Hugh Cook - The Worshippers and the Way

"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.