grim. Brian finds his fists balled. Max swallows and steadies his stance, ready for trouble. The masks, evidently unclear on whether to keep a wary eye-slit on the humans or the noise, bunch together against the wall. The footsteps are now surely practically upon them, and human ears can distinguish a muttering, like someone talking to themselves.

An old black man strides into the stand-off, almost midway between the masks and the students. His gait is far beyond the limit one would expect of such an old fellow. The man is clearly venerable, and clearly of African persuasion, though not much other than bare legs and hands can be seen venturing from his ragged cloak. A few maggots fall from the cloak's dubious recesses.

Brian, the alpha-male, draws Christine behind him protectively.

Ratsitanga halts and peers at the students. They still can't see his face. His maggot-ridden clothes are hidden by a maggot-ridden cloak and hood. It is apparent that he is big on leather and animal skins, but less partial to curing and tanning.

From behind Brian, Christine peers at the filthy man. "Who are you?" She wrinkles her nose, and briefly compares this apparition's style of dress to rotting meat. In her estimation, a hillbilly would have better style and taste. He ignores her and addresses the masks with an accusatory finger, in a language the students do not understand, "Cowards. I will melt you all!"

The little masks fly in a circle, avoiding Ratsitanga to cower behind the students. They shake a little. Brian swallows, despite the dryness in his throat. Ratsitanga pushes back his hood, and for the first time they can see that he is wearing a golden mask just like the ones behind them. Christine gasps and shrinks back. Max takes a step forward, fists ready, but not threatening.

Ratsitanga deliberately shifts his white-eyed gaze from Max's fists to his face, and slowly meets the eyes of all three. When he speaks, his accent is thick with antiquity, and puts Christine in mind of old, yellowed paper. With mould, she adds to herself.

"You are in the stone passages, young ones." The accent cannot be placed. "If you believe in prayer, now is a good time to indulge in that." A chuckle. "It may make you feel better."

The students are wary.

Big, bad, Brian takes the alpha male role again. "Who are you?"

Max holds Brian's arm gently and leans into him, muttering, "Don't trust him. What would an old man be doing down here.... alive?"

Brian feels the hairs on his neck curling. Ratsitanga sniggers through a set of teeth consisting of some impossibly pointed and some blunted by age. It is a little known fact that this type of thing happens a lot to creatures who exist in multiple dimensions. The paradox is an unsettling sight. "Your friend may have a point. I am Ratsitanga, the spirit witch."

The students edge back.

"That's the name of the witch from the papers Carmichael gave us." Christine's hiss carries further than she intended. The spirit witch cocks his head in an attitude of consideration. He holds out his hands, points to the masks behind them and to their glittery companion attached to his own face.

"These are also spirit talismans. Tokolosh. They will help us against the black mask."

The alpha male feels a little emboldened. "What do you know about the black mask?"

Ratsitanga smiles at him, though this is not a reassuring sight. Two sets of teeth seem to occupy the same mouth. The pointed ones are observably yellower. "The black mask. Yes. One hundred and sixty summers ago, the black mask was ripped from these passages." Ratsitanga indicates the space around them. "And put into the world of men."

Max leans forward to mutter again to the others, "Don't listen to it. That's not human any more than Sam is. Look at the teeth on that thing."

"All the better to eat with, my boy." Ratsitanga smiles at Max, who steps back.

The witch laughs at his little joke, and then clamps his lips together like a miser's wallet. He raises his eyebrows in a mocking enquiry as to whether or not Max prefers his mouth closed. When there is no response, he snorts and continues, "Now the black mask has come home. Only here can it be destroyed." He points firmly at the ground for emphasis. "But the black mask has been frustrated and angered in the world of men. While Ratsitanga has grown older and weaker over the years, the spirit in the mask has developed a thirst for vengeance, and a very nasty disposition. It wants to pay me back for taking it away from here..."

Max has heard enough. "Let's get out of here." The sudden spreading of Ratsitanga's skinny arms causes Max to step back. The papery dry voice cuts through the desolate space, "Look around you. Smell the passages? Can't you feel the cold, little pink man? Can't you smell the brimstone? Do you think you are still in Kansas, Dorothy?" He laughs, but his grim mirth degenerates into coughing. Despite herself, Christine nearly steps forwards to assist him. Ratsitanga seems nothing more than a frail old man, his body shaking as if with tuberculosis.

Eventually, Ratsitanga draws a deep breath and spits a greenish, gluey gobbet against the wall. "This body is too used to the world of men." He sits on the stones as Christine considers what he has just said.

Brian feels an insistent squeeze on his arm. Max's whispers are now tinged with greater urgency. "For the last time, either come with me or I'm going by myself." Brian holds up a cautionary hand. "Wait, Max. It does feel different."

"And it smells like a fart festival, too - all the more reason to go. Now come on."

Ratsitanga chuckles at the students' indecision, his mirth again ending in a small cough. "You are right, I suppose, little one. You see an old man, but that's your mind protecting you; if you could see my true shape, why, you might just loose your sanity. Or what you think is sanity. Hee, hee."

Max cocks his head in disbelief. Despite what he pronounced earlier, his whole attitude informs Ratsitanga that he should please yank the other one with the bells on. Ratsitanga continues without bothering about Max, "I made the black mask. I was the cause of its exile. Now it has returned home and wants its revenge." It is a matter-of-fact statement, without melodrama.

Abruptly, Max turns and runs off down a side tunnel.

Christine and Brian stare at his retreating back - again. He soon disappears into the smoky murk. Ratsitanga blinks impassively.

"Max, come back." Brian is incredulous, and his too-soft plea is belated.

Christine stares, opening and shutting her mouth a few times like a fish. "That son of a....."

Ratsitanga gestures and one of the golden masks follows Max.

Brian watches it recede, and turns to Ratsitanga. "What are these things?"

Ratsitanga waves, as though irritable at the white foreigner's lack of basic knowledge. "I told you, they are Tokolosh \- spirits. I bound them to these golden masks so that they could lend you their strength and courage, amongst other things." He chuckles again, and points after Max. "That one may find it useful. On the whole, though..." He sniffs disdainfully as he turns to the remaining two masks. "It seems as though you need to supply the courage." The masks at least have the grace to seem bashful.

Christine steps out from behind Brian, and points at the masks. "How can they help?"

As Ratsitanga peers at her, his white eyes give her the creeps. "Wear the masks, like I do. Only a trained Sangoma or another Tokolosh can harm a Tokolosh. However, in your favour, the black mask has been gone a long time. It will take a while before it gets used to the idea that it doesn't need some type of body. For the present, the black mask is like a Tokolosh with a body. To fight the black mask, you must also become as a Tokolosh with a body. Tokolosh..." He indicates the golden masks. "Body." He leers at the students.

Brian is starting to wonder if brave Max had the right idea. "What are the alternatives?"

"How can a man fight smoke, or shadows, or demons? You know you are not in your own world anymore. There is nowhere to run." The old man waves his raggedy arm within his raggedy cloak, taking in the walls, the smoke, the obscene writing and the eerie light. "My cave in your world is just a shadow of this. A... familiar. Here, you have... Aheh, aheh... The real deal." Christine firmly shoves the nagging voice in her head, the one demanding to know how a hundred and sixty plus year old witch speaks up-to-date English, aside. She looks thoughtfully at Ratsitanga, and at the golden masks. With no hesitation, she grabs one and puts her face into it before Brian can react.

"Christine, no!"

Christine screams. She sees shadows writhing all around her. The parent realises the monsters are under the bed; the child was right all the time, and the brutes are hungry. Unfortunately, the human brain is not designed to process the senses of the Tokolosh. She drops, whimpering, to her knees, clutching her hair over her ears. Brian tries to pull the mask off her face, but she manages to push him away. He gets the feeling Christine has enough control over her faculties to decide whether she wants to keep the mask on. Nevertheless, he rounds on the old man, who stares past them with his seemingly blind eyes and screams at him, bits of spittle flecking on the witch's face, "What have you done to her?"

Ratsitanga dismisses Brian with an irritable gesture, and strides past him. He kneels next to Christine. His voice is a sing-song rhythm, the hypnotist's weapon that cannot but be obeyed. "Shh, shush, child. Your senses are enhanced, that is all. You see in the Tokolosh world now."

"What have you done to her?"

Ratsitanga turns to Brian, although he remains holding Christine as she calms down. "You see, smell, hear, touch, feel. You perceive your own body and are aware of yourself. With so few senses, how can a mere human perceive all that is? As your mortal ancestors blundered through their limited reality, not seeing what is about them, ripping the fabric and balance of the spirits with a careless word, or untimely gesture, so you have blundered through countless spirits in the passages of stone already, but most are too mad to care." The witch tosses his head about, seeming to indicate the empty air. "Luckily for you."

Christine pushes Ratsitanga away, and stands up, staring about herself in wonder. Even with the mask on her face, Brian can see her expression, and he realises she sees things he does not. She reaches out to caress the air, and giggles. Ratsitanga plucks the remaining golden mask out of the air, and holds it to Brian. "You are like a blind boxer, lashing out at imagined threats, and not seeing the fist in front of your nose about to knock you out. The female sees with the eyes of the Tokolosh now. She sees the shadows and the fabric of time. She sees colours you have no words to describe." Ratsitanga gives a dramatic pause. "And she can touch the black mask. She can fight back."

"Brian, put the mask on." Her touch on his arm conveys voluminous reassurance.

"Christine, is that really you?"

"Of course it is." She laughs at something over his head. "This is amazing. Put it on, trust me. Be careful; it's a bit freaky at fist" Brian grasps the mask, trying in vain to read something into the witch's impassive face. He takes a deep breath, then places the mask over his face.

And screams.

His brain is overwhelmed. He sees Christine smiling reassuringly and tries to focus on her face. Little not-quitespirits dance around him, like midges over a grassy meadow. Larger ones, the size of birds, swoop above him, through the passage. One flies at his face. Brian holds out his arms to fend it off, but it brushes right through him, and he does not even feel it.

Brian tries to ignore the little voice at the back of his mind insisting that the old man has sharp, focussed eyes, very pointed teeth and muscles like a champion body builder. Ratsitanga laughs. "Now..." His tone becomes brisk and business-like. "Now we find the prison of the spirit bull. I think he's going to be madder than hell."

***

The shadow of the spirit bull looks up. He is seated on the floor, his arms in chains. He rattles the chains, and snorts. Something squeaks down the passage beyond the gloom. The bull cocks his head and lumbers to his feet. The squeak wafts down the passage again. The spirit bull throws back his shaggy head and bellows.

### Chapter Fifteen

'Sam' stops at the sound of the bellowing. He is on a sheer wall, climbing like a spider. He leans away from the wall as if sniffing the air, and snarls, showing pointed teeth, then pushes and bounds up the stone surface with impossibly big strides.

***

Christine, Ratsitanga and Brian walk gingerly along a precipice. They come across a pile of bones, dressed in the mouldering remains of an archetypal eighteenth-century explorer outfit. There is a box, some rope, a hunting knife, and an old pistol.

The clothes disintegrate as Brian prods it with his foot, and a skeletal arm rattles into a new and presumably more comfortable position. "What's this?"

Ratsitanga pulls his cloak around himself. "Looks like a human. Sometimes these souls stumble though the little gaps between dimensions and end up in the stone passages. They are then what you'd call up the river with no way of steering the canoe."

Brian and Christine examine the find; Ratsitanga resumes his blind old man routine and stares past them. Brian gingerly picks up the rifle and rummages through the box. He finds two rusted grappling hooks. "No bullets."

Ratsitanga smirks. "This human probably found lots to shoot at, but very little to hit. There's something satisfying about a man who hunts animals with guns becoming the helpless, hunted prey himself, don't you think?"

Christine ignores the witch, and snaps the rope taut.

"This looks as good as new."

Brian takes the rope from her and drapes it over his shoulder. He then attaches the hooks to his belt after an initial little mishap involving a sharp end and his safari suit pants. Christine discards the box, and ties the knife in its leather sheath around her waist by means of the dead man's leather belt.

Brian steps back, and swats at an errant spirit. "This is like the papers in the cellar," he observes. "Nothing seems to age."

Christine nods, then points to the bones and rotted clothes. "Except him."

On cue, the brittle bones collapse. Christine is startled and jumps back, nearly falling. Brian catches her and pulls her close. The skull grins in a perverted manner at them from the floor.

Ratsitanga motions them closer. "Come, we must reach the spirit bull before the black mask realises what we intend." "Okay, who or what is the spirit bull, and what do we intend?"

***

Ratsitanga, closely followed by Christine and Brian walks in silence through the passages. A darker patch of tunnel becomes a wider ledge, slipping away in another precipice.

"Watch out for the..."

Christine slips and falls off the edge with a sharp shriek.

"...Bat crap," finishes Ratsitanga belatedly.

Brian and Ratsitanga look over the edge, the American with some urgency and the witch in a far more relaxed manner. Not far down, Christine dusts herself off. She is on another wide shelf. Beyond her is an impenetrable abyss. She looks up. "I'm oka..." She points up urgently beyond them, fear stretching her eyes. "Look out!"

Above them, the demon looks down through eyes modelled on his memory of Sam. The red eyes glow at the trio beneath. He perches on the wall, head downwards, like an insect, conveniently sticky hands gripping the rocky surface. As the female sees him, he forces his mouth into an evil, pointytoothed grin, and scrabbles around and upwards in a blur towards a tunnel above Brian and the witch, slinking a leg into concealment a split second before the others can look up. Brian and Ratsitanga do not see the thing.

"What?" asks Brian.

"I saw Sam. I'm sure of it."

"I buried Sam."

"Yeah but... Uh..."

He shakes his head, not disbelieving her, but disturbed. "You keep a lookout while I haul her up." He does not even consider that Ratsitanga's white eyes would inhibit his ability to keep sentry.

Ratsitanga keeps a lookout above as Brian lowers the rope. Brian notes a similarity in the witch's demeanour to a blind guitarist to whom he went to listen a few years ago. Christine clambers up and Brian reaches his hand as she nears.

He hauls her the last short distance up. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah, just grazed my arm a bit."

Ratsitanga whips his head towards her so quickly a maggot flies away from his hood. "What? Let me see." Christine holds her arm out for inspection, puzzled at his intensity. He snatches her arm and examines it closely. She contorts her mouth, disgusted, but does not wrench her arm away.

Agitated, he releases her. "We must hurry, and avoid the shadows. All right, the darker shadows. They can smell human blood and won't continue to ignore you with a cut."

***

Max covers his head with his arms and shuts his eyes to close out the smoky light. He is crying softly, rocking back and forth on his haunches. Every now and then he whispers for his mother and peeks out between his arms. Max hears breathing behind him. He slowly turns and looks into a face pro-abortionists would use for advertising material. He screams and runs off, the monster looking impassively on. It shakes its head, and takes a bite of what looks exactly like a stick of celery. 'They'll let anything into the passages these days,' it thinks, and shambles away.

***

Christine and Brian, holding hands, follow Ratsitanga. She leans closer to whisper, "Did you also leave a message for your folks?"

"Yeah."

"What did you say?"

"What could I say? I said a few of my friends were going camping for a few days and that I couldn't miss the opportunity to join in."

"Me too. My mother would go ballistic."

"Do me a big favour. If we ever get out of here, don't tell them I was with you here."

"Are you kidding? If my father knew, he'd re-invent the art of torture, and you'd never be seen again. In fact, he'd probably practice on me first."

"I wonder if Reverend Carmichael will let them know the truth. You know, I mean, if we don't make it." Christine shrugs.

He stops. "What was that?"

They are still following the wide shelf along the abyss, where the ceiling is so high above them it blends into the gloom. A rolling, clicking sound fills the space. Brian notices a small movement on the ground, and bends closer to see more clearly. A small stone comes to rest at his feet. He looks up the side of the stone wall. Christine and Ratsitanga follow his gaze.

Something that looks like a certain pilot in a vampire costume crawls, spider-like, towards them. With a shriek, the thing unfurls some bat-like wings and dives straight at the group.

Brian pushes Christine down. "Duck!"

Despite how difficult it is to distil information from a number of additional senses you are not used to, the students somehow avoid the attack, and the monster grabs Ratsitanga and soars off into the gloom.

"Hey! Come back!" Brian makes a desperate grab at Ratsitanga's gnarled feet - which his brain is still insisting are perfectly formed and large - and nearly topples into the abyss. His arms flail as he barely keeps his balance. "Ratsitanga!" Christine watches helplessly as the old man is carried off, beating ineffectually at the bat-wings. In the smoky flickering, alone, they look at each other.

Brian sits heavily on a rock. "Shit with sugar on." The pair sits gloomily for a long time, neither saying much. Both are relieved when no cascade of bones drops from the gloom in a grizzly repeat of Millie's abduction. Christine wishes she had a packet of the stuff Max had brought with him. Max. At the thought of his repeated cowardly desertion, she spits over the edge, narrowly missing a flying thing with furry wings and a long, orange beak.

Eventually, Christine feels Brian's hand on her shoulder.

He doesn't smile; he makes no effort at all to cheer her up.

She's glad he doesn't try that, and allows him to help her up. In unspoken agreement, they wander off from the void down yet another passage, aimless, lost, and alone.

There is a pressing problem that is now becoming too urgent; the tap dripping onto the victim's forehead that consumes all focus, all time, and all concentration. She knows Brian feels it, too, even though they haven't spoken of it since before Millie was taken. There is some unvoiced understanding that to mention it will somehow give the problem greater substance. Denial is bravery, hope, strength of character. She doesn't need to say anything. She knows Brian knows she knows he knows and so on; ad infinitum, like these horrible passages with their otherworldly scribbling. She says it anyway. "I'm thirsty."

"Yeah, me too. How's your cut?"

"Stopped bleeding a while ago."

She examines her arm. An angry red welt pushes thoughts of tetanus and other miscellaneous unpleasantness onto the stage of her imagination. "You know how you don't notice you're hurt until someone points it out to you?" "Sorry."

She shakes her head, too fatigued and too thirsty to care, and they trudge on.

A low snorting signals a halt. Christine jumps and holds Brian, one of the better experiences of his day – or night, or whatever it is down here.

She can't see very well into the gloom, even with the increased brightness and Tokolosh mask. "Did that sound like an animal to you?" She has a crazy thought that her blood is poisoned, causing hallucinations.

Brian glances at a school of fish flying past him, bubbles escaping from ventral gills into the air, but decides not to be a jerk about it. He knows what she means. "Yeah, in fact it sounded to me like some noise a bull or something might make. It came from that tunnel there." Brian points to a side passage. His fingers are grubby, and his tongue feels very thick, but the alpha male cannot really admit to weakness.

They look at each other.

"Bull?" she asks. "Like in 'spirit bull'?"

A shrug.

They cautiously head towards the black gap. The passages have a strange ten-pace visibility. Not like a light with a sensor switching on as movement is detected, but light that is always there, just unneeded and therefore undetectable. They duck their heads through the opening out of a habit coded into the genes of humanity - the ceiling is more than adequate to admit their height. The snorting is louder here. It is now intermingled with the sounds of snuffling and rattling, like chains.

Brian remembers a childhood trip, looking out the car window at a filling station, and seeing a pit bull terrier lying in the shade. As the car filled up the dog ignored them, busy as it was on a large and evidently tasty bone. The dog had a long chain on its neck. A bowl of water and a wooden kennel seemed to indicate that someone cared for it, but young Brian had taken a long look about at the wide open country stretching to the horizon in all directions, the road a grey scar disappearing behind and before him, and wondered how the dog felt about being chained up with vast freedom in plain view all around it.

In this place, with the prospect of coming face to snout with whatever makes a noise like that, Brian is not convinced that chains are a bad idea.

Morbid fascination draws him down the passage further, even though surely reason dictates finding another route. In the passage ahead, they finally discern a shadow. Whatever this is, it's a lot bigger than a pit bull no matter how many steroids one crushes into dog biscuits. And it seems to have horns. And it is chained to the wall.

As they get closer, the humans' expressions sour at the smell. A reek like from an animal pen or abattoir assails them. The shadow raises its head. It is chained to the wall with thick, dull links. Unlike other denizens of these passages, this one directs a baleful stare directly at them, with keen intelligence. The humans gawp back. The torso and legs are those of an African man, but bigger by far, muscles rippling in places where a human doesn't really have places. Fine down, around the legs and waist, thickens as it sprouts from the upper body, and eventually a carpet of bristly black hair covers a head too massive even for the impressive frame. The head is that of a bull, with heavy-looking grey horns. The students have, of course, heard of this creature, but only in dusty old stories in dusty old books.

Neither of them could really appreciate the myths and stories jotted upon the pages back in the cellar, yet lost in a labyrinth in a magical, fantastic place, what else would they come face to face with? The Minotaur narrows its eyes and snorts.

Christine forgets the stench in the wonder of what she sees before her.

Brian remembers a particular story about a girl wandering through a magical wardrobe to a place where all the stuff of myth and nightmare was as real as puberty, and twice as awkward. In that tale, these things were the bad guys –weren't they?

The Minotaur snorts once more and flexes the chains. A skittering behind the students down the passage causes Brian to turn abruptly and peer back into the dark. "What was that?" Christine pays no attention. She is totally absorbed by the spirit bull. She opens her mouth, shuts it again, and tries to speak, but words are difficult. She feels vaguely like an atheist on judgement day. Eventually, her tongue creeps back under her control, abashed at having left. "A Minotaur!"

The bull starts thrashing in his chains, snorting. The humans take a step back; nothing that powerful can fail to be scary, no matter how thick the chains. Brian sees a small bowl, half filled with water, and a blanket. He steadfastly resists looking around to see if there is a fuel pump. Gold dust glitters as it falls from the chains in the gloom. Christine takes a step closer, while Brian, torn between nervous fascination at the myth come to life and nervous fear at the noises back down the passage, is still trying to look in opposite directions at the same time. Christine takes another step closer. "How do we get these off him?" Brian fancies he hears another skittering back there, and turns his back to the spirit bull.

Unnoticed by her companion, Christine approaches the bull cautiously. It surveys her with green eyes, but makes no threatening moves. She touches the chains, unimpeded by the prisoner; she is close enough that it could catch and kill her easily if it wanted to, but the huge frame is still, except for the head, following her movements. The Minotaur's attitude indicates in no uncertain terms that he knows she is his best chance to get free. Definitely a bull, notes Christine, keeping her eyes resolutely away from the region of his loincloth. She examines where the chains are fastened to the stone by heavy rivets. The bull points, and Christine flinches even though the movement is deliberately slow and nonthreatening. She looks to where he indicates. In a darkened pocket in the wall is a key, tantalisingly close, but just beyond the reach of the imprisoned Minotaur. She lifts it. Brian, mostly satisfied that there is no danger imminent further back in the gloom, turns to help her.

Christine turns to him from the Minotaur in frustration.

"There is no lock."

Pasted above the pit bull happily chewing the bone had been a handwritten paper sign – 'Beware of the dog. He bites'. Brian spreads his arms. "So what do we do now?" The spirit bull snorts and paws at the ground. The skittering is heard again, louder this time.

Brian returns his nervous attention down the passage. "Whatever that is, it's getting closer." He closes his nose for a second in a brief attempt to get some relief from the smell of a Minotaur chained far from a bathtub for a century and a half.

The Minotaur and the two students gaze down the passage, like naughty children caught in the middle of a prank. A dim, outlined figure walks towards them. Its footsteps are steady. Brian and Christine draw together; she forces her breath to slow. All they can see, even wearing the masks, is that the figure is human, or at least, Brian corrects his senses, human-shaped.

Brian assumes a defensive pose; next to him, Christine stands staring, key held in her hand. The spirit bull snorts, arms still bound helplessly, a hairy parody of Andromeda waiting to be sacrificed to the titan. The figure approaching is man-sized, and as it steps to within a few metres, they see the ruddy face of Reverend Carmichael. He's dressed similarly to Brian, in a ridiculous safari suit, a study in khaki clothing and walrus moustache. At the edge of her mind, Christine is screaming to herself that he needs a bush hat and pipe.

Brian relaxes slightly, as Carmichael stops and peers at them, apparently noticing them for the first time. "Well, finally I found you, don't you know. I say, who's this chap?" The newcomer takes in the spirit bull with interest.

Brian can't put his hand on it, but something is wrong. Carmichael is as out of place here as this place is out of place back in what he has begun to think of as the other real world. "Reverend?"

Brian's fists are still clenched, but he hesitatingly relaxes his attitude.

The priest smiles.

The bull goes berserk. He bellows and strains at his chains, startling Brian and Christine. Christine looks from Carmichael, still smiling, to the Minotaur, and back again. Carmichael is very nonchalant, despite coming face to face with a shaggy brute straight from Greek legend. The spirit bull is far more excited, his snorting breath is practically visible.

She backs away from Carmichael towards the bull. "Brian, that's not the priest."

Carmichael takes a step forward, still smiling. "Oh posh."

Brian takes in the stilted smile. The pit bull looked so restful and happy chewing the bone. 'Beware of the dog. He bites.'

"Brian, I'm telling you that's not Carmichael!" She fumbles out the knife she scavenged from the explorer in the dark passage.

Brian hesitates. "Christine?"

'Beware of the dog. He bites'.

Carmichael's smile is fixed, but his eyes glow red. The bull continues to bellow and tug impotently at the chains. Carmichael looks at his feet. When he looks up, his eyes flicker red, briefly almond-shaped, like the slits of a mask. Brian steps back involuntarily. The improbable apparition still smiles. As they watch, terrified, the face darkens further and the visage of the midget flickers in and out of focus. The face darkens still more, acquiring carved angles. The mouth elongates, and protrudes rudely. The face is no longer human, but the face of a repugnant statue. The black mask discards its disguise, Carmichael's exterior dissolving away before and reforming into the vile little dwarf with the overstuffed g-string. The smile is still there, but much, much more threatening.

The golden mask on Christine's face gives a little squeak and faints to the floor.

"Hey!" She is momentarily blinded, bereft of her supernaturally-enhanced senses. Involuntarily, she gropes, mere sight inadequate while she adjusts to the reduced levels of perceptive input. She is merely human once more, and the relief at the sudden reduction in stench makes her gasp. There is a sensation of weight in her hand, but there is nothing there. She opens her fingers, and drops the key she can't see.

Brian absently picks it up.

The spirit bull bellows at him, eventually gains his attention, and opens a shadowy hand, stretching as desperately as the chains allow. 'Beware of the dog. He bites'. The road stretches empty in both directions from the filling station. Brian hesitates only a split second, and tosses the Minotaur the key, then turns back to the thing in the black mask. The bull misses the key and it bounces to the ground, just out of reach. The bull stretches with his toes, and succeeds only in pushing it a few torturous millimetres further away. He strains and kicks the wall in frustration, hurts his toe and bellows some more, trying now to grasp his foot with a chained hand.

The black masked creature, still dressed like Carmichael, and still smiling that awful rictus, opens his mouth wide and shrieks at them like nails across a blackboard. Brian's hair billows backwards in the gale, his hat flying off to hit the Minotaur behind him. The alpha male can't resist a quip in the face of danger. "This guy sure needs to brush more regularly."

The alpha male, as a concept, is not known for its intellect.

The masked demon, its breath spent in the shriek, inhales deeply, and throws its arms wide. The ground starts to turn soft and, after a moment, downright pungent under Brian's feet.

"Hey!"

The bull points a chained finger and the ground hardens again. The Tokolosh screams in anger and charges forward, batting the students aside like tissue. The bull is next to helpless, arms chained apart. The Tokolosh skids to a halt in front of him and kicks him in the crotch. The bull emits a high-pitched whine and slumps in its chains, legs crossed and eyes squinting. The black mask, still dressed as an explorer, turns slowly to face the students.

"Christine." Brian can't quite keep the tremble from his voice.

"Yeah?"

"If we ever got out of here, I'd really have liked to get to know you better."

"Sweet. Stupid timing, but sweet."

The Tokolosh places its hands on its hips. It clasps its hands by its chest mockingly, then opens its mouth and burps a hurricane wind at the pair. While they are blinking against the blast, their enemy swings a long arm at lightning speed at Brian, who ducks beneath its legs and punches upward to the crotch, shouting a wordless battle cry. The Tokolosh squeals. The bull, observing, smiles wanly and briefly, then groans, retreating from this momentary minor satisfaction back into his own red haze of concentration.

'Beware of the dog. He bites'.

Brian scrambles out behind the Carmichael-thing and assumes a fighting pose. "Seven years of Karate lessons, Ugly. Let's go."

Brian realises, before the words are out of his mouth, how ridiculous he sounds, but there are just times when macho screaming helps to turn the world red and focus a righteous berserker rage at a deserving recipient of pain. The Tokolosh lunges forward. Brian weaves and ducks as the demon tries to hit him, and manages to deliver a few more relatively ineffectual blows. Christine spots the bull trying to grab the now invisible key, and crawls towards him, trying unsuccessfully not to be noticed. The Tokolosh charges Brian with a lowered head and batters his stomach hard, winding him. As Christine reaches for where the key must be, the Tokolosh grabs her ankle and pulls her back screaming. The key moves a few more precious inches away, and the bull pounds on the wall in frustration.

Through a flickering, winded haze, Brian sees the shadow of Christine whirled around like a doll on the walls. The spirit bull's head goes around and around as he watches the Tokolosh whirl her dizzyingly, and then throws her off into the darkness of the passage. There is a sickening thump as she lands somewhere beyond the limits of where they can see. The obscene midget approaches the spirit bull. He feints with a foot, and then, as the bull crosses his legs protectively, hits him in his shaggy face. The bull rears back, exposing his crotch. The little demon kicks the bull in the fork. As the bull doubles over, he hits the bull in the face again. This repeats a few times.

Brian stands up, shaking his groggy head. "Christine?"

She staggers back from the gloom, cut and dazed. Brian takes Christine by the arm and whispers to her, as subtly as he can, "We've lost, let's get out of here." She resists his tug. "What about the spirit bull?" The masked horror is by now mercilessly kicking the Minotaur, who is helplessly squirming in a vain effort to avoid the blows. Christine wants to help, but knows that she cannot. Brian is nauseatingly correct.

He tugs at her again. "There's nothing we can do." At a faint suggestion of movement behind them, Brian spins.

A familiar voice, papery and dusty, crackles from the passage, "I wouldn't be so sure of that."

They gasp.

Ratsitanga is battered and bleeding. His clothes are torn and he is favouring his left arm; nevertheless, he pushes grimly past the flabbergasted humans and shouts to the dwarf, " _Tokolosh_!"

The small monster leaves the battered spirit bull and whirls about towards Ratsitanga. He sees the witch and bares his fangs.

Ratsitanga grins a determined grin, and beckons the Tokolosh towards him. "Come to Papa."

At a sudden gesture from the witch, green flames leap from his hands. As they strike the black mask, the thing shrieks and holds his eyes, collapsing, clutching at his face. Brian sways, information overloading him. "We thought you were dead."

"If I die, the black mask is no more; that is its relationship with its creator, so the Tokolosh locked me up instead. It seems they now are one, the mask and the demon. I was beginning to resign myself to an eternity of torture. Luckily, your friend found me." Ratsitanga jerks a thumb back down the passage.

Max, wearing his golden mask, moves sheepishly from the shadows and smoke to stand behind Ratsitanga. "Max!"

"You son of a bitch!"

Ratsitanga is momentarily distracted by the students. A mistake. The midget springs up at the spirit witch, Max's warning cry coming too late. Ratsitanga gurgles as the Tokolosh locks stringy fingers around his throat. The spirit witch makes no attempt to loosen the fingers, but grips grimly at his opponent's windpipe himself. When he speaks, his voice is a rasping gurgle, barely able to get through the constricting grip, "If I die, you die."

Ratsitanga pulls up a bony knee, and that part of the black mask's memory of true, corporeal substance has a dim, ingrained aversion to knees planted hard in intimate and squishy bits. The thing lets go, squealing as Ratsitanga pancakes its massive bulge. Ratsitanga loses no time, and opens his mouth. What issues forth is to sound what an ocean is to a puddle. The howling wind blasts the Tokolosh back off his feet, and the students clap hands over ears that feel like they've just been assaulted with fire and sandpaper. The spirit bull, demonstrating remarkable resilience, considering what he has just been through, is pawing with his foot at the key, still tantalisingly out of reach.

Now the Tokolosh and Ratsitanga square up like wrestlers, unlikely protagonists, creator and created. The students, and even the Minotaur, are unable to influence events at all. What happens between the two contiguous nows of temporal sequence? How does one moment become another? Are moments ever frozen? There is an explosion - no build up, no preparation; simply a change of state. An explosion, but not of matter progressing from a compressed state to a vastly expanded one. This is more like a jarring break in continuity; the existence of the preceding moment is erased and replaced by the facts of the next. There is no aftermath or settling, no dusty detritus clearing, no cause and effect, no continuity or contiguity. The human senses experience this as a quick flick of a switch, off and on again.

Now is the next moment.

The moment is past. A moment ago there were two supernatural entities locked in physical fury, and now, Ratsitanga is nowhere. The frustrated spirit bull bathes in a rapidly fading shower of sparkles that was the black-masked demon as the humans squint against the brightness. When a Tokolosh vacates its host, and the host has been abused as much as this host, this simulacrum of a human body, the bite of reality is not pretty. The magical glamour disappears. There are cuts, and breaks and lots of blood. An unrecognisable, discoloured corpse sprawls at their feet. Christine struggles with a suddenly heaving stomach, which is even worse for Brian because of the stench from the Minotaur, and is glad for the moment that she has neither eaten nor drank for longer than she cares to remember. "Uh..." says the alpha-male intellectually.

Brian cocks his head. A howling just at the edge of perception builds, like a storm outside a warm cabin. The rate of volume increases in parabolic proportion. The flickering increases, and Christine gasps as darkness and shadows rush along the walls towards them. The shadows meet like rushing armies. On the walls, the shadow of the Tokolosh, identifiable as a small man with a huge appendage between his legs, beats away another, less substantial shadow. The shadows are like a man trying to battle a disease with a lance - one shadow is somehow less solid than the other. Christine feels that watching this is like watching for the hand that performs the magician's illusion. Brian is reminded by a trembling on his face that he is still wearing his golden mask. Brian sympathises with the little mask; he can almost feel himself going slowly insane.

"Ratsitanga, is that you?" Brian reaches tentatively for the less substantial shadow, and feels coldness there, inexplicable and penetrating.

The shadows ignore him.

They lunge and blend and snap at each other in a maelstrom of chaos. The howling is nearly unbearable, and winds flap their clothes and animate the simulacrum corpse like an electric current. The chittering, always just at the edge of perception, is louder. The maelstrom lifts the key and blows it about as erratically as a feather. The spirit bull grasps with big, clumsy hands as it keeps whizzing past him, nimbly jerking through the air, teasing him. Desperately, Brian grabs at the key. He misses, then on a second attempt, catches it and gives it to the spirit bull.

Again, there is a feeling like a break in time. One moment fails to flow to the next, but is replaced, like a picture image on a computer, with no continuity, only a sense of unnatural abruptness. There is another noiseless explosion. And the shadow of the spirit bull grows on the wall, its horns long and vicious.

Even above the racket, another sound arrives, but not through the vibration of molecules. This is the idea of sound implanted directly in the understanding. This sound turns its nose up at the crude door of actual hearing; this is a sound that goes through the front doors like the master of the house disdaining the ears as a mere tradesman's entrance. Knock a few more points off poor Brian's by now badly battered sanity. The sound is the bellow of a bull - a huge, irate bull. The rock reverberates. Outside this particular part of the labyrinth, in other passages of stone, some minor denizens of this dimension pause, briefly aware of something outside of their own mad and unknowing existence.

The shadow of the spirit bull lowers its horns and charges.

The battle played out in flickering black figures on the walls has reached the ground assault stage. Max watches, horrified, as the bull's horns gore and rend. He cannot help feeling a small dose of empathy as a massive horn stabs at the bulging crotch.

"Mommy," Max can't help it, and will later be glad that the others are too absorbed to hear, as such lapses are devastating for the macho image of the modern man. Despite unfettered aggression, after the initial clash the spirit bull cannot seem to make much headway against his opponent. The lithe form darts away from each aimed charge, a matador teasing its attacker, the shadow of the Minotaur too cumbersome to land a telling blow. The swirling haze that represents Ratsitanga in this two-dimensional soiree congeals and solidifies on the wall. The spirit bull hesitates, as though considering an option.

Brian and Max hear it, though Christine, without her mask, cannot. Another sound doesn't arrive through the air, an idea planted directly into the brain. Is this what it must be like to hear the voice of God?

The voice is urgent, insistent, and papery. 'Take me.'

'No.'

'We are linked. Defeat me and you defeat the enemy.'

'You will be no more.'

'I'll take that chance.'

The ideas that are voices that make no sound argue. Max feels his mouth hanging open. If he wasn't so thirsty, he'd be drooling. The language is guttural and impossible, yet he understands it. Brian simply feels like something is melting the wax in his ears.

On the walls, the Minotaur shadow hesitates; the dwarf shadow screams in denial and rage.

The spirit bull raises a powerful arm, and clubs Ratsitanga on the head with a hammer-fist. Ratsitanga makes no move to defend himself, to block or to evade the mighty blow, and crumples. The midget shadow pauses, its tongue lolls out its head, and then it crumples with Ratsitanga. Immediately, the spirit bull grabs it by the throat and starts to throttle it. The wind and the noise die down, allowing Christine to wipe the tears away from her relieved eyes. The smoke thickens around the shadow that is Ratsitanga, oozing from the shadow into solidity, with a sound like a thick mush squeezing through a plastic sieve, and the weak old man lies on the floor, corporeal again, his eyes closed. Christine and Brian rush to him.

The sound of choking arrives in the brain from the shadows, but the students ignore it. Max lurks uncomfortably, as Brian and Christine kneel next to the now frail-looking frame. Ratsitanga coughs, and grips Christine with a weak, old man's hand.

Despite the foulness of his clothes, Christine gently puts her hand under his head. "Ratsitanga?" Brian takes in the shadows on the wall; the bull-shadow is rocking rhythmically as it cheerfully chokes the dwarf shadow, with a level of glee remarkably apparent for something seen in only two dimensions and shades of grey and black. He looks back at the old man and points to where Ratsitanga's shadow has disappeared from the wall. "All those tentacles and slobbering mouths and things; was that you?" 'Beware of the dog. He bites'.

Ratsitanga pulls Brian close. "Listen to me, little human. Even the ancient passages of stone can't take a battle like this. When powerful Tokolosh die or strong spirits fight like this, too much magic is released, and these are two of the strongest."

He coughs; a thin, liquid, red line spills out the corner of his mouth. He grips Brian again and pulls him closer, his lips nearly at Brian's ear. "You'd better get your skinny asses out of here. The spirit bull knows that a full battle here will rip the fabric of time and space in your world, but as you can see..." He indicates the spirit bull pounding, stomping, strangling and throwing the other shape about, to the accompaniment of vicious snorting. "He's got a mad-on now that a cat couldn't scratch."

"We're not leaving you." 'Beware of the dog. He bites.' Old eyes snap wide, fixing Brian with a stare like a needle. "Oh yeah?"

Max, captivated by the battle on the wall, has his attention snapped away by the events on the floor, which consist basically of Ratsitanga assuming his true shape in Brian's arms. This involves tentacles, mouths and slobber, and if Max is lucky, he will colour and corrode the memory over time.

Brian grits his teeth, almost expecting this, though Christine leaps away with a cry. 'Beware of the dog. He bites'.

Ratsitanga assumes the old man aspect again and chuckles weakly. His grip on Brian now conveys a sense of appreciation. The shadow of the spirit bull stomps on something to a faint booming like a faraway drum.

"I am... dying," Ratsitanga appears to savour an alien concept. "The black mask cannot survive without me. Go." The old man façade starts to discorporate, and something squelchy and tentacled solidifies in its place.

Brian lets go and can't help glancing at his hands with a revolted expression. He rubs them on his clothes. Ratsitanga chuckles, the sound ending in a wet gurgle, and his head lolls briefly before that, too, is replaced by some body part for which there is neither noun nor adjective in any human language.

Max and Christine, in unspoken agreement, gently pull Brian away. Brian backs away from the oozing mess on the floor, then turns and runs with his comrades. They hurtle down the tunnels. An explosive rumble vibrates the passage from behind them, this time without the mind- and gut-wrenching sensation of a break in the continuity of the universe. Max, the optimist, can't quite see what is happening behind him down the tunnel, but is acutely aware of two pertinent facts. Firstly, the stones seem to be undergoing a bit of redecorating by earthquake, and secondly, they are more lost than a sailor on a desert island. He tries to find a subtle and non-alarming way to communicate his concerns. "We're screwed."

Christine is the first to detect a change in the light ahead of them. Glowing pinpoints of yellow, like miners' headlamps, bob towards them. "What's that?" Max squints down the gloom. "Please let it be something with two legs and a soul; that's all I ask."

The three are unwilling to halt, as the rumbling and shaking behind them continues.

There is some excited chattering up ahead in a language they don't understand, but this time the voice is clearly human and conveying a concept something along the lines of 'hey, look - three people stumbling around in the tunnels!' Max holds his hand against the glare of the lead lamp. Its owner conscientiously removes it from his head, and they make out none other than Reverend Carmichael, dressed in an all-too-familiar style involving a khaki safari suit and miner's helmet. Carmichael beams from ear to ear at them. "What ho!"

With him is a small group of black men dressed in Tshirts, jeans and mining helmets.

Brian's mouth turns up in a snarl. "You!"

He lunges forward, murder in his eyes. Christine and Max manage to hold him back. Two burly black men step protectively in front of the priest, whose wide smile fades to shock as the rumbling continues around them. "I say, steady on, old chap." Brian practically spits, as Max eyes Carmichael with suspicion. "How do we know that's really you?" asks Christine. Another man steps forward, and the students can make out Doctor Tshabalala. "Brian?"

"Doc?"

Carmichael looks puzzled. "Well, it's not Her Majesty the Queen, you blighter."

Christine juts her chin, challenging the party, "How did you get here? Who's this?"

The rumbling gets louder, shaking off the walls. Carmichael nods as the faint glimmers of comprehension beginning to dawn on him. "Ah, I see." He steps aside and politely indicates one of the men with him, a tall individual with strong cheekbones. "May I introduce Chief Malole, third chief of that name of the Batlhaping tribe?"

The burly chief raises his hand in greeting.

Carmichael moves to allow an unfettered view of another man, this one shorter, and encumbered by an orange, plastic backpack. "This chap is the present incumbent of the office of tribal Sangoma, or witchdoctor, of the Batlhaping." The Sangoma waves and grins. "Hi, how are you?" The incongruity of the man's demeanour and greeting set Christine back a little. Somehow, Sangoma's should be dressed in skins and behave a little more mystically. "Ah... Fine. How... Erm."

The chief looks past them, searching for something. "I don't see Peter." He turns to Carmichael. "Paisley, where is my boy?" The man searches their faces and takes in the shocked, crestfallen expressions. Max shakes his head. The chief bites his lip, and hangs his head. One of his companions places a comforting arm on his shoulder. The headlamp light jerks with the man's frame as he tries, unsuccessfully, to fight back tears.

Thick dust starts to fall from the ceiling. The helmet lamps waver in the vibration.

Chief Malole III points to the growing noise behind them, and clears his throat. "We can discuss this later; right now, we need to go." He half turns, stops and looks back. "Peter is really gone?"

They nod glumly.

Carmichael waves his tribal companions ahead, keeping one eye on Brian, who has at least stopped snarling at him. "Quite. Lead the way, chaps."

With the Batlhaping in the lead, the group hurries down the rumbling tunnels. The passages darken, and the quality of the air changes. Christine notices that they have been following a trail chalked in yellow on the cavern walls. She slaps her temple at her stupidity. This is always a good idea within a cave network.

Presently, the smoky quality of the environment is pretty much cleared, and the rumbling is no longer quite so loud. She knows they are back from the passages of stone. No sooner does she detect this, than the two golden masks fly off Max and Brian's faces. They levitate back a short distance as the humans stare after them.

"Where are they going?" asks Brian.

"Perhaps they're just going home." Max smiles at the retreating gold figures.

The masks float back into the darkness, but as the party prepares to resume their trek, they glint back into sight. With them is a third mask.

Christine squeals with delight, "My mask."

The golden masks float and swing around the students' heads, twittering like budgies. At an impatient indication from the chief, the party continues, masks hurrying along, too.

In barely twenty minutes, the rumbling is left behind and the group emerges into a large cavern. In the centre of the cavern is the remnant of a fire - this was Ratsitanga's cave. Nobody sees the dead blue-furred dog lying a little way back. Everyone is pleased and thankful to note the shaft of sunlight beyond the short, bat-slicked slope.

Christine takes a deep breath. "Fresh air. We're back." Brian grins. "Remind me never to complain when my brother lets one off in the car again."

They enjoy the air and the breeze. The Sangoma looks behind them as though half expecting something to emerge from the stony depths. "Let's get out of this cave. It's still much too close to the stone passages for my liking." He shivers to emphasise his point, hefts his orange pack, and makes his way up the slope. None of the others quite appreciate the risk taken by the Sangoma in undertaking this trip. As they climb to the cave entrance, Max slips in the guano and falls into it face first.

Carmichael looks down at him. "Stop buggering about and let's go."

They help Max up and move towards the entrance.

### Chapter Sixteen

As the humans stumble into the light of the high African sun, a noise like thunderous flatulence escapes the cave behind them. A strong blast of wind, carrying heavy dust, rocks their balance. The humans' hair blows in a brief gale and Carmichael pulls out a handkerchief with a Union Jack motif to cover his nose. "I say!"

Nearby, a troop of monkeys chatter. One throws its head back, holding its nose, and leaps away. A snake slithers off through the grass at high speed. The humans look around with wrinkled noses in disgust.

Gift looks at Carmichael over the top of his spectacles.

"Paisley?"

"What of it?"

The archaeologist shakes his head, and keeps his expression carefully neutral. "Nothing. I just never knew your first name before."

***

Evening falls over the veldt. There have been a few changes to the Batlhaping village over the decades. Malole III, the new Sangoma, and a couple of elders, sit comfortably on wicker chairs in a brick room in front of the chief's humble but well-constructed home. With them, their guests, Carmichael, Max, Christine, Brian and Tshabalala, sip from clean crystal glasses.

The chief is sombre, obviously mourning his nephew. Brian holds up his glass to the light of the fire. His voice is edged with both suspicion and pleasure. "What is this stuff?"

The Sangoma grins a mischievous grin. "From the _marula_ fruit. You're going to feel like an elephant has stomped on your head tomorrow if you aren't careful."

Carmichael clears his throat. "As I was saying, the Batlhaping and the church have been monitoring the cave area for generations, since they eventually made peace with the Boipakeng and absorbed them into their own tribe. This meant they had access to all the knowledge of the Boipakeng Sangoma. Not that they would practice such dark arts, of course." He inclines his head to the Sangoma, who nods back. The Sangoma continues as the reverend takes a careful sip. "We've been preparing for this eventuality for a long time. We were just waiting for some idiot to open the trunk."

"And bloody kids being what they are..." interjects Carmichael carefully, with all the subtlety of a bucket of elephant dung.

Brian is suitably chagrined. He has difficulty erasing a vision of Jock, Millie, Peter and Sam when he closes his eyes, and knows he will wake from horrible dreams for the rest of his life.

Christine tosses her just-washed hair, luxuriating in the comfort of clean clothes.

Molele leans forward, and swirls his drink. "Paisley called to warn us you were coming, so when you didn't pitch up, we sent a party to check the cave. Our scouts found the plane crash, but you weren't around, so we decided to come looking for you."

Gift grins at something and is studiously ignored by the priest.

Carmichael nods. "I decided after you left that I had to come with. I called Tshabalala here and left as soon as he got to the airport. We arrived just as these chaps were getting ready to come. Cost a packet to get kitted out and hire another plane." He swirls his glass, then adds, "The bishop is going to be madder than a hornet." He takes a reflective sip and continues, "The Sangoma got us into the stone passages, and we met you shortly after. Dashed uncivilised place, that cave, what?"

Gift's smile fades. He's just experienced an archaeologist's dream within a teacher's worst nightmare, and he can't meet the eyes of the brooding chief.

***

It is early morning. The sun glares with an unforgiving yellow eye down on the animals that hunt and kill and die on the great plains of Africa. The air is fresh with wild grassland and trees. An eagle glides far above the unspoilt veldt in search of a bloody breakfast. The land is beautiful, but unforgiving.

The village consists of brick and tin shanties. Brian stands near two simple wooden memorials, marked 'Peter Seleke' and 'Millie Johnson'. He bends down and places a flower, picked from amongst the many clumps that grow wild about, on each.

Christine comes up behind him and slips her arms around him. "You all right?"

"I guess so."

She knows that Brian feels a lot of guilt over what has happened, and Carmichael's insensitive comments haven't helped. She heard him crying out in his sleep last night. He has grown up a lot over the last couple of days. "My parents grounded me for a year."

Brian smiles a wry smile, and pats her hand around his waist. "Mine for life."

He pulls out his mobile phone, and shakes his head at the antenna rising above the walls of the kraal.

They stand thus for a while, gazing quietly at the markers, remembering. Brian succeeds in holding back tears. Carmichael wanders up behind them, pipe clenched between his teeth. He seems relaxed, but sombre. The Sangoma is with him, and the students turn to face them.

The priest stares out over the veldt, takes his pipe out of his mouth and, in a tone of nonchalant conversation, remarks, "I'll remember that stink for the rest of my life - worse than latrine duty in the army."

He takes a few puffs while they listen to the sounds of nature.

Carmichael again takes his pipe out of his mouth, and hesitates. He knows that his mannerisms are gruff, but he has the heart of a priest, and feels deep empathy towards the two young souls shattered on the anvil of things they had never even suspected existed. "All young people like adventure. If kids your age weren't curious or a little bit outside of the rules we set now and then, you'd have the personality of a dead fish." He takes a puff. "Knew a chappie like that once; terrible tragedy. Shot himself, don't y' know." Carmichael clamps his mouth shut. Perhaps this isn't going as well as he'd hoped, but continue he must. "Anyhow, the point of it all is that sometimes things go wrong, a little fun has some unforeseen consequences. There's no way you could have known about the secrets we kept at the church. And you can't be blamed for not taking the warnings seriously." He makes a sucking noise on his pipe. "Real archaeologists don't pay attention to mystic mumbo jumbo."

Brian continues looking away at the veldt. He dares not move or look at the old man. He knows Carmichael is trying to help, to ease his conscience, and he knows that Carmichael's words also make a lot of sense.

The priest pats his shoulder. "You kids must put it all behind you. You were dashed brave, you know, and without your actions, that black mask chappie would have eventually escaped anyway, and who knows what would have happened." Christine feels Brian stiffening. She also knows that the priest is right, and, like Brian, wishes he would now just shut up and leave them alone.

She turns to Carmichael. "Thanks, Reverend." Carmichael hesitates, then, with a last comforting pat, grunts and moves off.

"Reverend?"

"Yes, Mister Thomas?"

"How did you find us in that cave?"

The priest takes out his pipe, and considers it for a few seconds. Then he looks straight at Brian. "Prayer, my boy. Prayer and faith." He holds Brian's stare for a moment more, sniffs, turns and heads back to the kraal.

The Sangoma, who has remained silent, stays behind, and watches him depart. Christine waits, knowing he has something he also wants to say.

"The Tokolosh were always with us. Some people here put their beds on bricks so the Tokolosh can't climb up in the night. The spirits will always be here, some good, some bad. Tonight, we celebrate the end of the old enemy, a bad one. We close a chapter in the Batlhaping history that has remained unfinished business for far too long. Come." He motions for the pair to come with him.

"Where are we going?"

"The black mask has hung over us for many years. Thanks to you, we can now celebrate - the enemy is gone." He smiles at them. "You don't realise that you are heroes to us?" His smile broadens at their surprise. "This is a celebration we have been waiting a hundred and sixty years to have. How can we do that without the brave heroes who brought it about? We celebrate the victory, and honour the brave guardian and his friends who fell in the final battle."

His smile is honest and charming, and his forthright, unassuming statement melts some of the tension they feel. Christine attempts to smile back, though she knows that, despite his honest comfort, his mention of Peter was like a knife through Brian's gut.

They move off with the Sangoma.

***

It has been a long day of celebration in the Batlhaping _kraal_.

People dance about a bonfire in the centre of the village. A woman ululates as a traditional dance is performed. Sweaty drummers dressed in sneakers and T-shirts bang a hypnotic rhythm on hide drums, using rubber hoses as beaters. Eventually, the tribe quiets down, and people mill about, chatting and laughing, in a relaxed atmosphere. Christine ducks out of the Sangoma's house, and strolls over to where the Sangoma and Brian lounge on some camping chairs, taking in the evening air and watching some youngsters play. "I see you found it?"

She smiles at the Sangoma and wiggles the guitar. "Yes, thanks."

"Probably needs a bit of tuning; I hardly ever play it these days."

Carmichael and the chief saunter up as Christine fiddles with the gut strings and sit on chairs next to Brian and the witchdoctor. Carmichael is again puffing on his pipe. After a few moments, Christine nods her satisfaction, and starts plucking. Her foot taps out a rhythm in the sand. The tune is in a mournful minor key. As she sings, eyes closed, some of the nearby villagers stop what they are doing and listen.

"One dark cold night in

"The alleyways of restless years gone by

"A demon

"Came knocking at my door

"I let him in gave Him just the tiniest dark corner of my life

"He settled

"And now he wants much more.

"I thought I was beating him

"So I let him stay

"But now I ask myself

"Who's in charge today

"Is it me?

"Or did I give my life and soul away?"

After the first verse, a drummer joins in, tapping a slow rock rhythm on one of the hide-skin drums.

"The winters died to

"Hot days and back again the cycle of my life

"What seemed

"So dull to all around

"Had just become a

"Soul-stained battleground between the darkness and the light

"The good

"Was crushed into the ground

"My conscience rose against his sin

"Into the fray

"But now my innocence once white

"Seems tinged with grey

"Is it me

"Or did I give my life and soul away?

"I went to see my

"Counsellor - a man who walked with God

"A holy father dressed in black

"But my horror

"Stayed locked up that day

"Wrapped up inside my heart

"Hiding

"In its dark pit at the back

"Now I know he's much too strong

"What a fool I've been

"And so I sit here seething

"Why'd I let him in

"His promises

"Were lies to take my soul to his domain."

Christine opens her eyes as the last mournful minor chord dies away, the quiet of the rural night closing in around them again. It is a few moments before anyone says anything. Most of the audience is standing quietly, nodding.

Eventually, Brian's chest heaves. "Wow."

"Like it?"

He nods, a smile on his face. "Yup."

Carmichael snorts. "I don't want to know whether I inspired that last verse, but that was a dashed fine tune, young lady." He puffs again.

"Thank you, Reverend."

"Play some more, Christine." The chief smiles warmly, for the first time since hearing of his nephew.

The drummer grips the rubber hoses, ready to accompany her.

Christine laughs, hefts the guitar and starts to play. The villagers tap and clap and rock their bodies in time to the music. A warm, delicious glow flows through her, matching the homely fire that has now replaced the setting sun. From most of the houses, paraffin lamps send out smaller lights through windows and open doorways.

Brian listens to Christine, and gazes at the fire. Chief Malole III nods to the beat and puffs on a pipe, the sweet scent of cherry tobacco comforting and pleasant. Near the fire is an old pole, bare for a century and a half. About the top of the pole, reflecting the light of the bonfire, play three animated golden masks.

### Christine's Song (Predator)

(Am) One dark cold night in (G)

The alleyways of (C) restless years gone (Em) by

(Am) A demon

Came knocking at my (Em) door

(Am) I let him in gave (G)

Him just the tiniest dark (C) corner of my (Em) life

(Am) He settled

And now he wants much (Em)more

(Dm) I thought I was beating him

(Am) So I let him stay

(Dm)But now I ask myself

(Am)Who's in charge today

Is it (Em) me

Or did I give my life and soul a-(Am)-way

(Am) The winters died to (G)

Hot days and back again the (C) cycle of my (Em) life

(Am) What seemed

So dull to all around

(Am) Had just become a (G)

Soul-stained battleground (C) between the darkness and the (Em) light

(Am) The good

Was crushed into the (Em) ground

(Dm) My conscience rose against his (Am) sin

Into the fray

(Dm) But now my innocence once (Am) white

Seems tinged with grey

Is it (Em) me

Or did I give my life and soul a-(Am)-way

(Am) I went to see my (G)

Counsellor - a (C) man who walked with (Em) God

(Am) A holy father dressed in black

(Am) But my horror (G)

Stayed locked up that day - wrapped (C) up inside my (Em) heart

(Am) Hiding

In its dark pit at the (Em) back

(Dm) Now I know he's much too strong

(Am) What a fool I've been

(Dm) And so I sit here seething

(Am) Why'd I let him in

His (Em) promises

Were lies to take my soul to his do-(Am)-main.

The End

If you enjoyed reading "Masks and Demons", please would you post a review with your favourite retailer?

### About The Author

Garth Chandler was born in 1970 and regrets having so narrowly missed being a child of the sixties. He is South African, is married with a daughter, holds an Honours degree in psychology, and is an internationally qualified martial arts instructor. Garth is the web master and manages the technology for his local church parish.

Cover Art

Cover Art: African Mask v. 2.0 by Andrey Bobrov and Kirill Moskalev

### More by the Same Author

**The Salvation Murders**

_The Salvation Murders is a psychological thriller._

A former priest is driven to escape the guilt of his past and to find forgiveness by continually reproducing the sacrifice of Christ in a bizarre secret ritual. Can the detectives discover his grizzly secret before he commits his most heinous murder yet?

***

Excerpt from 'The Salvation Murders':

The early morning sun shone brightly through the light, white curtains into the cheerful bathroom, a fresh contrast to the green-tinged dinginess of the room with the crucifixes. Ezra tossed his clothes into a lidless wicker wash-basket, and stepped into the bathtub, drawing the blue shower curtain around him. He was still whistling cheerfully, satisfied by a job well done. He scrubbed his nails fastidiously with a white-bristled plastic brush, whistling louder to hear himself above the shower. Ezra scrubbed his back, gripping the long handled brush, lathered with soap until it reminded him of a rabid animal. He tended to do this quite hard, because the scar tissue reduced his capacity to feel. Over the years, the whip had left more scars laced across his back than smooth skin. For this reason, Ezra never wore a swimsuit nor went about shirtless in public. For a while, he leaned quietly against the tiles, enjoying the cleansing water, imagining specs of dirt falling away from him, his face upturned on the edge of the water. The smell of soap and water was so wonderfully juxtaposed to the stink of death, the rot and gasses of the body, the chemicals and the fumes of fire and ash, or the wetness of the prepared grave. He could smell death always, at work or in his home, and allowed his water bills to run high, scalding himself in a soothing baptismal cleansing every morning and night as well as after every job. Eventually, he straightened, switched off the taps, ignoring the groaning of old pipes, and stepped onto the coarse mat, where he resumed his whistling as he towelled off vigorously. When done, he took a pair of neatly pressed black pants from a rail and slipped into them. He sat on the toilet bowl to pull on black socks and polished shoes, and then surveyed his reflection in the cabinet mirror above the basin while he slicked back his hair with the cheap but effective shellac sold at the Greek corner minimarket.

Still whistling and shirtless, he opened the cabinet, and plucked a comb from a cracked glass, after which he walked across the living room back to where so often spent the wee hours in labour, combing his hair back by touch. Before entering, he snapped his fingers and frowned when he realised the key to the room was still in the door inside the chamber. Still combing his hair and whistling, he closed the door silently behind him, pausing to pocket the key.

He wrinkled his nose. The smell in the room was stale and oppressive; the stink of his unventilated work trapped by the closed windows and door, not ever allowed to offend or alert the neighbours. Not that they'd notice against the backdrop smells of this low-income area, which played the host to too many irregularly emptied and mostly illegally stored municipal garbage bins.

He finally tucked the comb into his pocket, and looked to the north wall.

The man nailed to the cross, unsurprisingly, appeared to be unconscious, or at least so close it made little difference. He cleared his throat loudly. The pathetic figure jerked, and the eyes almost focused. The man lifted his tear-stained face, gazing at a space somewhere just in front of Ezra, blinking a too-long blink. Eyes crusted with the blood running from the wounds of a cruel crown woven from a vicious branch of Christ-thorn and jammed hard onto his head glazed again. He groaned and tried to shift his weight. A tarpaulin, grey when clean, but now splattered red, crusted with blood and gore, covered about half of the floor from the north wall and outwards for about a metre from either side of the gruesome cross. A whip of seven soft leather tails, knotted with bits of glass, bones of unidentifiable origin and sharp wires, stained dull red, hung from a rusty nail, driven into the wall to the man's right. The nail was nearly but not quite as large as one of the very expensive ones stored in the top drawer. Attached to the top of the cross was a rope of sturdy yellow climber's nylon, which ran up to the ceiling, to the first of a series of two well-maintained steel pulleys. The second pulley was near the middle of the room, and from there the rope stretched down to a u-shaped metal brace, riveted to the bare cement floor through a slice in the tarpaulin. Next to the brace, lying on the floor, with only its bloodied tip on the tarpaulin, lay a spear. This item was heavy, and, like the statue next to the chest of drawers, obviously of African origin, with a wooden handle, bound in grass at the extreme edge, and a flat, large head, roughly chipped, but clearly effective and just as clearly well used. The point was stained dark from blood. Above the cross was a tattered piece of paper, upon which was scrawled in felt-tip pen a name, - Ricky. This was the name of the man hanging on the stout-beamed abomination dominating the north wall. Ricky was in his mid-twenties, of medium build, jet-black hair beneath the clots of blood, and brown, desperate eyes. He wore a white, red-flecked loincloth. Laboured breath, drawn agonisingly around a tape and golf-ball gag, not through his mucus-closed nose, invaded the stillness, along with the ticking and tocking of the clock above the statue. Nails through Ricky's wrists and feet were barely visible, covered in congealed gore and more blood. These were large nails from the dwindling expensive stock.

***

Frewin

Frewin is due for publication in 2016

Frewin is a comedy-fantasy: Humans are evolving. Intelligent but physically weak offspring are being born to the powerful intellectually inferior brutes of pre-historic mankind. Behind it is the dark goddess, using humanity against the other gods to achieve her mysterious objective. A showdown is inevitable, but how many botches can the realms of the gods and men stand?

***

Excerpt from 'Frewin':

The half-circle moon presided over night dotted with the fires of the gods; no clouds provided concealment for the figure lurking under the expanse of the Great Tree. It was late in the growth season, so the night air was warm, and the ground soft from much rain.

A second shadow crept stealthily along the riverbank a stone's throw away. It oiled along in the darkness, cleverly disguising the sound of its movements by timing them with the languid lapping of the water. The river was depressed into the landscape, so this shadow was able to hug closely to the sides of the bank and thus remain unseen by the first figure lurking under the tree.

As it neared the Great Tree, the shadow cautiously raised its head to peer above the river's depression. Its bulbous nose jutted comically just above the bank where the grass above, though short, tickled, causing it to duck back again and stifle a sneeze. Eyes watering from the effort, it again peered out towards the tree, this time being careful not to sniff at the grass.

Satisfied that nobody was watching, the shadow slithered out and onto its feet, paying no attention to a slight tinkling carried on the still night air. An evil grin demonstrated stark teeth in the blackness of its face. The first figure, the one under the tree, was looking in the other direction.

As the shadow from the river sneaked closer the tinkling sound became louder and its face wrinkled in disgust. It could now see more clearly in the moonlight that over by the tree Gons, the sod, was desecrating this most sacred and ancient of places by urinating on the trunk.

Gons was a bit of an anathema to all who knew him. His not-quite-beautiful new-man face concealed the mind of a monstrosity. The gods had decided in their benevolence that Gons would have to bear both the frailty of the new as well as the stupidity of the old and had cheerfully bestowed upon him no redeeming qualities whatsoever. Save one. The only trait that kept him alive was an extraordinary aptitude for cowardice, which he had raised to a martial art. Nobody had ever seen Gons injured. His uncanny ability to know just where danger was and to place himself directly just where danger was not was the envy of all the new-men. To sneak up on Gons was said to be impossible, he had the hearing of a bat and the reflexes of a mongoose. However, so engrossed was he in the fine art of relieving himself against the sacred trunk, that he failed completely, despite the otherwise silent night, to detect shadowy Ragger's advance from the river behind him.

Unknown to Ragger and Gons, other events, planned by the gods themselves to alter the course of the universe, were unfolding at the same tree at that moment. The gods had decreed that the future generations of Akati, a minuscule organism no larger than a baby ant, would evolve to conquer the galaxy, bring about the end of all war and strife and eradicate all forms of disease. The Akati were to harness the power of the atom and rise above all planetary bounds to reach the stars and spawn a mighty interstellar empire. They were destined to shake off their galactic limits and reach beyond quasars, through black holes, and leave the dimensions of space and time far behind them. They were fated to ascend and walk the Celestial Halls of the gods themselves. Crucial to this plan were the last two remaining Akati, a small male and a fertile queen. For years, the gods had laboured to get the two together from opposite sides of a vast Pangaea. The queen had been lifted on winds to blow through hidden mountain passes and past hungry predatory birds, while the male had traveled a long river protected only by a tiny air bubble, evading snapping fish from below, and beaked predators diving from above. Though the chances were infinitesimally small, the gods themselves had sweated to the task, and so it was that these two had finally met under the Great Tree, deemed the most suitable place by the transgender goddess of procreation. The male had gone into a mating frenzy and the gods had sat back to watch the miniature messiahs beget their mighty race.

Unfortunately for the Akati, the plans of the gods drowned as Gons released his bladder's deluge upon them, the vile chemical killing them swiftly as the gods looked on aghast. Blissfully unaware of the carnage he was causing at his feet, and equally unaware of the stealthy approach from behind, Gons sighed in that moment of ultimate peace as the pressure eased. Except for the god of nasty tricks, who was wisely not drawing attention to himself in the Celestial Halls, the gods were horrified. The transgender goddess of procreation lay upon the floor, the back of her hand pressed theatrically against her forehead as her pals waved the clean Celestial air at her face to revive her. Gons was probably fortunate not to know how much powerful, divine ill-will bent against him at that moment. The gods looked to the god of Fateful Interventions, and started negotiating with him status and shares of their own glory would he but revive the two pathetic Akati, let them miraculously cough out the liquid and breathe again.

Creeping up behind Gons, Ragger had forgotten that the old, sacred Great Tree was, in fact, an old and rare species of Acacia and the bearer of vicious thorns, which it shed like a cat shed fur at a change of seasons. Many branches still lay scattered about the ground from the winter and, raised up like a sword of vengeance, directly in Ragger's path, a particularly nasty specimen waited poised for an unwary foot. This particular Acacia species held a noxious poison in its huge, sharp thorns, used by hunters to dart birds and small mammals. Applied directly to a man, the fresh poison could cause swelling and excruciating pain. Older, lifeless thorns caused even more pain, followed by a few days of swelling and eventual welcome numbness, sometimes permanent.

As Ragger's bare foot crunched down on the old, dead thorn his eyes widened. All plans of stealth were absorbed into the tree's thorny karma as Ragger let out a screech that frightened the owl nesting above. In response the bird soiled its branch, narrowly missing Ragger's head.

Gons panicked. Unusually for Gons, who generally instinctively and without hesitation took off on a course at exactly one hundred and eighty degrees to any danger, real or perceived, his fright caused him to turn around, and he stared frozen until recognition overcame the numbing paralysis of abject terror. His bodily functions, however, kept right on functioning, the pressure from his bladder winding down gradually, allowing the noxious stream of his fountaining functions to draw a path down Ragger's front, washing away accumulated dirt and grime in a neat, wet stripe.

***
