by James Enge
“That’s crazy.”
“It is pretense, I think. Most of the farmer’s crops are in a barn somewhere; some is burnt for show. That fire is mostly trash, by the reek.”
“I saw something moving as someone tossed it into the fire.”
Morlock shrugged. “The poverty is pretense. The cruelty is real.”
“You hate Kaen.”
“People are trapped here. I decided once . . . No, I don’t hate the people. But I hate the trap.”
Aloê mulled this over as they walked on. The column of smoke was black against the blue sky; she guessed there was a good deal of fat and bone feeding those flames. Probably Morlock considered offal from a butcher shed as “trash” too. But Aloê couldn’t forget the wriggling thing she’d seen tossed into the flames. How much of that offal had been alive before it abruptly found itself fuel for the bonfire? Was it that much different than what she had done, killing an animal and eating it? She felt there was a difference, but couldn’t say exactly why.
Morlock stopped walking, and she looked up to see why. He was pondering an odd brick-colored idol atop a pillar inscribed with Kaenish runes. The idol bristled with large hooked extrusions that looked something like phalluses. The side of each phallus bore a deep long rift bristling with teeth—like a carnivore’s mouth, or a toothy nightmare of a vagina.
“Khecür Tnevnepü,” she read. “The Maroon Father-of-Many? Or maybe: the Purple Patriarch? What does it mean?”
“It’s the name of the city,” Morlock said. “And its god. The gates are not far off. Or this god’s power extends deep into the countryside.”
“One can see why. Universal appeal.”
Morlock shrugged and turned away. They trudged onward.
Around the red shoulder of the next hill, they came to the gates of Khecür Tnevnepü. Sleepy guards were leaning on their spears outside the arch. They watched with a complete lack of interest as Aloê and Morlock approached.
“What’s your business?” said one of the guards, not as if he cared.
“Passing through,” Aloê replied.
“Why? The Festival of Changes?”
This was awkward. As far as Aloê knew, freedom of movement between the Kaenish cities was one of the few edicts enforced by the national government. On the other hand, she could hardly insist on her rights as a Kaenish citizen, since she was not one. But she didn’t want to commit them to anything they might want to avoid. And a Kaenish religious festival was definitely something they might want to avoid.
“You’re at the wrong gate for that,” the other guard said.
“We’re just on the way from one place to another,” Aloê said stubbornly.
The first guard shifted the weight on his feet and dropped his open hand to about waist level. It was pretty clear he was looking for a bribe. But they couldn’t really afford to be buying guards with their slender stock of coins.
Something stretched past Aloê, tapped the open-mouthed guard’s empty palm, and retracted.
Aloê turned and looked at Morlock. He had the bones in his hand—the ones from the long-legged bunny-beast. But they had been woven into some kind of stretchy grabber-thing.
“What’s that?” shouted the startled guard.
“Something I made,” Morlock said. He extended it and retracted it a couple more times. There were claws at the end that could pick up small stones, as Morlock demonstrated. The two guards were fascinated, obviously. Morlock looked at Aloê and raised his eyebrows.
“Look, I’ll lay it on the line,” Aloê said candidly. “We don’t have any cash to speak of. But if you’d like this little dingus, we’d be glad to give it to you, as a token of appreciation for letting us pass.”
“Hm,” said the bribe-seeker. “Oh, all right, then. Hand it over and you can pass.”
A purple-cloaked figure wearing a floppy-crowned hat emerged from the shadows of the gate.
“Stop! In the name of the Purple Patriarch, stop!” the newcomer cried in a gluey resonant voice.
“Told you,” smugly said the other guard, the one who hadn’t asked for a bribe.
“Shut it,” hissed the bribe-seeker.
The newcomer’s hat was almost brimless. With a shock, Aloê realized that it was the image in cloth of the odd flanged-phallus they’d seen sprouting from the image of Khecür Tnevnepü. It even had a toothy mouth or vagina stitched into its side, the fangs picked out in golden fabric.
“I’ll take that,” said the newcomer, seizing the dingus from the slack fingers of the bribable guard. “And I must apologize to our new friends. This was a dismal way to acquaint yourself with the protection of the Patriarchy! Welcome to Khecür Tnevnepü. All are welcome here. I am Ynenck, priest of the seventh mystery of Khecür Tnevnepü, whose foot rests equally on all our faces.”
“Thanks,” Aloê said. “I’m glad to meet you”—she used the masculine form of the pronoun, hoping she wasn’t making an error—the priest’s appearance and voice were strikingly androgynous—”and so is my—” She turned to Morlock for guidance.
“—cousin-by-oath,” he completed.
“Excellent, excellent. Your secret names you will choose to retain for now, and your old use-names belong to the god of your home-city. Have you use-names that have been accepted by the Patriarchate?” the priest asked.
“No,” Aloê said, fairly sure that she was right about this.
“Then I shall dub you Bükwilöt and Pebbexäk! I shall pray for you in those names to the Patriarch in my evening devotions, keeping this little trinket as an offering to the god.”
“Uh. Thank you. They’re beautiful names.”
“Not at all, not at all. This gadget should be useful around the temple, and whenever I use it I will think with pleasure of how I humiliated this scut-gargling piece of motherskin.” The priest joyously kicked the bribe-seeking guard with one of his large purple boots.
“Thank you, Your Sanctity,” the guard mumbled gloomily.
“Well, come with me, Bükwilöt and Pebbexäk, and I shall introduce you to the greatest city in the greatest country in the world! In any world!”
Bükwilöt (Aloê) and Pebbexäk (Morlock) followed the purple priest through the gate into the city of the Purple Patriarch.
“If you have not come for the Festival,” said Ynenck the priest, “may I ask what brings you to our city? Not that you need any reason other than the greatness of the city itself, of course.”
The greatness of Khecür Tnevnepü was not much in evidence from where they were walking. The inside of the city walls had been painted purple many a year ago, but the color was now dingy where it had not flaked away entirely. There were a number of hovels that might have been shops near the gate, but they were closed, their doors nailed shut.
“We are in flight from our city,” Aloê said. “It was taken over by new gods whose reign we could not accept.”
“What city?” Ynenck asked swiftly. “Tekatestömädeien or Gröxen-grefzäkrura?”
Aloê was uncertain how to respond to this, but Morlock offered, “We dare not say. We don’t want our former god to hear and be angry at us.”
“Naturally, naturally,” Ynenck concurred. “Of course, if you subject yourselves to the boot of the Purple Patriarch, his kicks will protect you from all others.”
“Yes, but we’re not sure that there is room under the boot for those such as us,” Aloê said. “We may need to move onward, sooner rather than later.”
“The right to move freely from city to city is one reason Kaen is the greatest country in the world—in all the worlds,” Ynenck made haste to add. “Nevertheless, I’m sure that if you stay with Khecür Tnevnepü for even a single night, you will never wish to leave. Multitudes of Kaeniar have done the same, adding their footfalls to the mighty march though time that is Khecür Tnevnepü, the god and the city.”
The multitudes marching along with Khecür Tnevnepü were not very evident to Aloê, although there were a few other inhabitants in the street now
. She noticed that there were never men and women together. At least, if a woman was walking down the street she might be accompanied by someone or something—but it couldn’t have been a human being; it appeared to be walking on all fours. Some men also led purple-cloaked creatures. But there were never men and women together.
“It will soon be night, and you will need a place to stay,” Ynenck was saying. “I take it you can pay, in coin or in services? The Purple Patriarch is a cruel and greedy god, and of course we imitate him.”
“We have some coin, and we don’t mind work,” Aloê said. “But we don’t need much for the night, perhaps just a single room.”
Ynenck swung about and glared at them both, his soft face twisting with disdain and rage, like an angry pudding. “A man and woman sleeping in a single room, like filthy animals in a barn? Is that how they lived in your old city? No wonder the Masked Powers triumphed there. We have a stronger, crueller, purer way here in Khecür Tnevnepü.”
Hoping that she had correctly assessed the local etiquette, Aloê knocked the priest’s hat off his head, revealing a complicated spiky spiral of hair rising from the crown of his head. The purple hat fell into the gutter, where Morlock stepped aside to grind it into the muddy filth with his right shoe.
Several people, male and female, stopped to watch with interest, but no one moved to interfere. In Khecür Tnevnepü (in Kaen, generally, from what Aloê had heard), victimization was a spectator sport, and the victims were on their own.
“We may fear the gods,” Aloê said to the astonished priest, who was holding his soft white hands to the sky, his round mouth open in a red O of surprise. “But we don’t fear you. We can also be cruel.”
“I understand,” the priest said humbly. “May I have my hat back? It is a shame to me to have my hair exposed on the street.”
“Buy it,” Morlock said tersely.
“Yes,” Aloê said. “Give us that grabby-dingus back. You can offer the god its equivalent in coin.” She would have rather had the money, but she expected that the priest would cheat them if he could—cheating and lying were the cruelty of the powerless, and through them he might be able to covertly reclaim some status.
Reluctantly, Ynenck surrendered the bone instrument to Aloê, and Morlock picked up the hat from the gutter and handed it to him. “Don’t brush it off,” Morlock said, as the priest was about to do just that. Reluctantly, Ynenck put the mud-stained purple phallus-hat back on his head.
“Inn,” Aloê reminded him.
“Yes,” the priest said, and shrugged gracefully. “Yes. But there really is no place where you could stay together. The most I can do is bring you to a place with two wings, one for holes and one for poles.”
Aloê eyed him closely to see if the priest was engaged in some fresh, but more subtle, act of contempt. But his face was bland, still somewhat ashamed, but not defensive or sly. If “poles” and “holes” were the vulgar sexual slang they seemed, she guessed they must be in common use locally.
“All right,” Aloê said. The thought of being able to lie down in a bed and sleep almost made her dizzy: it had been a very long day.
Wordlessly the priest led them to a large rambling structure. Music and harsh laughter was leaking from the open windows on the first floor. The windows on the second floor were all shuttered and silent. The narrow stone steps led up to a porch where a doorman waited.
The priest stopped at the foot of the stairs, and Morlock and Aloê walked side by side up them to the porch. The doorman wore a wide-brimmed hat, its low crown embroidered with the odd phallus/vagina of the Purple Patriarch.
“A klenth each,” the doorman said. “Covers sleep room only. Food and amusements extra. Pay in advance.”
Aloê had no idea what a klenth was or whether the price was reasonable, but she made a hiss of disdain and started to turn away.
“All right!” the doorman said. “A klenth for you both, and the first drink is free.”
“The first drink is always free,” Aloê guessed. “Half-klenth for both of us, and that’s just because my feet hurt.”
“Yes. Yes, I suppose,” the doorman said grumpily.
Aloê undid the money belt from her wrist and handed it to Morlock. He passed the doorman a coin that was probably a half-klenth; the doorman eyed it dubiously in the dim light but then shrugged and pocketed it.
“You’re there,” the doorman said to Aloê. “Holes are over there,” he added to Morlock, pointing at the other side of the porch.
Evidently Aloê had misunderstood the local slang. She was relieved. The prospect of separating from her companion was less pleasant. She could see he felt the same, from his gloomy expression, so she laughed at him. “Come get me if you need me,” she said.
He smiled, shrugged, nodded, turned away. She just turned away.
The door to the women’s side of the lodge opened by itself as she approached; there was no visible doorman. Inside a priest of the Purple Patriarch—strongly resembling Ynenck but with his (her?) face heavily rouged and powdered—welcomed her effusively.
“Sleep rooms are assigned at midnight,” the priest said.
Aloê nearly fainted. Then she was on the verge of swearing by God Avenger. At the last minute she changed the curse to a question: “Is there anywhere I can rest? I badly want to get off my feet.”
“I know what you mean, dark stranger!” the priest carolled. “I know exactly what you mean. The playroom is through there. You can rest to your heart’s content in there—although, of course, entertainment is extra.”
“Bleh,” she said, and walked through the swinging door to the playroom.
She was hoping for couches, but all she saw at first were chairs. That was enough. They loomed before her like ugly pink trees. She strode toward the nearest one that was vacant and sat down in it.
The relief was epic, as if all the pain in the world had stopped hurting. She basked in sheer relief for a moment. Then she glanced around, taking note of her surroundings.
She didn’t much like what she saw, not being fond of pink. The walls were painted a fresh grapey purple, but there was fluffy bunting hanging everywhere, pale pink in color. The tables were enamelled in a pink-and-purple checker design, and the floor was covered with hot pink carpet. The room was lit by oil-lamps with pink shades. Sweet musky perfumes and incense made the air dense . . . but, heavy as they were, Aloê could still smell grosser, fleshier odors: sweat, the stench of unwashed vaginas, and, unless she was very much mistaken, the gluey reek of fresh semen. The dense air was thick with noise, too: giggling, and moaning, and muttered conversation.
“Travelling here for the festival?” said a woman sitting next to her.
Aloê turned to reply, but the stink nearly blocked her throat. “Passing through,” she managed to gasp.
“Well, you’ve arrived at a good time,” the other said amiably. She was coming into focus for Aloê: a middle-aged, motherly woman with graying brown hair and pale skin that was darker and more wrinkly around the eyes. “What’s your use-name?”
“Bükwilöt,” Aloê said.
“Oh, really? That’s . . . it’s so . . . I’m called Lÿrfü.”
Lÿrfü’s reaction confirmed Aloê’s suspicion that Ynenck had burdened them with ridiculous use-names. A sneaky act of cruelty? Or was that a test they had failed to pass? Both? Maybe she should tell Morlock. But, of course, she wouldn’t see him until morning.
“Urm,” Aloê said, desperately trying to keep up her side of the conversation.
“Exactly!” Lÿrfü agreed enthusiastically. “I’ve said the same thing a thousand times!”
Aloê looked a little closer at Lÿrfü and decided the older woman was drunk. She picked out two more scents from the dense cloudy air: poppy smoke and beer.
“Going for a ride?” asked Lÿrfü, gesturing with her left hand at the far side of the room, where most of the noise was emanating from. Her right hand gripped a boozing can that was more than half-empty.
�
�Too tired,” Aloê said. She wasn’t sure what Lÿrfü meant, but she knew she was too tired for anything but sitting there.
“Yes! Exactly! Much too early!” Lÿrfü agreed. “As I get older I almost feel I prefer to watch you young things ride than take my own turn. But you’re not drinking!”
“No money!” Aloê shouted.
“Doesn’t matter! First one is free! I’ve been here an hour and this is still my first one,” Lÿrfü said, and waved her booze-can.
“Hey, minster!” Lÿrfü shouted into the bright pinkish murk. “A gage of beer for my friend, B—for my good friend here.”
“Really, I’m not—”
“Look, youngster, if you don’t want it you can give it to a pole—or me. It won’t go to waste, anyway.”
Aloê felt more at ease suddenly: she could understand now why Lÿrfü had befriended her. There was a free drink in the offing.
She let Lÿrfü run on without bothering to say much in reply—not that Lÿrfü seemed to be much concerned about what she did manage to say. The room was not pleasant, but it was out of the night air, and she was sitting down. Some sort of dance or scrimmage or something seemed to be happening on the far side of the room: Aloê promised herself she would stay far away from that. She’d sit here, nursing her drink, until the stars swung around to midnight. Then she’d have her room or she’d get her damn half-klenth back and get out of here.
Something warm touched her hand. She glanced down to see that one of the pink-and-purple tables was right next to her. Except—it wasn’t a table. It was some kind of animal. The purple checks were tattooed on.
It was a hideous thing—some kind of ape, she thought. But it walked on all fours like a crab, with its face up. A sort of face, anyway. The upper surface of its head was a vast toothless maw; it had disturbingly human brown eyes, one each on the side of its odd head, and no discernible nose. It was male, and its red phallus was ridiculously erect.