Pepedora sets the charm bottle on the tray, and now it’s my turn to pull it across the floor. The glass is warm in my hand. I can see the tiny, carved figurine of a capering man floating in the viscous stuff that fills it. I turn the bottle this way and that, but the figurine always turns away from me. I can’t get to see its face.

“How do I use it?”

Pepedora seems to have slumped back against a timber, the roll in one hand, the other hand empty on the floor. I repeat my question. His voice, when it comes, seems to emanate from a far away place.

“The outstretched arm will point the right direction. Hold it up, thumb on bottom ... index on top ... right-handed. Hide it away carefully. Tell no one about it. Never turn it upside down. Never tamper.”

Now the voice grows stronger again.

“Never disobey.”

Sixth Chapter

I don’t want to think of anything that might soften me.

*

Makemin, Nikhinoch, the Captain, Saskia, Silichieh, and I go together. The path here is all a dead grey dust, with a wall of black rocks on our right. We pass a black granite stele marked over with characters all blurred by weathering, turning round the stele. A platform house of unpainted grey wood, with a nearly flat slate roof, appears before us, some chickens pecking in front of it in silence. There’s a little smoke coming from behind the house and it sags in the air blowing back the way we came. A huge, malodorous puddle reflects it. Flies tumble in the air over the water and sometimes land on it, dimpling its scum with their claws. I’m breathing hard, feeling stifled again; my face seems to burn against the chilly air.

The front wall of the house, inside the veranda, is rolled aside on rails, and there are a number of old men sitting on the benches that line its walls. Their chins are bare. They wear colorless wool jackets and vests. A murmur comes from them, punctuated by coughing and throat clearing. We are not, it seems, meant to go in, but to stand out here and wait to be addressed. The musty atmosphere in there is not inviting. But, gradually I become aware that the one furthest from us, sitting in the middle of the bench against the wall opposite the opening through which we look in at them, is addressing us, and has been ever since we arrived.