Persuasion

“Where is she, where is Aisah, where is that bomoh’s wife”

Ali increased the burn of his already searing heat, charring the hantu raya once more with his magic flame.

“What have you done with her, where have you hidden her”

With each question Ali shot the malevolent magic fire at the hantu, burning not just the hantu’s ectoplasmic flesh but deep into what passed for its mind.

The hantu only whimpered. Ali looked close into its mind and saw little but pain and anguish, no hint of where the woman was, and without the woman, without Melvyn the bomoh’s wife Aisah Ali might share a similar fate to this hantu, so he increased the pressure, dug deep into its mind and tortured its flesh to gain his results.

Frustration gnawed at Ali. He had to get the woman back, his own life depended upon it.

“Where is the woman, where is the human, Aisah what have you done with her” Ali persisted with a growing sense of fright in his voice, knowing full well that this hantu was not going to give him the answer he desperately needed.

It had taken time, but eventually Ali had tracked the hantu down amidst the plentiful forests growing on the slopes of Tea Mountain, step by step, track by track, gradually Ali moved in closer to the hantu raya, eventually surprising it in a small, harmless looking glade. The hantu had looked lost, looked as though it was searching for something. It was then that Ali realised that Aisah was missing, again.

Of course the hantu had denied all knowledge of Aisah’s whereabouts, but Ali had lived a long time and understood that the first line of defence was often a lie, he too was good at that. And so the persuasion began. Ali didn’t like to think of it as torture, even though, technically, that is exactly what it was. Ali liked the word persuasion, it was softer, gentler, more gentlemanly, and often Ali considered himself to be a gentleman, if not a gentle man.

The delicate art of persuasion included pegging the hapless hantu to the ground, arms and legs outstretched in much the same way as a hunter might stretch a skin to be dried in the sun, but this was no skin it was a sentient being, albeit a ghost, and having ectoplasm instead of actual skin, but it could feel pain and that was enough for Ali to work on.

Conversation with a hantu raya was always going to be, at the very best, a one-sided affair, as hantus tended not to say much, their minds being reserved for the day to day drudge of being, with very little actual thought taking place. But, on occasions, a thought mixed with an uncomfortable feeling, such as love, makes a powerful cocktail inside a hantu’s mind and leads to all manner of complications.

So Ali was aware that a plain, simple, question and answer session with this hantu was, probably, not going to deliver the results he expected, and Ali had quickly moved on to phase two – manual persuasion. But, so far, that was yielding equally poor results.

Heaving a deep sigh Ali, once more, singed the hantu flesh, giving off a distinct roasted marshmallow smell, yet, despite the agonising pain, all the creature could do was to emit cat-like mewling, and the occasional yelp like some puppy being severely kicked by a very unkind boot, but it gave out no information. The hantu raya’s mind was a cacophony of sounds and shapes, like excited static, but it gave no concise form or shape to any memory, or any trace to where the woman might have gone. This, Ali found more than a little frustrating, it was grossly annoying.

Ali was a more than a little surprised about the hantu’s resilience. If it were he, Ali would have spilled the proverbial beans all over everything in sight long since. There was, after all, no need to get yourself into such a state over another creature, thought Ali, that was ridiculous, the woman could fend for herself, and, as nice as she was, and she was quite nice reflected Ali, no being was worth getting tortured over. An uncomfortable thought flashed across Ali’s mind, about what might happen if he wasn’t successful, but presence of mind shooed it away as quickly as it had come, no point dwelling on such things, he thought.

From random singeing and then to the steady, deliberate, tormenting of what passed for the hantu’s nervous system Ali had progressed to considering limb amputation to get his information, threatened at first, but as threats brought no results Ali had no compunction but to actually begin burning off a hantu limb, one at a time, until it delivered the results Ali so badly needed.

Ali was all too aware that this might be his own fate, or worse, should he arrive back to Djinba empty handed, so to save himself Ali needed to gain as much information as possible from this unfortunate hantu. It was a sickening sight, even Ali was a little sickened by what he was being forced to do, but he had little choice if he wanted to save his own skin. The hantu raya writhed in obvious pain and agony, thrashing what was left of its body about like an eel impaled on the end of some vicious hook, but all Ali got in return was pathetic noises and the irritating sounds of whimpering, but no actual information.

After some time of pain and suffering one complete hantu limb was severed, charred and burnt from the hantu’s body, the remaining stump blackened in a manner resembling plastic extracted from a fire, bubbling and smoking and giving off an acrid stench deeper and more sickening than the previous roasted marshmallow smell, but, of course, there was no blood. Hantus have no blood, only ectoplasm, which in the normal course of events doesn’t burn, except under magic fire like Ali’s.

Even Ali felt a little sick at what he had just done, but that feeling passed as he continued his persuasion onto another limb, causing even more pain and distress. Then suddenly it was over.

What had passed for the hantu’s life was over, finished, gone. The hantu raja had given up the ghost under the cruel torture, its increasingly fragile mind unable to endure the extremes Ali had put it to. And, rather than risk any mention of the woman he had come to love, the hantu had preferred to shut down its body and mind, hopefully saving Aisah from this monster’s clutches.

For a moment Ali showed a small regret at ending the poor creature’s life, a tiny tear welled up at the corner of Ali’s eye, but soon disappeared as Ali realised the true enormity of his situation. A cold shiver ran down Ali’s spine while a bolt of white-hot fright ran in the opposite direction up and into his brain. Now wide-eyed Ali stopped still and thought his situation over.

Meanwhile the second hantu raya looked on in disgust and nervousness at the fate of its fellow being. It had known that Ali could be vengeful, but had never realised the depths that Ali would go to get his own way, and it was torn between running off and staying, each course having its merits and eventual consequences. As the normal hantu mental processes were quite slow it stayed while it too thought what to do next.

From the bushes more than one observing Bunian had fainted during the witnessing of torture, others had been sick – physically as well as mentally, at the things Ali had done. Rarely had such a sight been witnessed on Tea Mountain, and certainly not in the hundreds of years these Bunian had been alive and caring for the mountain and its various inhabitants. The normally quite impartial Bunian actually began to consider meeting in council to discuss their position, with many messages suggesting pledges and the possibility of allegiances and alliances. Things had gone too far, they felt, and a growing disgruntlement was now turning into a real force for opposition.

Messages had been sent all over of the cruelty and shame that visited their mountain, and the Bunian let it be known that they were going to be opposed to any force which may have sanctioned such an abomination. Any force at all. And that is how Djinba got to learn of his servant’s failure.