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Shaking himself, Cutter rose suddenly. ‘I need a walk,’ he said. ‘She couldn’t have meant it. That future she paints… it’s a fairy tale. Of course it is. Has to be. No, and no, and no. But…’

Kruppe watched as the young man walked away, watched as Cutter slipped through the doorway of the Phoenix Inn, and was gone from sight.Advertisement

‘Sad truth,’ Kruppe said-his audience of none sighing in agreement-‘that a tendency towards verbal excess can so defeat the precision of meaning. That intent can be so well disguised in majestic plethora of nuance, of rhythm both serious and mocking, of this penchant for self-referential slyness, that the unwitting simply skip on past-imagining their time to be so precious, imagining themselves above all manner of conviction, save that of their own witty perfection. Sigh and sigh again.

‘See Kruppe totter in these high shoes-nay, even his balance is not always precise, no matter how condign he may be in so many things. Totter, I say, as down fall the stars and off wail the gods and helplessness is an ocean in flood, ever rising-but we shall not drown alone, shall we? No, we shall have plenty of company in this chill comfort. The guilty and the innocent, the quick and the thick, the wise and the dumb, the righteous and the wicked-the flood levels all, faces down in the swells, oh my.

‘Oh my…’

A miracle, better than merely recounted second or third hand, but witnessed. Witnessed: the four bearers would have carried their charge directly past, but then-see-a gnarled, feeble hand reached out, damp fingertips pressing against Myrla’s forehead.

And the bearers-why were experienced in such random gestures of deliverance halted.

She stared up into the Prophet’s eyes and saw terrible pain, a misery so pro-found it purified, and knowledge beyond anything her useless, dross-filled mind could comprehend. ‘My son,’ she gasped. ‘My son… my self-oh my heart-’

‘Self, yes,’ he said, fingers pressing against her forehead like four iron nails, pinning her guilt and shame, her weakness, her useless stupidity. ‘I can bless that. So I shall. Do you feel my touch, dear woman?’

And Myrla could not but nod, for she did feel it, oh, yes, she felt it.

From behind her Bedek’s quavering voice drifted past. ‘Glorious One-our son has been taken. Kidnapped. We know not where, and we thought, we thought…’

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‘Your son is beyond salvation,’ said the Prophet. ‘He has the vileness of knowledge within his soul. I can sense how you two merged in his creation-yes, your blood was his poison of birth. He understands compassion, but he chooses it not. He understands love, but uses it as a weapon. He understands the future, and knows it does not wait for anyone, not even him. He is a living maw, your son, a living maw, which all of the world must feed.’

The hand withdrew, leaving four precise spots of ice on Myrla’s forehead-every nerve dead there, for ever more. ‘Even the Crippled God must reject such a creature. But you, Myrla, and you, Bedek, I bless. I bless you both in your lifelong blindness, your insensitive touch, the fugue of your malnourished minds. I bless you in the crumpling of the two delicate flowers in your hands-your two girls-for you have made of them versions no different from you, no better, perhaps much worse. Myrla. Bedek. I bless you in the name of empty pity. Now go.’

And she staggered back, stumbled into the cart, knocking it and Bedek over. He cried out, falling hard on to the cobbles, and a moment later she landed on top of him. The snap of his left arm was loud in the wake of the now-resumed procession of bearers and Prophet, the swirling press of begging worshippers sweeping in, stepping without care, without regard. A heavy boot stamped down oh Myrla’s hip and she shrieked as something broke, lancing agony into her right leg. Another foot collided with her face, toenails slashing one cheek. Heels on hands, fingers, ankles.

Bedek caught a momentary glimpse upward, to see the face of a man desperate to climb over them, for they were in his way and he wanted to reach the Prophet, and the man looked down, his pleading expression transforming into one of black hate. And he drove the point of his boot into Bedek’s throat, crushing the trachea.

Unable to breathe past the devastation that had once been his throat, Bedek stared up with bulging eyes. His face deepened to a shade of blue-grey, and then purple. The awareness in the eyes flattened out, went away, and away.

Still screaming, Myrla dragged herself over her husband-noting his stillness but otherwise uncomprehending-and pulled herself through a forest of hard, shifting legs-shins and knees, jabbing feet, out into a space, suddenly open, clear, the cobbles slick beneath her. pqdm.com