by Hugh Cook
Burnt to a flinch, and thus -
The world unhanded, humming-bird denied.
All light charade, all voices
In flesh but charnel shadows -
Shadows with shadows scented.
Yet -
It was mid-morning when Hatch exited from the lockway. Polk the Cash, the noseless moneylender who had lately assumed such a dominant place in his life, should have been there to greet him, but was not, which irritated Hatch intensely. In these days of tension, irritation was becoming Hatch's dominant operating mode. Which was understandable. He was desperately busy, and right now he wanted to make a deal with Polk, to hurry himself to House Jodorunda, then push on to Temple Isherzan to keep his appointment with the High Priest.
So where was Polk?
With the moneylender being nowhere in evidence, and with the Eye of Delusions showing one of the more offensive cartoon entertainments about the mythical Wild Tribes, Hatch retreated a short distance down Scuffling Road, where he sheltered the bulk of his purple in the shadow of a sugar juice stall. He took particular care to make sure that his stuffbag was safe in that shadow.
Time passed.
Sunbeat and heartbeat.
Shadow and sun.
An oxcart lumbered past, its wooden wheels digging deep in the soft rutted dust of Scuffling Road. More than one Combat College graduate had suggested paving the roads, but any such extravagance would have drained Dalar ken Halvar's treasury of the profits of three generations. Water spilt from the barrels loaded on the oxcart, which had uplifted that water from the Yamoda River and was taking it to sell to those watching the Eye.
Dog Java went by, still dressed in the Junior Blues of a Combat Cadet. He cast a half-glance in Hatch's direction then hastened down Scuffling Road as if fleeing from an unwelcome dental appointment.
Hatch scarcely noticed him.
In the slow sweating desolations of his impatience, Hatch began to attend to the conversation of three much-familiar beggars, the ragmen Grim, Zoplin and X'dex (allegedly Lord X'dex) Paspilion. They seemed to be arguing about a dog. And about a certain set of teeth.
"Pass me the teeth," said Beggar Grim. "This dog's rough as tough for the gums."
"You can't eat dog," said Hatch, incontinently intervening from the shade of his sugar juice shelter, which was scarcely a flea's jump distant from Grim and Grim's lice.
Hatch was surprised at his own forwardness, for he usually exercised the discipline of silence when in the presence of beggars. But Grim showed no corresponding surprise, and replied, as if their converse were the most natural thing in the world:
"Oh, I can eat him right enough - if Master Zoplin be kind enough to pass me the teeth."
So saying, Grim beat his tattered rags in frustration, to the great discomfiture of his fleas. A little of the red dust of the Plain of Jars stirred around him in consequence of his efforts.
"Your forte is forgetting," said Hatch. "The Festival of the Dogs is shortly upon us."
Having spoken thus, Hatch began to regret his speech, for by rights a captain of the Imperial Guard has too much pride in his status to dabble in a dialog with beggars. Similarly, a Frangoni true to the traditions of his kind ever ignores the Pang, who are born without caste and who live to their deaths in the same condition. Hatch was both captain and Frangoni; Grim and his companions yet beggars and Pang. Hence the regrets of Asodo Hatch.
Still, the warning was rightly given, for it was the Day of Five Fishes, which falls just five days short of Dog Day, and so for the moment all dog-slaughter was forbidden.
Everyone knew that.
But Grim, either addled in his wits or arguing for the mere love of disputation, chose to dispute it.
"A festival comes, does it?" said Grim. "Wherefore does that quench my appetites? Am I to eat anticipations or baste my stomach with the salt of the same?"
Hatch, whose speech was ever slowed by the burdens of responsibility, made no attempt to wit a quick answer to the querimonious loquacity of Grim's nimble-skilled interrogation. But one of Grim's fellow beggars answered in Hatch's despite.
"He means," said Lord X'dex, Lord X'dex Paspilion, master of the Greater Tower of X-n'dix in the far-off land of X-zox Kalada, "he means, dear Grim, that you breach not your appetites upon the poor lean corpse of that yon-there pariah dog but by the breach of the law."
"Pardon?" said Grim.
"Friend Dex has the giblets again," said Master Zoplin.
Hatch, restless with an over-much listening to the babbling of beggars, looked around for his contact for the thousandth time. But there was still no sight of Polk. Hatch wanted to be gone, but did not dare abort this appointment. Polk had made it clear that he had almost reached the end of his patience, and Hatch could not risk antagonizing the moneylender any further.
But in the absence of Polk, there was Dog, Dog Java, returning up Scuffling Road. Reluctance was written clear in his countenance, so that Hatch immediately supposed that Dog had remembered leaving something of importance in the Combat College - study notes, perhaps - and was unenthusiastic about venturing through airlocks and past dorgi to retrieve what he had forgotten.
Dog halted.
"Yes?" said Hatch, presuming that Dog Java meant to ask him something.
"Ha!" said Lord X'dex, guessing at someone's arrival from the singleword question. "Hatch has been catching! He's got him a stranger! Who is it?"
"It's nobody," said Hatch. "Only Dog Java."
"Java!" said Dex. "The very man! Come close, Java. Come coffee our conversation. Come worm to our honey, rot to our wood. I smell blood!"
And with that, Lord X'dex Paspilion abruptly scuffled through the dust and grabbed Dog Java by the ankle.
"Blood?" said the over-nervous Dog, shaking his ankle in an ineffectual attempt to kick free the beggar. "What are you talking about? I haven't done anything! Let me go!"
"Don't mind Dex," said Zoplin. "He's touched with the giblets, as I've told you already. As a rock has worms, so Dex has the giblets. Giblets and jism. A disease from the dust."
Persuaded by a stouter kick from Dog Java, the beggar Dex released the imprisoned ankle and, laughing (the guttural noise could have been mistaken for a symptom of strangulation, but both Hatch and Dog Java conjectured it correctly as an expression of amusement) the beggar Dex retreated to the dust from whence he had come.
Dog Java stood in the sunlight.
Sweating.
Hatch looked him up and down, lazily, wondering what was wrong with him. Maybe he had a fever, for not only was he sweating - he was also trembling. Meanwhile, the beggars were still ontalking.
"Friend Dex has more than the giblets," said Grim. "He has scrofula, scurvy, bleach-bone, ringworm and a touch of the hairy bubonics. But you have the teeth!"
"So," said Zoplin, using the asset in question to gnaw a piece of sugar cane filched from the nearby sugar juice stall. "So. Beseech me as Lord of Dentition. Beseech or be burgled! Cry slave, slave, or be dust-drowned in camel dung!"
"Beseechingness be unfitting when I seek but the common property of our commune," said Grim. "You admit to the teeth, so give them!"
"I admit them and keep them," said Zoplin, "for it's not for you to be eating dog, not with these teeth or others, for dog be forbidden for slaughter."
"Since when?" said Grim.
"It is written," said Lord X'dex Paspilion, "I cannot read it, mind, but it is written, and mark that the worms have the truth of it, be the bones as yet unwritten, be the pea-soup unsalted, the eagle unwormed, in blood it is written, in shadows and bones - "
"Bones!" said Grim. "It's flesh I'm eating, or would be, had Zoplin the decency to give me the teeth."
"That I cannot," said Zoplin. "For thus it is written."
There were a pause, while the other beggars considered this. Hatch spoke into the pause, addressing the brown-skinned Combat Cadet who stood before him in a virtual paralysis of quick-breathing sweat and muscle-knotted shuddering.
"Dog? Dog Java? Are you all right?"
At which Dog Java's eyes rolled up to expose the whites, and he fell to the ground in a faint. His body shuddered in imitation of epilepsy, as a body often will when its owner faints. Then that body lay still, its breathing easing. Hatch regarded the body with faint surprise, but with no greater emotion. The beggars meanwhile ignored the event, though all three were so sharp that they must have heard Dog Java's collapse clearly, and have understood its import. Grim had considered Master Zoplin's last statement in detail and depth, and gave his response into the sun-hot stillness:
"Written?" said Grim. "We were talking teeth, not writing!"
"Teeth were talking while writing was scribing," said Lord X'dex. "With writing done, let me say it is written - "
"Written?" said Grim. "It is written? And you have the reading of it?"
"With the Eye, yes," said Lord X'dex.
This Eye of which he made mention was a small device which was the common property of the three, and was by no means to be confused with the Eye of Delusions, that much larger affair set above the lockway in the natural amphitheater at the southern end of Scuffling Road.
"With the Eye or without the Eye," said Grim, "I doubt you can read, for you were born illiterate, and I have not heard that you have improved yourself since."
Hatch then feared the two beggars would fall to fighting, something they did from time to time for sheer amusement. Not for the first time, he wondered what it would be like to be a beggar, with an infinity of useless time at his disposal. It seemed to Hatch that he had never been free of time demands and urgent responsibilities in his whole life - and that he had never been more burdened than now.
"The greater secrets have ever been hidden from you and yours," said Lord X'dex, addressing himself to Beggar Grim, would-be devourer of deceased caninity. "But still, it is written that in the month before Dog Day, no dog may be slaughtered in Dalar ken Halvar. From which I find you in breach of the law for possession of yon corpse, hence order it surrendered to the lord of the Greater Tower, who has a dispositional dispensation for the calorificatory combustion or consumption of all foodstuffs or winestuffs, provenant or purchasory, diligent or demised."
While this chattering was going on, a camel came slow-stilt striding, southbound for the kinema, bearing its owner to the entertainments of the Eye of Delusions. Hatch exerted himself to the extent of dragging Dog Java clear of the red dust roadway, then let him lie.
"It's syphilis," said Grim, at last diagnosing the inspiration of the discursive pyrotechnics which obsessed and possessed his brother-in-rags, the mighty Lord X'dex Paspilion.
Which made Hatch think: maybe Dog Java had a venereal disease. For if it was sheer emotional stress that had upset him to the point of fainting, then the pox might be the cause. But - surely! - there was no pox in Dalar ken Halvar which was beyond the powers of the Combat College cure-all clinic, to which Dog had free access. So it must be something else. And Hatch thought he had better be finding out exactly what that something else was, for he presumed from Dog Java's earlier behavior that Dog wanted to consult him on something, but that the something was an extremely sensitive personal matter.
"Dog Java," said Hatch, seeing the Combat Cadet's eyes flutter open. "How is it?"
Dog Java made no immediate response, but shortly sat up, looking weak and strained.
Hatch had no wish to add Dog Java's problems to his own, but had very little choice in the matter. In the ordinary course of events, Senior Combat College students such as Hatch were supposed to make themselves available to help juniors such as Dog Java; and since Hatch was a candidate for the Combat College instructorship, he could not afford to default from such responsibility, for any default might prejudice Paraban Senk against him.
"It is syphilis," said Grim, speaking into the long pause.
"It is syphilis, as I said."
"Syphilis?" said Master Zoplin, spitting chewed sugar cane. "Why no, it is dog. By your own testimony, dog. Dog fresh killed, so you due to be killed likewise, a murderer of the not-to-be murdered. I appoint me your executioner."
At the word "executioner", Dog Java abruptly got to his feet. With a dramatic gesture, he drew a knife. He staggered slightly, but kept his balance. Just. The sweat was sheening and shining on his forehead. He was again trembling as if in a fever. Hatch was seriously alarmed. He thought Dog Java was likely to faint again, and accidentally fall on his knife. Or else -
"Ah! Condemned, am I?" said Grim. "Then give me the teeth, that I may die with a full belly at least."
"Dog," said Hatch, with firm gentleness. "I think it would be better if you gave me the teeth."
Dog opened his mouth, closed it.
"Forgive me," said Hatch, realizing he had blundered in his speech. "I meant the knife, not the teeth. The knife. We don't want someone to get hurt, do we?"
With that, Asodo Hatch - who had diagnosed Dog Java's death-tension as suicidal intent - got to his feet. He did this slowly and with due deliberation, making no sudden moves which might precipitate a felo de se, for Hatch feared that Dog Java's self-inflicted death would count as a black mark on Hatch's own record. If Dog Java had some cause to commit suicide, then Asodo Hatch was determined that the low-born Pang-bred Combat Cadet would not compound the crime of self-murder by making the act an embarrassment to Startrooper Hatch.
Gently, Hatch removed the knife from Dog Java's unresisting hand.
"Thank you," said Hatch. "Sit. Come on, sit down."
But Dog Java abruptly turned and fled, leaving Hatch in possession of a heavy knife which shone bright-bladed in the sun. Hatch watched the fleeing Dog. He knew that he should by rights go after the Combat Cadet, for Dog was so plainly upset about something that it was Hatch's duty to actively counsel him.
Though there were never more than half a thousand students training in the Combat College at any one time, the multiple stresses and conflicts that the students endured were so severe that on average there was one student suicide every year. In his time, Hatch had effectively counseled three students in danger of succumbing to the temptations of self-murder. But today - today Hatch had far too much on his plate to worry unduly about Dog. He sank from sun to shadow, settling himself again by the sugar juice stall.
"The teeth!" said Grim, demanding.
Then Grim gripped by anger - for angered he was, or riled sufficiently to imitate rage - denounced delay by thumping his dog-corpse heartily, much to the discomfiture of its complement of blowflies.
"Ho!" said Lord X'dex. "A roily stasidion!"
Stasidion? What did that mean? Hatch could make no sense of the word. But then, there was never a profit to be had from riddling the discourse of beggars. Hatch planted Dog Java's knife in the dust by his side. He looked up and down the hot and aching street, but sighted his contact nowhere. Devil of a bitching! Where was Polk?
"A rambunctious stanchion, verily," agreed Master Zoplin, savoring the words with all the negligent leisure of an immortal god. "A very treestump in his rage, fearsome as a river gnome or a virgin's waters. But I cannot help him in his rages, for he be a criminal, and I his partner in crime if I pass to him these molars."
"He needs not the molars," said Lord X'dex, "for those be the grinding teeth. He needs him incisors, the biters, the fangs. He must werewolf his dog, aye, butcher it vampire-style, perish its throat and dig out its flowers, eat of its liver and pull out its buttercups, grout out its - "
"Buttercups?" said Zoplin.
"Yes, yes, buttercups, buttercups," said X'dex. "You know not the buttercup? It is a flower of the snowlands which grows on the rocks by the sea. It produces in summer a prodigious liquor, the savor of which is a drunkenness unto dragons, in consequence of which the beasts by the bushel are seen toiling in the sea-meadows, laughing and roiling, each drunk as a dwarf."
"Ah!" said Zoplin. "He's on about the sea again. There's no hope for him now."
"Nor hope for you neither, if I have the strangling of
you," said Grim. "Which I will, be denied me the teeth."
"The teeth," said Zoplin, popping them out of his mouth and clacking them vigorously in his hand, "they be legal teeth, not criminal teeth to be partaking of the eating of a dog illegally killed, with the death of the killer a consequence."
A little saliva drooled down from the sun-glinting teeth and tricked its way down to the sun-shadowed dust.
"Oh, but this is old dog," said Grim. "I didn't kill this dog today, no, nor yesterday neither. This dog I dug up from under its gravestone. This is pedigree dog, this is. This dog died between sheets of silk and of satin, died of a broken heart when it was cheated in love."
"Cheated?" said Master Zoplin. "How so?"
"Why," said Grim, tearing a dog-leg free from the carcase and waving it to emphasize his point, though his two companions were as blind as he was, and so the emphasis was lost on all but Hatch. "Why, this dog - "
"This corpse of a dog," said Lord X'dex, threatening a flight of full-blown pedantry, but leaving the threat unfulfilled for the moment.
"This corpse of a dog is a corpse that was dorgi when dog," said Grim.
"But changed its race on dying?" said Lord X'dex.
"Clearly," said Grim, "for in death it became as jokeless as a Frangoni."
With that, Grim turned his socketed face toward Hatch. Who made no response. The chastisement of beggars was beneath his dignity. These, besides, were beggars of the Yara, the underclass of the brown-skinned people Pang. The Yara did not believe in their own reality, and so had scant fear of punishment.
"Hatch," said Grim, his Frangoni noninterlocutor remaining responseless. "Are you there, Hatch?"
Hatch, who was definitely there, wished himself elsewhere.
"Are you deaf as well as blind?" said Zoplin to Grim. "He's there. He hasn't moved."
"Thus may have died of vexation and silence," said Grim. "Have you died, Hatch? Or are you industriously auditing?"
The Pang were supposed to be quiet and self-effacing, but these beggars owed nothing to that stereotype, for they were bawdy in their outrageous racontage and burly with the bulk of much good eating. Hatch was usually uneasy with people who did not conform to his expectations, but he had known these three for so long that they troubled him scarcely more than his shadow.