“It deadens the brain,” she replied harshly. “Indeed, kills it minutely, in increments. More pernicious than that, it assaults the blood and loosens natural discipline.”
“Natural discipline? Gods below, what a peculiar notion!”
“Nothing peculiar to it,” she said. “It is the mechanism employed by the instinctive desire for health.”
“As opposed to well-being.”
“Health and well-being are not in opposition.”
“A fierce pronouncement, Miss Purge. Oh, I have been rude. I am Bauchelain. As you see me, no more than a gentle traveler, with no intention-no, none indeed-of settling in your fair city.”
“What is with your oxen, Bauchelain?” she demanded. “Those eyes…”
“A rare breed-”
Ineb Cough snorted as he clambered onto the first wine bottle, head thrust out, tiny tongue poking towards the bottle’s neck. “Ynah. Nhn. Yhn.” His tongue flicked catlike against the dark, pocked glass.
“Here we are,” Bauchelain said, drawing forth a number of objects. “Rustleaf. Durhang, in dried leaf form, in soft ball form. White nectar-where in Hood’s realm did he come by that, I wonder? Uthurl poppy… hmm, an assortment of medicines all sharing the theme of stupor, employed to calm highly beset nerves. I had no idea my phlegmatic manservant suffered such ailments. And here, some wine. And peach liquor, and pear liquor, and here is some whale sperm-Queen of Dreams, what does he do with that, I wonder? No matter, we are each and all mysterious miracles in our own ways, yes? Now, I am certain Mister Reese will not begrudge your partaking of his prodigious supply-imbibe as you desire. I myself shall sample some of this Falari wine…”
Storkul Purge stared down at the vast array of prohibited substances. A small whimper escaped her.
Beyond the formal entrance was a long, wide colonnade lined on each side with upright corpses set in coffins. The lids were glass, murky and bubbled but not, alas, sufficient to disguise the inhabitants. Positioned between narrow, marble columns, a host of blurry, shrunken eyes seemed to track Emancipor and Invett Loath as they made their way down the vast hallway. A set of double doors waited at the far end.
“The Healthy Dead,” the Paladin of Purity said, one arm still taking most of the manservant’s weight. “As you can see, they are all well. Clean of spirit and hale. Glorious evidence of the rewards that come with living unsullied by the foul indulgences that once cursed our people.”
“Why are they all grimacing?” Emancipor asked.
“The Lady takes most mortals unto her bosom by maladies of the colon.”
“Death by constipation?”
“The zeal of health. Many citizens eat grass to excess.”
“Grass?”
“Have you no memory of such things? No, how could you? Having been made a Saint in the time of Necrotus the Nihile. Indeed, grass, a fine substitute for meat. Our chirurgeons have dissected all manner of corpses-early on, they often slit open stomachs to find solid pieces of meat, resident in undigested fashion for years in the victim. Truly horrific. Now, of course, they find knotted bundles of grass, which as you might imagine is a far less disgusting discovery-after all, cows die of that all the time.”
“And now, cows and citizens both.”
“You’d be surprised, First Saint, at the similarities.”
Emancipor glanced up to see something dark and satisfied in the Paladin’s flushed face. After a moment, Invett Loath resumed, “Peruse this corpse, here… that one, for a moment.” They halted before one of the coffins. “See the even pallour? See how shiny all that newly grown hair is? This, my friend, is a thing of beauty, a monument to supreme healthiness.”
“I couldn’t agree more,” Emancipor said, staring in fascination at the fixed pain-wracked expression on the poor lady’s face behind the blue-green glass. “I imagine her relatives are very proud to have her here in the palace.”
“Oh no,” Invett Loath said, “not in the least. Madness struck them one and all upon her death-I tell no lie when I say that their lust for meat led them to eat most of her left leg-yes, the wrapped one. Thus, the rest of her family will be found on the spikes.”
Emancipor stared at the Paladin, aghast. “What could drive loved ones to do such a thing?”
“Moral weakness, First Saint. It is a plague, ever ready to spread its infection upon the citizens, and this is the greatest responsibility of the Well Knights, to ensure that such weakness is rooted out and mounted high on the walls. And I can tell you, we are as busy today as we were a year ago, perhaps busier.”
“No wonder there are so few people on the streets.”
“Diligence, First Saint. An unending demand, but we are equal to it.”
They resumed their journey down the cavernous hall. “But not that… woman who first accosted me,” Emancipor said.
“Storkul Purge? I’ve had my eye on her for some time. She was a prostitute, did you know that? Before the Prohibitions. A fallen woman, a creature of disgusting vices, a seductress of dreadful hedonism, a singular threat to civilisation-her conversion was so sudden that I was instantly suspicious. We have done well, you and I, to expose her inequities. She shall suffer adjudication, this very night.”
Emancipor winced, overwhelmed by a flood of guilt. “Can there be no second chance, Paladin?”
“Ah, you are a saint indeed, to voice such sentiment. The answer is no, there cannot. The very notion of fallibility was invented to absolve mortals of responsibility. We can be perfect, and you can see true perfection walking here at your side.”
“You have achieved perfection?”
“I have. I am. And to dispute that truth is to reveal your own imperfection.”
They arrived at the double doors. Invett Loath reached for the large rings-but the door on the right suddenly opened, the edge cracking against the Paladin’s nose with a wet crunching sound. The man reeled back, blood spurting.
Emancipor stumbled, then, his boot settling on a smear of blood, he lost his balance and pitched forward, through the open door, where he struck a dumbfounded servant, his head sinking into the woman’s belly.
Breath exploded from her and, as Emancipor fell face-first onto the floor, she collapsed onto him, the large bowl perched on her head wheeling away, a brain-sized mass of wet grass heaving into the air like a thing alive to splat and slide in runny mint sauce across the tiles — directly beneath Invett Loath’s left boot as he stepped down. The Paladin skidded, landed with a solid thump on his backside.
Groaning, Emancipor pushed the woman off, then rolled onto his side. In the hallway behind him, he could hear Invett Loath’s spattering gasps. Beside the manservant, the servant dragged in her first breath after a long moment of eye-bulging, gaping panic. And, somewhere in the chamber beyond, there came to Emancipor’s ears a strange mechanical sound, repeating in steady, indifferent rhythm. Blinking tears from his eyes, he climbed to his hands and knees and looked up.
A massive, iron-framed, hinged and wheeled and cabled contraption dominated the chamber, and in its midst, bound by straps and padded shackles, there was a figure. Suspended an arm’s length above the floor, limbs gyrating incessantly, as if the man was climbing air, trapped in place, his shaggy-haired head slowly lolling in time with the various fulcrums and pulleys and ratcheting gears.
The mechanism was so large there was no way to get close to the figure hanging in its centre, and with his back to the doors, it was clear that King Macrotus-for who else could it be? — had heard nothing of the commotion at the entrance. He exercised on, unceasing, steadily, a man in perpetual motion.
Invett Loath staggered through the doorway, his face streaked with blood running down the nostrils of his broken nose. He spat, pain-pinched eyes fixing upon the servant who still sat on the floor. “Whore’s beget! Slayer of civilisation! I shall adjudicate you here and now!”
To this bellow King Macrotus paid no visible attention, arms rising in turn, legs pumping in counterpoint-the man looked frighteningly thin, yet strangely flaccid, as if his skin had lost all elasticity.