The New Weird - Ann VanderMeer [114]
"His wife had to coax him down from the trees each evening with a trail of bananas."
"Did you change his reading habits?" asked the countess.
"No, I shaved his body and then prescribed three moderate taps on the head with a mallet at breakfast, lunch and dinner."
I was about to ask if the poor fellow had come around, but before I could speak, I noticed an irritating, disconcerting little sound that momentarily confused me.
"What is that?" I asked, standing unsteadily.
"Yes, I hear it," said Frouch. "Like the constant crumpling of paper."
"That is Sirimon," said the healer.
I walked over to Ingess and listened. The diminutive noise seemed to be coming from inside his head. Leaning over, I put my ear to his ear. It was with dread that I realized the sound was identical, though quieter being muffled by flesh and skull, to that of the healer working away at his bowl of locust.
"What's the meaning of this?" I yelled.
The old man smiled. "Sirimon is rearranging, creating new pathways, digesting the melancholy."
I had fallen asleep and was wrapped in a nightmare memory of childhood when a hand came out of the shadows and smacked me on the back of the head. Coming to, I rubbed my eyes, and standing before me was the healer holding forth his infernal green worm, now bloated and writhing in its obesity.
"Sirimon has finished," he said.
Frouch was over by the table that held Ingess. Her powdered hair had deflated and now hung to the middle of her back. She stared blankly down at His Royal and was laughing as though she was weeping. The healer's optical contraption was gone and Ingess's eyes were rolled back to show only white. His mouth was stretched wide as if trying to release a scream that was too large to fit through the opening.
"Quickly," said the healer, "to the kitchen."
Just then Pester came in leading a group of men ― Chin Mokes, Grenis Saint-Geedon, Ringlat, and Durst. There was a whirl of frantic activity in which we were told to lift His Royal and carry him to the kitchen. Once there, we were instructed to tie him to the huge rotis-serie spit on which the Exalted Culinarity would turn whole hogs at feast time. When His Royal was lashed securely to the long metal rod, the healer told Grenis to turn the handle and set it so that the patient's left ear was toward the floor. Then the old man called for Pester to bring a large pot and set it down in the ashes, where the fire usually burned, directly underneath His Royal's ear.
A moment after the boy set the pot down, a dollop of viscous white fluid dripped from His Royal's ear and splattered inside it. The assembled company all took a step back at the sight of this. Then a steady stream of the goo began to fall, like beer from an open tap, filling the pot.
"He said we must let no harm come to this substance, no matter what happens to it," said Frouch, who had just arrived in the kitchen.
"What in the Devil's name is it?" asked Ringlat.
I turned to ask the healer the very same question, but he was no longer in the room.
"Nice work, Flam," said Chin Mokes, "you've turned the king into a flagon of goo."
"Where is that physician?" said Grenis Saint-Geedon, pulling a butcher knife from his rack. He left the room with a murderous look on his face.
Over the course of the next two hours, the pot filled nearly to the brim, and the healer was searched for everywhere but never found. At daybreak, Ingess opened his eyes and yawned.
The Palace Reparata rejoiced at the fact that His Royal had been returned to full health. It had been necessary to help him see to his needs for a week or so, but as soon as this period of convalescence had passed, he was up on his feet and performing his royal duties. Much