Clytemnestra is outraged that one of her
charges has been stolen from under her nose. This causes her to complain long
and loudly to her almighty. She is also mightily disappointed in her handler
for succumbing to such a common trick as opium in his pottage; which had him
snoring like a turkey at Christmas. Clytemnestra has no patience with this and
has set off on her own to pursue the offenders with much spleen and
determination. The Gravidores are easy to follow, not being very fleet of foot
and apt to leave a trail a mile wide. Throughout the day she follows them, not
out of sight, but always at a safe distance. It doesn’t take long for Demona to
notice her, but there is nothing she can do about it….for now.
At night, after Demona and her lackey have set
up camp, Clytemnestra walks in wide circles around them, hooting and calling
and fretting the Gravidores to the end of their tether. At first Demona tries
to drive her off with sticks and stones and curses galore, but they have no
effect on her, for camels are immune to the tricks and spells of sorcerers and
witches, who rely for the most part on the gullibility of feeble minded
individuals. A camel is not like that. Once a camel has set their mind on
something they are as relentless as the sand and implacable as the wind.
For seven nights in a row Clytemnestra maintains
her insidious attack, keeping everyone awake and causing Demona to lose some
seriously needed beauty sleep. Carrapacchio however is secretly supportive of the
camel in her efforts to wear his mistress down. He still hasn’t worked out a
way of getting rid of the boy, but now he is feeling more hopeful.
Demona cannot do anything to the boy whilst they
are in the City of the Dead. She has to get him out first. So by day she drives
the Gravidores faster than they have ever run before, sitting between sheets of
snot and mucous as they pound through the miles trying to outpace the camel.
They might as well have been spared the effort.
On the eighth night a new sound is heard. A
new sort of wailing to compliment the braying call of the camel. At first it is
soft and not much to write home about. On the tenth night however, Demona knows
she is coming under a full scale attack.
Out in the darkness the echoes have been gathering;
one by one they come in answer to the camel’s calls. They are no friends of
Demona, for she has often feasted on them during her journeys across the City
of the Dead, catching these poor homeless spirits by surprise as they wandered
through the ruins of the homes they used to inhabit as people. Demona had received
a reputation as a ruthless killer and regarded them merely as food. She had no
mercy on them and that is why they come now, because the camel is offering them
a chance to get back at her. They begin collecting in vast numbers. By day
twelve they almost completely surround Demona’s campsite to a depth of hundreds
of yards. They look like the ghost sails of a vast lost armada of
ships…thousands and thousands of them moiling around on the desert floor, wraiths
of mist writhing in the moonlight, wailing their grief for a battle lost long
ago so loudly that the sand begins to shift in sympathy to the resonance to
their call. Dust begins to lift off the tips of the dunes and curl up into the
sky.
Demona is beside herself. The noise is
untenable. It rasps at the very bone of her being. Hourly she rushes out into
the darkness and scythes down rows of Echoes, but they are instantly replaced
by new ones. Out in the vast emptiness the wind begins to blow, driving great
billowing clouds of dust before it. The assault has begun. Clasping her hands
over her ears, Demona sits under her blanket in her tent and keens to herself.
She needs sleep. She is so tired she wants to cry…and her plans for the boy are
nowhere near finished yet. The windstorm buffets the tent like the fist of God,
and the lanterns flicker and sway uncertainly. Suddenly Demona’s nerve breaks
and she feels a pang of fear in her ample bosom. She rushes to the mirror and
unwraps it. Yes. He is still there, staring out at her. She reaches her hand
out to touch the glass for reassurance and the wailing outside increases.
Perhaps she is for an instant distracted; perhaps at that precise moment she feels
a surge of hate for the camel and her echoes, but whatever power it is that
possesses her at that moment, it causes the mirror to shatter under her touch.
It sounds like a cannon going off. Demona is half blinded by the blast of glass
and wind and the boy spills out of the frame and drops at her feet.
Carrapacchio watches on with awe, hardly
able to believe what has happened. Demona’s weapon of mass destruction…shattered…ruined.
Demona gropes around for the boy, unable to see a thing. She cannot afford to
let him escape. The wailing of the echoes has increased tenfold, adding to the
whine of the desert wind driving the dust in through the flaps of the tent. Carrapacchio
has managed to get the boy under his arm and is trying to sneak him outside, when,
blinded by the sand and frightened by the noise, the Gravidores finally break
free from their restraints and gallop off into the desert, pulling half the
tent with them.
The boy needs no more encouragement. He slips
from the creature’s grasp and staggers out into the storm, trying to get as far
from Demona as possible. Within a few heartbeats he runs into the soft, warm
lump that is Clytemnestra. She brays quietly in his ear and drops to the sand
so that he can get on her back.
In a wink of an eye she is up and running
like the wind. Clytemnestra is in her element. Nothing can catch her now. Her
old joints and muscles reinvigorated…infused with new life and purpose. From
the darkness behind them they hear a terrible howl of anguish rising from the
storm as Demona discovers her loss. The camel smiles to herself as she runs. A
good night’s work indeed.
