Chapter II
Praise be to God. Salutation to the Unknown Reader.
I have quit my place at Welchin. The good Fathers informed me of my father’s death, and the suspicion surrounding it. As is my obligation, I have gathered myself up and left for Majoree,
with Hel at my side. The Fathers refused his demands to come with me, but I overruled them, invoking the Right of Assistance all Houseborn men are entitled to in times of need. We have been
granted leave to set my House’s affairs in order. We had departed Welchin via airjunk, mostly silent as the clouds painted the windows grey. The sky wore a face of dull eggshell. I hoped,
sullen as I was, to avoid a visit from my House’s spirit, at least until we arrived home. A hopeless hope, as if She would ignore me in such a moment, as if hugging the clouds would hide me from Her.
‘They will pay for what they did, Edin.’
‘I hope it does not come to that, Hel.’
‘What? Don’t you wish to exact vengeance on your father’s killers?’
‘They do not know for certain whether he was murdered. It’s solely suspicion, nothing more.’
‘You are awfully cool on this. Don’t you wish to see them burn?’
‘Whether they burn on pyres of wood or of shame, they’ll burn.’
‘You would dishonour your father by thinking so.’
I turned to stare at the face of the sky. My gut sunk as I realised the change, that slight change, which always warned of Her coming.
‘You fear what it would mean for you? What it could do to you?’
I continued to stare.
‘Listen to me. When I was eight years old, a young girl from a merchant clan was found dead and… she was found in an alleyway in the lower corner of Baramawa, where my family lives, near
a tavern. I remember the day they finally found the perpetrator. He was some mercenary from Beyond, a rock worshipper or other passing through to who knows where. They couldn’t have
tortured him for very long, since that was all that anybody knew about him after the event. They killed him, of course, in the marketplace, in full view of the district. But what I remember
most is the faces of the family as they watched. Everyone of them, father, mother, brother, all had that same face, like a burning oven shut fast, flames threatening to burst into air, but
never doing so. After we returned home, my mother, ever perceptive, furnished me a proverb that summed up the whole affair: “Vengeance may be hot, but only revenge burns.”‘
I could see Her now.
‘…I understand. I did not wish to press you on this. I will leave you alone.’
I tried to reach out to hold Hel’s leaving, but I was now helpless. I could barely hear the thin metal tap-tap of his shoes on the floor as She reached out to envelop me, the junk,
the sky, the world, the spheres, the all.
SWEET, SWEET…SWEET ONE, IT HAS BEEN TOO LONG!
yes, my lady
SWEET EDIN, HOW EVERY MEETING GLADDENS ME!
yes, my lady
SWEET ONE, REMEMBER THE COLOURS OF THE HUMDREE STALKS YOU GATHERED WHEN I FIRST PLUCKED YOU?
yes, my lady
OH, SPEAK TO ME! HOW SULLEN YOU ARE, HOW SULLEN! WHEN YOU WERE YOUNG, HOW EASILY YOU WERE TOUCHED!
i am sorry, my lady, but…
I HAVE ALREADY SIPPED YOUR FATHER’S SPIRIT AS IT WAS POURED INTO THE AETHER. HE TASTED OF VIOLENCE, CURDLE-COLD, IRON TIPPED, TOO DULL TO TASTE, TOO DULL TO SPEAK!
then, you know…
OF COURSE, SWEET FOOL! I KNEW AT ONCE, JUST AS HURI-DAD KNEW THAT HIS ELDEST HAD FALLEN AT BLUEFIELDS, OR EVEN AS GOMM KNEW WHICH OF HIS WIVES WAS FALSE.
false…you mean…
YES! FROM WITHIN, THE HOUSE IS POLLUTED! YOU MUST CLEANSE IT, SWEET, REMOVE THE CAKED BLOOD FROM YOUR TABLE AND PLACE CAKES OF LOVING-KINDNESS, HONEY DRIPPED WITH REVENGE!
then you will tell…
NO, FOOL! TO TELL IS TOO MUCH, AND FAR TOO SOON! LIKE A GROOM WHO FONDLES HIS BRIDE AT THE WEDDING FEAST, LIKE A SAILOR WHO GIVES HALF HIS LIVING TO A HARLOT WHO HALF FOROGT HIS NAME!
but where should i begin…
SEEK OUT PROLIK TRAM-EL. RAT-LIKE MAN, HEAD OF ACTING TROUPE, CAME TO YOUR FATHER’S HOUSE ON THE DAY OF MURDER, KNOWS SOMETHING, WILL TELL SOMETHING LESS. SEIZE HIM, BEAT HIM, DO AS YOU
WILL, BUT TAKE FROM HIM HIS WITNESS. HE WILL COME TO THE INTERMENT, WOULD NOT WISH TO SEEM SUSPICIOUS. WILL EVEN STAGE A PLAY IN FATHER’S HONOUR. HALF-SNEAK, BUT NOT SNEAKY ENOUGH.
but what do i…
SET YOUR HOUSE IN ORDER. PLACE YOUR FATHER’S BONES IN THE CRYPT, AND BREATHE PERFUME UPON THEM. CHANT FIVE BLESSINGS, AND EIGHT WISHES, AND TEN LOVES. SPRINKLE BUG MUSK. MIX TWO WINES, ONE
VINTAGE OF HIS BIRTH, AND ONE FRESH, OF HIS DEATH. NEED I GO ON?
no, i know these things, but…
BUT WHAT?
i am afraid
BE AFRAID. YOU WILL STILL DO MY WILL. FOR MY WILL IS LOVE. BESIDES, I WILL GIVE PLEASURES TO YOU THAT WILL MAKE PAST ONES SEEM LIKE CRUMBS CRUSHED BELOW LOVERS’ FEET. REMEMBER THE ONES,
MY SWEET, ON THE DAY OF THE HUMDREE STALKS?
yes, my lady
GOOD. REMEMBER, EDIN, THAT ALL THINGS PASS AWAY. JUST AS YOUR FATHER HAS PASSED, SO WILL YOUR MOTHER, YOUR HOUSE, YOUR CITY, YOUR NATION SHALL PASS. EVEN YOUR COMPANION, WHO I URGED YOU TO
TAKE UP IN THE HALL OF THE PNEUMATIC GOD-MACHINE, WILL PASS, THOUGH NOT BEFORE MUCH TOIL. BUT I WILL REMAIN, FLESH OF FLESH, BREATH OF BREATH, IN EMBRACING EMBRACES ALL EMBRACES.
MY WILL IS LOVE.
I could hear the tap-tap of metal as Hel and everything else was returned to me again. He was still walking away from me.
‘Hel…Hel, come back!’
‘Edin? What is the matter? Are you alright?’
‘Yes, yes, it’s just…my mind was elsewhere.’
The clouds cleared to allow the sun to shine on our home as we approached. The sprawl was soaked from the recent rains, turning mud-caked roads into brown-black veins which coursed through
the skin of the city. Temples, manufactories, living towers, all of them bumps and bruises in the holy ochre flesh of Majoree. I strained to see which patch of mauve and alloted green was
my family’s home, but I could not tell. Before long we came in sight of the Drome, the square port which hummed with the coming and going of a hundred airjunks, all of them greeted and
farewelled by statues of four city fathers which stood like fingers at the corners of the Drome, hands raised to Heaven in a gesture of blessing. I remember how the fathers looked when I
first left Majoree. Looking down on them, it seemed as if they were throwing me up into the air, like a parent playing with their child in the garden. But now, upon returning, I could see
the slightest hint of something in their faces as they readied to catch me on the way down, something like reluctance, as if they would rather I hang in the air forever. We were greeted by
a servitor upon disembarking from the junk. They told us that mother was here, and that she was waiting in one of the reception rooms close to the Crush, the main hall of the Drome. We were
fed through a hallway lined with guards who stood like red columns of cloth, save for white masks which seemed to watch us as we passed through this limbo. More than once was Hel hurried
along by a sudden whining tone which seemed to sound from them, half-man, half-automaton, like gears scraping the sides of a voicebox.
‘I cannot imagine…’
‘They gave their bodies willingly. Even after death they can still stand guard and cry.’
‘But still…’
Before long we came into the Crush. ‘All praise to that man-made river, the rainbow mass of flesh that flows like the Torr, a roar of a thousand tongues whose words spray and splash towards
the blackened vaulted ceiling. All praise to the air which swirls which a thousand stinks and perfumes. All praise to the maddening whirl of a thousand fabrics, to the eternal clash of
cloth in which new colours, unknown to man, seem to burst into life, stay but a moment, and are lost forever. Praise be to even those islands in the current, groups of vagabonds and beggars
peddling second-hand scripture and trinkets, grape-skinned and discoloured.’ I recited these needed words, taken from a chapbook gifted me by the fathers at Wilchen, as I dove into the
crowd after the impatient servitor. More than once did I lose Hel only for him to appear ahead of me, almost clinging to the servitor like a drowning man grasping at flotsam. I couldn’t
help but feel a kind of calm as I let the current half-take me, half-wanting to let go and be lost in it, knowing what lay ahead. Eventually we reached the other side of the hall, were fed
into a corridor, and arrived at the reception room where my mother awaited. Hel gave me a knowing look as I entered alone. My mother was not there.
‘Please, be seated.’
In place of her was a man, sitting on the floor, poring over papers, flanked by guards holding poles which hummed with fire, armed with swords which seemed poised to fly from their sheaths.
The seated man sounded calm and did not look up, but his hunched body seemed like a spasm of muscle barely held together by his skin-tight policeman’s uniform.
‘Where is my mother?’
‘Sit down.’
He lifted his head. Where his eyes should have been were two brass tubes, out of which stared glimpses of some underworld. I felt like I was falling into them as I sat down opposite the man, who replied with a sharp smile and a rub of his bald head.
‘Edin, of House Cormyk, son of the late Thuuli and his wife Meera…that is you, yes?’
‘Yes.’
‘You have returned to Majoree to conduct your father’s funeral?’
‘Yes.’
‘You have returned to Majoree to set your House in order?’
‘Yes.’
‘You have returned to Majoree seeking revenge for your father’s killer?’
‘…’
At the corners of his opened mouth were hints of laughter.
‘You see…I cannot disclose much, even to one so close to the victim…but your father was…involved in matters which fall under our concern. Certain investigations were already underway
when he met his demise, and his death has only served to complicate matters. We do not need further…difficulties due to any interference on your part. You must allow us to do our work.’
‘You would deny my right?’
‘One’s right is an allowance from God. But we are His servants, He works through us, and therefore your right is null.’
‘God’s will is not entirely known to you.’
The lenses of his eye-tubes seemed to narrow.
‘Oh? Do you wish to inform me of some…exception, some preference which has been granted you?’
‘My Genius, my House Spirit, has revealed Itself to me.’
‘What proof do you have?’
‘A name. Prolik Tram-el’
Any hints of laughter were now gone as he adjusted the knife on his belt.
‘…A name you could have heard of before.’
‘How else could I have heard that this man visited my father’s house on the day of his death but through my Genius? The Fathers at Welchin did not inform me of that, I’m sure you know.’
His eye-tubes seemed to retract before extending like telescopes towards me.
‘…Then God has granted you some small favour. It is true that he was there on the day of your father’s death, though you would have determined that anyway by simply examining your House’s
guest records. It is a minor mercy, like when families such as yours hand feast scraps to the beggars that gather outside your home.’
I couldn’t help but feel a particular venom in those last words.
‘Then you do not deny me the right at least to speak to this man at my father’s funeral? You, of course, already know that he will be attending.’
‘I do not deny that. What good will come of talking to him is another matter entirely, especially if you choose to act on whatever he says to you.’
‘Will that be all, then?’
‘Yes. You may leave.’
Hel was contemplating the floor when I emerged from the reception room.
‘Your mother was not there?’
‘No.’
‘Who was it then?’
‘Someone else we will need to contend with. As if my father’s murderer wasn’t enough.’
(Featured artwork is by Moebius, from a series of prints titled ‘La Cité de Feu’)
